1st Antelope Hunt for the Wife, live play by play.......

[Chef]

That's just awesome.

You are a lucky man to have found a wife that likes to hunt with you.

Did she finish off the lope with her marquise? LOL!

[bonecollector]

Congrats to your wife on a nice goat.

[jboots]

Nice job! Congrats on a great buck.

[twigsnapper]

So the tale goes like this.

 

We got up early on Saturday morning and made our way to our parking spot. It was about a ten minute walk into the spot I wanted to glass from. We started our walk just a little after light so we could see. I'm in the lead and Amber is walking behind me and to my right. I am keeping my eye out for snakes and what do you know I see one about five feet ahead of me to my right. I stop as soon as I see it, unfortunately Amber didn't see me stop and just about walked right into it. I reached my right arm out just in time to grab her and tug her far enough to the left that the snake could not strike. It instantly coiled up but thank goodness it did not rattle or I would have been chasing my ole lady all the way back to Phx. It was a big ole snake but I played it off like it was no big deal. But he was a big deal!!!!! After a few minutes of shaking and crying I finally convinced her to stay right behind me. We continued to the glassing spot. I got my tripod set up and started looking for the heard I had been scouting. I picked up a couple mule deer does and pointed them out to Amber in an effort to get her mind off snakes. She still refused to sit down for fear a snake was near. I had even brought her a little stool to sit on but she refused.

 

About ten minutes into our glassing and Amber says "look there's a deer walking right there" and she points to our west. I take my eyes out of my south facing binos and look up. Sure enough there's a deer, no wait, that's an antelope. I take my binos off the tripod and holy cow it's a nice buck walking down the draw. He's only 200 yards away. I get Amber set up to shoot off the tripod. I range him one more time and he's at 196 yards. We have done this before, see the pic in my first post. I reminded her where to hold and to remember, full breath in, half out and squeeze. I am watching the buck when she fires and he takes off like a rocket. The first words out of my mouth were, "Sounded like you hit a rock, I think you missed" I watched the buck for a minute but he didn't lose a beat for 1000 yards. I wrote it off as a miss and started to look around for other antelope we may have not seen before the shot. Nothin. So I sit down and put my binos back on the tripod and pick up the buck she just missed at 1500+ yards. This time however I see red on the inside of his rear legs. At least I think I do?? After about 10 minutes of staring at him I notice he is starting to limp his back legs. Now he is just standing in some thick brush. I know he is hit but can't tell exactly where at this distance. I decide to give him an hour. Well after he does nothing, and I mean nothing, not lay down, not try to eat, he just stood there for at least an hour I decided to try and get closer to have a better look. We worked our way down to about 400 yards completely undetected. He was still just standing but now I could see he was not bleeding too bad, and not enough to convince me he is gonna bleed out. So after about 20 minutes of mental tug -a-war of do we try to get close and get another bullet in him or do we let him lay down? Amber was feeling sick about the wounded antelope and said she didn't want to make him suffer so I made the call to try and move closer. We got to 180 yards but the only shot was in the butt walking away. I made her wait. Our wind was wrong and we bumped him. He made his way another 500 yards but now he cant even use his back legs, they are just dragging. For a second I thought to myself, "I should just shoot him and get this over" but the other side of me said, "hey this is part of hunting and Amber needs to finish what she started" We let him settle down and by now he had work down into a big bottom and was out of sight. We worked up to a nob with a big cedar tree right on top. I polked my head over the hill and the buck is at 50 yards, staring right at me. I drop down, get Amber moved up and we re-emerge over the hill and he is gone???? I pull up my binos searching for the buck, he was just here at 50 yards when I catch some movement out of my right eye. I turn my head and it's a big ole coyote at 50 yards trotting right down the trail of the antelope. Amber asked if she could shoot it and I said no. I watched the coyote trot down the hill and out of sight. From our vantage point we could see the far ridge for about 270 degrees and I was confident the buck hadn't left the bottom. We had about 20 yards to go before we could see the entire bottom so we slowly crept forward glassing and listening. Amber was about 10 feet behind me when I took one last step and bam, there's the antelope in the middle of the bottom fighting with the coyote!!!!! I signaled to Amber and she crept forward and got setup. The buck never even knew we were there, he had other more immediate concerns. The Coyote was running circles around the buck, biting at him and the buck was doing his best to fight him off with his horns. It took Amber a few second to calm down with the chaos we were watching. I ranged him, 185 yards. Right before she shot she asked me, "after I shoot the buck can I shoot the coyote?" She dropped the buck, jacked a 2nd shell but could not get the coyote, the brush was too thick. I watched the buck drop in my binos so I knew it was over. What a relief, I almost cried. When it is was all said and done we were 2 miles from the truck. After we get down to the buck and are done with our celebration hugs and hi fives she looks at me and says "next time I'll shoot the coyote first."

 

 

[ElkyG]

Congrats to you and your wife way to stay with it

[cramerhunts]

Way to stay with the buck and great job keeping the nerves in check to seal the deal. Congratulations to Amber on a great goat!

[Hornhunter247]

Great write up! And what a great wife! Next time let that woman shoot her a yote! Lol

[Big Browns]

Great Job Amber!

[hunter01]

Congrats on a fine goat! Nice job!