ND and SD antelope hunt

[hardscrabble]

I was lucky enough to draw a ND antelope tag two years in a row. With the numbers down this year I knew it would be tough to find a good buck. We looked over alot of goats but found nothing but does and two small bucks. I figured I was going to eat the tag and have to wait four more years to draw another when my friend spotted a herd about a mile away. Darkness was aproaching quickly so I had to move fast to look over the goats to see if there was a good one in the group. After sneeking up a hill along a fence line to within 200 yards I looked them over and on the far left side of the herd I found this guy. I made one good clean shot on him and I am pumped with how the hunt turned out. He is about and inch and a half shy of my 08 goat but he has a ton of character.





We also hunted South Dakota the same weekend. This was our first time hunting SD so we had no idea what to expect or the caliber of goats we would find. I just knew it would be tough with two weeks of hunting pressure. We found an area that had alot of antelope in it so we moved in to see what we could find. Two good bucks were spotted so we split up to make separate stalks. When a rancher came 3/4's of a mile away to check his buffalo the two antelpoe I was after got up from their bed and moved off over a hill. I hiked the mile to the hill and hoped they would be there. To my surprise they were. A short belly crawl to the nearest sage brush put me at 130 yards of them and I took the bigger of the two. I learned an important lesson about judging antelope on the SD hunt. When this class of animal is the big one in the area, he looks much bigger than he is. Don't get me wrong I am very proud of this trophy it is just that there was some ground shinkage The way I read the SD law is that the entire animal (minus the guts) needs to be removed from the field on Walk-in-areas, which is private land open to public hunting walk in only. I put the hind quarters on my pack and drug the front half until my hunting partner met up with me and he took the fronts. It was a two and half mile pack-drag not to bad, could have been worse.

 

[Nemont]

 

[hardscrabble]

Sorry I am new to this site and I can't figure out how to get the pics up. Any help would be appreciated, Thanks

 

[hardscrabble]

I think I may have figured some out

 

[Nemont]

never mind

 

[Oak]

A couple of good looking bucks. Congrats!

 

[upper deck]

Congrads. I heard from a few guys that the NW corner of SD had a good number of goats in it this year? Where abouts did you hunt SD?

 

[hardscrabble]

Thanks, we were hunting Harding county. We did see a good number of goats. The majority of them had been pushed onto private land. I didn't seen anything in the 70" class but I only had one weekend to hunt. I take that back, I saw one, it was left for the coyotes as who ever shot it left it. A total of three antelope just left in one section. It was sad to see because they were in plain sight, I am not sure why.

 

[T Bone]

Those are some nice bucks!

I too hunted Harding county and found enough goats to keep the day interesting. My son got a buck, but I never found one I liked.

 

[Buschy]

Hardscrabble,

Two very nice bucks from the Dakotas. Right on! That is hard to beat.

 

[elk_hunter]

Holy bases batman! Those are some big bodied animals! Congrats on great kills!!!

 

[mconway951]

I hunted harding county this year as well. We were there the last weekend of second season like you said almost all were on private land we were able to knock on a door and get permision for a piece of property with a few animals we got a buck and two does out of it but saw very few on public ground. I would have like to been there last year the SDGFP CO stoped us and said that he thinks that the herd was down 60 to 80% due to winter die off. Great goats though congrats.