Opening day buck (few months late)

[ffm71]

Sorry for the delay on the story, I know when i asked for advise people were more than happy to help and sometimes expect a story in return so that people arent just coming here and stealing info and not contributing. Anyway, life got busy and.... here it is

 

 

Well I was one of the fortunate few who drew an antelope tag in 9 this year. Actually the first time I have ever put in for antelope, so i guess everyone can hate me for that I am also fortunate enough to have friends who were able to help me out with this hunt. I was able to go up in july with my friends matt and brian for a 3 day scouting man trip as the wife called it. I felt like i got a pretty good lay of the land back then, and was excited to come back for the hunt after seeing antelope everywhere i looked. Last Tuesday rolled around and brian and I were heading back on up for a few days of scouting before the hunt and to hopefully locate the buck we followed last time. Brian and I both had to burn 72 hours(3 shifts) of vacation from the fire department to cover the whole hunt, so we were really hoping for an early harvest to save some of those hours for deer/elk hunts later in the year. The trip up was ominous with some of the hardest rains i have ever experienced. Pretty much the every part of the eastern side of unit 9 was flooded and i proceeded to the western side, which was fine with me. Settled into camp and make some beer can chicken in the dutch oven after doing a little road scouting. Spent Wednesday driving the roads again to make sure the same antelope were still in the same area, which they were. We found "the king" as we called him, on the same hill we had seen him on a few months prior. Thursday we woke up at 430 to get in the place we wanted to hunt opening morning. After 30 minutes of no luck at this point we started walking across the field when the strangest thing happened. We saw a small buck come out of the trees a few hundred yards across for us, in a gallop strait towards us. He kept coming, and coming... until he was within 10 yards. We watched him for a few minutes in astonishment, and figured this buck was young enough that he wouldn't have to worry about his dumb behavior getting him shot, this year at least. So we took off, and so did the buck, following us about 15 yards away for a few minutes. I decided i would walk back to try and pet him, since he didnt seem spoked at all. I got within 5 yards or so and bent over to pick up some sage to feed him when he spooked away and backed off a bit. he still followed us for another 30 minutes, and it was one of the strangest experiences ive had in nature yet. We kept hiking until we found a nice overlook where we had seen the stink goats the day before, and watched a nice buck and his does taking a nap for 30 minutes before we sneaked out, hoping to come find him tomorrow. But in the back of my mind i still wanted to find the king again. We wanted to keep our energy for friday and since we just hiked 10 miles or so we took it easy the rest of the day and played some chess back at camp and had steak dinner. Gotta love those big rib eyes. Friday. Opening morning! Slept like a kid the night before christmas and was hoping the lack of sleep wouldnt come back to haunt me. We drove the truck to a "good"(this is in parenthesis because good is a relative term) center point of where we thought we would be. Then we put some boot tread to the ground and hiked out to the overlook to find the sure thing buck. Well, he wasnt there, in fact all we could find for about 2 hours were a few does. Then the gun shots started. We had seen road hunters while we were glassing all morning, and apparently they were shooting at something, heard 4 shots together so we figured the buck must have escaped. 30 minutes past and one shot, then nothing, we figured one buck down. Then another down 30 minutes later. Well, long story short, brian kept wanting to glass the area we had spent the most time scouting. I wanted to find the king. We comprimised and walked the ridge near the plateau the king lived on. Around 10 we started back to the truck to hit the other side of the hill and BAM, out of nowhere we spooked a buck up 200 yards out in the field. Brian ranged him and i glassed him, he was big, in fact he was our king. I was so excited, too excited in fact to get my shot off, i didnt feel comfortable taking the shot, which i regretted 10 minutes later. Long story short we spent the next 90 minutes trailing him for about 4-5 miles. he never let us closer than 500 yards or so. The grass was much too long to shoot prone unless i could find a nice patch on top of a hill, but that didnt seem likely. We were starting to get a little discouraged because we knew we were pushing the king towards a road, and the last thing i wanted was to give him as a gift to one of those road hunters. Well we crossed the road with no issue, saw the king on the next ridge probalby 700 yards out when he went over. He thought he had lost us at this point, we hadnt seen him for 10 minutes. When he went over we took off at an angle because we knew he was probalby heading to one of the water holes we saw the day before that he was getting very near at this point. Exactly where we thought we would cross the hill and look down on him he popped up 208 yards away from us and was eating. Once again, i could not go prone, and my proudest moment in my recent memory was this shot, at 208 yards free standing, after hiking probably another 10 miles. I put him down with one shot, which i was very happy about, Antelope, and all animals for that matter deserve a one shot death, in my opinion, and if i dont feel like i can put him down with one shot, i dont think i will end up taking that shot. Anyway. About that "good" central parking spot we found? It was about 4-5 miles away. Took some pictures and while gutting the antelope another big buck came up to us to check it out, I jokingly said to brian that the king has fallen and a new antelope is taking over this hill. After gutting the stink goat, I took the king with me, and brian took off ahead to the truck, we planned to meet... somewhere in the middle. A nice old hunter gave brian a ride and brian got back to me probably 30-40 minutes later. The old man said he last hunted antelope at 22 and was now in his late 50's and still hasnt gotten drawn again, he was just out guiding a family member.

 

Sorry to ramble on. No joke, those antelopes hair is really a nightmare, I couldnt believe how much of it was lost in retrieval. Saved enough and brought the head and cape to Wellers Wildlife and dropped the meat off.

 

I feel so fortunate to have gotten drawn for such a rare hunt, and even more fortunate to have gotten my goat on opening morning, especially it being the one i had wanted for the last few months.

 

I wanted to thank everyone here who gave me advise, and hope to come back and share more stories someday. Good luck hunting everyone!!!

 

 

[Coues Sniper]

208 yards offhand? Better man than me. Congrats on a great goat.

[Willyhunts2]

Nice goat. Did you buy a lotto ticket after you found out you drew the tag? Ha congrats!