Trayball20
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2019
- Messages
- 86
My son was lucky enough to draw an antelope license. Over the summer and early fall we spent almost every weekend out scouting hoping to find him a nice antelope. Each trip we explored different parts of the unit looking at as many antelope as we could. With one week until the season we hadn't found the one. The weekend before the opener the weather was less than ideal with rain and high winds, but my son was up for another scouting trip. With the rain and wind we weren't seeing much in the way of antelope, then right before dark I was able to catch a glimpse of a running buck that look pretty good but it was hard to tell how big he was. We made a plan to come back the next day and see if we could turn him up again, but we weren't able to.
Opening day found us looking for the buck we only caught a glimpse of a week earlier. After looking at a few groups of antelope I was able to find what I thought was the buck we were looking for, however he appeared to be on a private land. Even though I was pretty sure he was on private I wanted to get a better look at him and with the topography I knew we could get to within 600 yards of him staying on public. As I thought he was on private by 150 yards, so we watched him and his 5 does for about hour and half which gave us plenty of time to look him over. It was apparent that he was content where he was and wouldn't be coming off private, so walked back to the truck. We checked some other areas of the unit with a plan to check back on the buck towards evening. That evening the weather was rainy along with high winds even with the rain we were able to spot the buck with his does in the same spot we left him earlier that day. As the weather got worse the buck pushed his does into some trees, further into private, with little to no chance on the buck we were able to watch a black bear for a while until heading back.
The next day we were back glassing for the buck and his 5 does. He wasn't where we had left him the night before in fact we weren't seeing any antelope, so we decided to just sit and glass hoping that he was in a cut where we couldn't see them. After about 10 minutes I see a 5 does coming over a small hill followed by a buck and they were well into public, about 250 yards. I told my son that they are public let's get our packs and getting moving. We were able to make our way to the bottom of a small hill undetected, which from the top would put us under 250 yards. We crawled our way to the top of the hill and I placed my pack down for him to shoot off of. The hill has little to no brush on it, so as we getting set up the antelope see us and start to get nervous. I tell him he can shoot when he as a clear shot. The buck makes his way out of the does and my son takes the shot as he is quartering away. The buck takes off and runs into a cut where we loose site of him. I tell my son that we need to wait a few minutes after waiting we make our way to the cut and there he is. He went about 30 yards from where he shot him. His 400 yard mistake led to a very happy hunting duo. As we made our way back in we were checked by a game warden which measured the length and when he told us that he was over 15", I was surprised.
One of him packing out his antelope.
Opening day found us looking for the buck we only caught a glimpse of a week earlier. After looking at a few groups of antelope I was able to find what I thought was the buck we were looking for, however he appeared to be on a private land. Even though I was pretty sure he was on private I wanted to get a better look at him and with the topography I knew we could get to within 600 yards of him staying on public. As I thought he was on private by 150 yards, so we watched him and his 5 does for about hour and half which gave us plenty of time to look him over. It was apparent that he was content where he was and wouldn't be coming off private, so walked back to the truck. We checked some other areas of the unit with a plan to check back on the buck towards evening. That evening the weather was rainy along with high winds even with the rain we were able to spot the buck with his does in the same spot we left him earlier that day. As the weather got worse the buck pushed his does into some trees, further into private, with little to no chance on the buck we were able to watch a black bear for a while until heading back.
The next day we were back glassing for the buck and his 5 does. He wasn't where we had left him the night before in fact we weren't seeing any antelope, so we decided to just sit and glass hoping that he was in a cut where we couldn't see them. After about 10 minutes I see a 5 does coming over a small hill followed by a buck and they were well into public, about 250 yards. I told my son that they are public let's get our packs and getting moving. We were able to make our way to the bottom of a small hill undetected, which from the top would put us under 250 yards. We crawled our way to the top of the hill and I placed my pack down for him to shoot off of. The hill has little to no brush on it, so as we getting set up the antelope see us and start to get nervous. I tell him he can shoot when he as a clear shot. The buck makes his way out of the does and my son takes the shot as he is quartering away. The buck takes off and runs into a cut where we loose site of him. I tell my son that we need to wait a few minutes after waiting we make our way to the cut and there he is. He went about 30 yards from where he shot him. His 400 yard mistake led to a very happy hunting duo. As we made our way back in we were checked by a game warden which measured the length and when he told us that he was over 15", I was surprised.
One of him packing out his antelope.
