Nevada Antelope hunt 2025 - Semi-live

[gwhunter]

Amazing story and amazing hunt! Congrats to you both! Good luck on the sheep hunt. Its a season for the ages!

 

[npaden]

Had time to kill so made a quick video. Not the best and very quick editing by an old dude so don’t expect much!

 

[Big Fin]

Great story and a great buck to top it off. That curl adds more length than most people realize. Congratulations to Eli.

 

[Jnasa]

Congrats that’s a nice buck

 

[npaden]

Back to the Reno airport. Meat was good and frozen and we had some ice packs as well so should be set there. Randolph green scored the horns and ended up at 79 1/4”. Not the magical 80” mark but pretty close.

Split the meat, cape and horns between the 2 coolers and put them in the large suitcases and weighed in at 54 and 53 pounds so pulled our boots and some clothes out and put them in our backpack carry ons and got them down to 48 and 48.5 pounds.

Eli forgot his leatherman in his pocket for the second time this summer and at this rate he is going to have a pretty expensive knife in postage costs alone. When he did it in New Zealand it was only like $6 but here they run it as a racket and it was $15 to mail it home.

Some pretty entertaining people watching with Burning Man people filtering back out early. Pretty easy to spot between the outrageous outfits and the playa dust.

$750 special cleaning charge for any rent cars that were used to go out there, special plastic bags to cover your dusty luggage and special booties being provided to wear over you shoes.

 

[oxn939]

We get about 1/2 mile closer and I’m also keeping tabs on the group off to our south with the buck that curls in. They are less than a mile over there but they still don’t seem too concerned. After a while they feed back over the ridge and occasionally I see them back on the ridge line. A good back up plan for sure.

As we get closer the guide (Randolph) starts creeping up and looking to see if he can see anything. He ends up spotting the group of does again and this time there are more. They mentioned that they were really starting to rut and they were really working on gathering up does and this buck seemed to be doing a really good job of it.

We keep getting closer, dropping lower on our side of the ridge to stay out of eye shot and ear shot as we get closer.

A couple more checks and we are getting pretty close. We move down and over one more time and this time when he checks he seems to think we are close enough. He gets the spotter and says he can see the buck and that he is a good one. He ranges him at 323 yards which is a bit further than we would like but there is zero wind and Eli has been practicing out to 390 yards.

They decide to back out and see if we can find a better place to set up for the shot. We move down and right about 50 yards and peek up and he decides that’s not any better. We move up and to the left about 50 yards of the original spot and he decides that’s not any better either. We end up right back at the original spot and move to get it place. I’m gong to try to see if I can edit the video I took of them getting setup for the shot and possibly add it in here.

By now I’m the only one that hasn’t laid eyes on the buck. I’m purposely hanging back and letting this be Eli’s hunt and adding another person in the ridge line isn’t going to make it a less likely for the antelope to see one of us.

They get up and Randolph calls out a range of 302 and Eli dials his scope to 13 clicks up. (We had been discussing different ranges and how much to click the scope). They get setup and Randolph hands his wife his phone to video through the spotter and it looks like this is going to happen. Eli asks Randolph if he can shoot and Randolph says whenever you are ready and about a second later the gun goes off and a very clear thump is heard as it is definitely a hit and the buck drops dead in its tracks.

Only negative is that it happened too fast for it to get on video through the spotting scope. Oh well, Eli said that the buck was standing perfectly broadside and seemed like he might be about to move so he went ahead and took the shot. No need to revisit the footage to guess where he hit him since he dropped in his tracks.

Congratulations all around as the buck isn’t even twitching. He was up to 12 does gathered up and they are just standing around trying to figure out what is up. We are standing skylined 300 yards away and finally after a couple minutes they run off.

The buck is obviously dead so we decide not to wait around and head over to him. On the ground he looks just as good as he did thought the scope, really good mass and prongs and nice ivory tips. Very pretty buck.

It’s been a while since I’ve been involved in a pronghorn kill and I’ve forgotten how small they are. We end up just picking him up and moving him around 30 yards to a better spot for pictures. Lots of pictures are taken. He is actually wet in the middle of his back down near his tail and both his throat patches are wet with the wonderful aroma of antelope musk! The way Eli has to hold him for the pictures is right on one of the throat patches and his hands are wet with antelope musk scent!

We took our time with the pictures, the sun is already coming up and throwing shadows and causing contrast issues but it isn’t hot yet. Pictures done and we start breaking down the animal. This is a hard thing for me to watch because that’s my job but I watch and try to at least be helpful. The shot hit the closest scapula directly and blew chunks of bone everywhere which is no doubt why he dropped like a rock at the shot. I at least grab the shoulders after they are off and do my best to cut off the worst of the bloodshot meat and tissue and bone fragments before putting the quarters in the game bags. Also I cut the leg bones off at the knee joints to keep any hair out of the game bags.

Danelle ends up heading back to get the truck while Randolph goes ahead and capes the head. It’s a solid mile back to the truck so it takes a bit but before long she’s back and we grab everything and haul it then whooping 300 yard pack out back up to the road.

