Well, this hunt was a great lesson in expectation management. With only a couple days to hunt and no scouting beforehand, I should have set my sights slightly lower as far as harvest expectation. I was spoiled on my only other antelope hunt in a unit in Wyoming where there was a goat around every corner, and that definitely wasn’t the case this weekend.
I put in about 55 miles on the 4 wheeler and many hours behind the glass and saw a total of 24 antelope. I passed 2 average sized bucks the first morning (pictured below).
This morning I rode for 3 hours before seeing my first bunch of antelope, which had a good buck in it. I snuck into position and took a 250 yard shot that I was very comfortable with. The buck took off with the does, making me think it was a clean miss. I decided to walk over and check just to make sure, and my heart sunk when I saw a couple small drops of blood. I followed the trail for a slow 3/4 mile mostly just on small flecks of blood on the occasional rock. He never left the does and never quit running judging by the tracks. I was super bummed, I can’t recall when I have had this happen before and it was a very humbling experience. The buck was slightly quartering to and I think I held too far forward and pushed the shot left as well, hopefully just grazing the brisket, but I will never know for sure.
After that I checked out and headed straight back to the truck to head for home. Whirlwind trip where I learned a lot more about antelope hunting and got humbled for the first time in a while. Hopefully I will learn from this one and try again on Nevada antelope in a few years.
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