Unit 15

The Badger Hills and scattered buttes—Foster Buttes, Blazer Hill, L Quarter Circle Hills—provide the primary visual navigation references across otherwise featureless plains. Watson Basin anchors the center and offers orientation. Prairie Dog Creek, Bull Creek, and Wildcat Creek with its North and West forks run through major drainages where animals concentrate.

Seasonal reservoirs including Verona, Burlington, and Pitsch Reservoir mark water sources. Barrel Spring and S R Springs are secondary water points. These landmarks are critical for glassing routes and understanding pronghorn movement corridors through the basin.

The unit sits entirely in the lower elevation band, ranging from roughly 3,400 feet in the river valleys to just over 5,000 feet on the buttes and ridges. Habitat is predominantly open country—sagebrush plains and native grassland with minimal tree cover. The Badger Hills add some topographic relief with scattered juniper and low shrub.

Seasonal draws channel water and support riparian vegetation. This is classic pronghorn habitat: wide-open basins with good visibility and sparse cover. The openness makes the country straightforward to hunt but offers minimal hiding for animals or hunters.

The sparse road network—555 miles total but spread across vast terrain—means access is genuinely limited. Most hunters stick to main routes and immediate surrounding country. Private land intermixes throughout, restricting where you can freely hunt.

The vastness and limited pressure mean if you put in extra effort to reach the remote draws and basins away from main roads, you'll find fewer hunters. Early season access is straightforward; late season may require persistence to locate pronghorn pushed into specific areas. Logistics require planning—fuel, water, supplies should be sorted before entering.

Unit 15 encompasses the upper Powder River basin country between the Wyoming-Montana state line and the I-90 corridor, bordered east and west by those key geographic references. The landscape is substantial in scope—rolling high plains broken by scattered draws, buttes, and the Watson Basin dominating the center. The Badger Hills rise as the primary terrain feature, while the Powder River forms the northern boundary.

This is ranch and ranching country, with private land intermixed throughout, making access planning essential. The nearby communities of Kendrick, Wyarno, and Acme provide staging points for hunters.

Water is the limiting factor here. Permanent water sources include the Powder River to the north and several small reservoirs scattered through the unit—Verona, Burlington, Pitsch, Burgess, and smaller impoundments. Seasonal creeks and stock ponds supplement these.

Prairie Dog Creek, Bull Creek, and the Wildcat Creek system provide drainage corridors where animals gather during dry periods. Springs are limited and seasonal. Strategic water knowledge is essential for finding concentrations of pronghorn, especially in late season when perennial sources become bottleneck areas.

Unit 15 is pronghorn-focused country, and the wide-open terrain demands a glassing and stalking approach. Early season, animals spread across the basins and draws—pick vantage points on the buttes or ridges to scan vast country. Mid-season, look for concentrations near water sources as the landscape dries.

Late season, pressure pushes pronghorn toward reliable reservoirs and creek systems. The open country rewards patience and optics—glass methodically from distance, then plan stalks using the scattered draws and low ground for cover. Wind matters on open plains.

Expect to cover substantial ground. The rolling terrain and minimal tree cover mean most hunting happens in the open.