It over almost before it began. Everything went nearly exactly according to the plan. Eli is starting to think that’s how things work when you hire a guide. We all tell him that isn’t the case and that he needs to be happy that things went so smoothly but that is not always the way things work just because you hire a guide.

For sure the scouting and local knowledge of the area what a HUGE benefit and there is no way we could have zeroed in on 2 nice bucks just over a mile apart on opening morning without them. They were very friendly and nice and fun to hang out with for the very short time we spent with them!

I think that’s about it. Hoping that the flight home tomorrow goes smoothly and it will be nice to spend one night at home in my own bed before heading to Colorado on Monday for my sheep hunt. Eli isn’t going to miss a single class at college and will even get to enjoy spending Labor Day at the house before going back to school on Tuesday.

Would be awesome if my sheep hunt goes as well as this did and getting there in time to be on the mountain where the sheep have been hanging out for the season opening morning sure might get it at least started in the right direction!

Beautiful buck, congrats. Only similarity between this and the tag I hunted near there in '22 is the scenery where yall killed yours. We saw 3 legal bucks in 5 days of scouting and hunting, and killed the largest.

Evidently we were on the tail end of a pretty severe drought, but man the game density was looooow. Glad you guys were able to get it done efficiently!

 

[npaden]

Beautiful buck, congrats. Only similarity between this and the tag I hunted near there in '22 is the scenery where yall killed yours. We saw 3 legal bucks in 5 days of scouting and hunting, and killed the largest.

Evidently we were on the tail end of a pretty severe drought, but man the game density was looooow. Glad you guys were able to get it done efficiently!

They had been giving out too many tags for several years from what I was told and the quality had gone down quite a bit. A few years ago they cut the tag numbers down and the quality has been coming back it seems. Was interesting hunting antelope at 6,000’+ for sure!

 

[Gr8bawana]

Congrats to your son and yourself on a great hunt and write-up.

That is some very different type of country where we usually hunt for antelope.

 

[brownbear932008]

Eli took a beautiful antelope and those ivory tips are amazing. Congrats!

 

[rmyoung1]

Yeah, that’s an awesome buck. Congratulations to both of you!

 

[npaden]

Got back to the house and of course compared the horns from Eli’s antelope to my best 2 that score 78” and 78 3/4”. Of course his is still green and mine have shrunk some over the years, but there is no doubt that Eli has now shot the biggest pronghorn of the family.

One of mine is noticeably taller but smaller mass and smaller prongs. My biggest is much closer on mass and prongs, just a tiny bit smaller until you get above the prong and that is where that buck of mine doesn’t hold his mass and Eli’s buck does.

Neither of mine have the ivory tips either. That’s a very neat feature in Eli’s buck.

I know score doesn’t matter when it is all said and done but sitting them next to each other his really looks good.

 

[mevertsen]

Curious what airlines you used. And any issues at all with the animal?

 

[npaden]

Curious what airlines you used. And any issues at all with the animal?

Southwest. No problems.

I didn’t even mention it since it was in the checked bags. Had it frozen in gallon sized zip lock bags and then inside a water tight RTIC soft sided cooler that was then inside our bigger roller bags.

Checking the rifle was pretty painless too. You do have to declare it and fill out a little postcard form that goes in the gun case. Have to have photo ID to claim it at the destination.

 

[CPAjeff]

Congrats to all involved on a great buck!

 

[David Gough]

They had been giving out too many tags for several years from what I was told and the quality had gone down quite a bit. A few years ago they cut the tag numbers down and the quality has been coming back it seems. Was interesting hunting antelope at 6,000’+ for sure!

BLM has also been removing feral horses and burros in that area. Seems like it's helping. I had the tag across the highway and killed a buck around a bunch of rimrock. The does will find the best feed wherever it is on the landscape.

Which outfitter? Seems like you had a solid experience.

 

[npaden]

BLM has also been removing feral horses and burros in that area. Seems like it's helping. I had the tag across the highway and killed a buck around a bunch of rimrock. The does will find the best feed wherever it is on the landscape.

Which outfitter? Seems like you had a solid experience.

Good deal on the horses. Talking with the guide they aren’t very bad in the area we were hunting but in some other spots they are a real problem for sure.

The outfitter was Nevada High Ridge Outfitters.

Nevada High Ridge Outfitters

Welcome to Nevada High Ridge Outfitters. Offering Bighorn Sheep Hunts, Mule Deer Hunts, Mountain Lion Hunts, Antelope Hunts and Elk Hunts in Nevada.

www.nvoutfitters.com

They seem like a very good outfit, guide was great and price was surprisingly affordable I thought.

 

[David Gough]

Good deal on the horses. Talking with the guide they aren’t very bad in the area we were hunting but in some other spots they are a real problem for sure.

The outfitter was Nevada High Ridge Outfitters.

Nevada High Ridge Outfitters

Welcome to Nevada High Ridge Outfitters. Offering Bighorn Sheep Hunts, Mule Deer Hunts, Mountain Lion Hunts, Antelope Hunts and Elk Hunts in Nevada.

www.nvoutfitters.com

They seem like a very good outfit, guide was great and price was surprisingly affordable I thought.

They have a good reputation. Glad you had a great experience.