Mark
WKR
My son drew a NV antelope tag this year and opening day was Wednesday 08/22. We headed out on Tuesday evening for the hunt and made it to camp by about midnight. This is an area we have hunted on numerous occasions and we know it well.
We got up Wednesday morning and headed to an area to glass. Within a few minutes we spotted a nice buck that appeared to be alone and made a mental note of his location and the closest water. With very few hunters in the area we had no immediate need to chase him that morning. We spent the remainder of the morning hiking and glassing.
Around noon on Wednesday we were glassing water and found another nice buck with about 25-30 doe. Unfortunately, they saw us about he same time we saw them, and they were moving up the mountain. We were about 1000 yards away, so they weren’t spooked. They just didn’t want to let us get any closer. We started side hilling and cut them off at 500 yards, but the lead doe wanted nothing to do with us. She kept bolting and dragging the herd uphill with the buck chasing stragglers. My son had the scope on him at 500 yards but every time the he stopped he was facing uphill. No shot! We decided to back out around 2:00 and let them settle down.
Over dinner, we discussed the two bucks we saw that day and decided the second one was the bigger of the two and figured he was a 75”-80” buck. Antelope are one of the toughest animals for us to field judge, but we were confident he was a minimum of 75” which was what my son had set his sights on. That night we made our plan for the Thursday morning hunt.
Thursday morning around sunrise we’re near the location where we first spotted them. The area is hazy due to fires in California and visibility is low. We glassed the water hole and it appeared empty in the haze. We started working our glasses up the ridge and we caught a large herd of doe coming over the top – but the buck was nowhere to be seen. We feared the worst as we saw a hunter in that area Wednesday evening. I kept my glasses trained on the ridgeline while the boys kept looking at the herd trying to pick out horns in the haze. After what seemed like several minutes, our buck was standing broadside at skyline about 75 yards behind his harem. We worked our way to the water hole and sat down about 200 yards away with the breeze in our face and waited… and waited… and waited.
About 45 minutes later we see them up the canyon but they’re not coming down for water. The herd is feeding across the narrow canyon and up the next mountain. As soon as they were out of sight we started making our way straight up the canyon. We figured we could get within a few hundred yards if we hurried. About two miles later, one of my boys sees a few antelope and we sink to the ground. As we’re looking over the herd, the shooter spots the buck at 150 yards staring down at us. He slowly raises the rifle and quietly asks my son to place the tripod under his barrel. Since he’s the only one that can see the buck, my older boy slips the tripod under his gun.
After a few seconds, the shot goes off, we hear the bullet hit and I finally see the buck as he’s tumbling down the mountain side. He rolls a few times, stops in a rockpile, raises his head up and then his head falls behind the rocks. I watched that rockpile for a solid 10 minutes with my glasses sitting on my tripod and trained on that rockpile. Not once did I see that buck move. It was time to climb down from our position and then up the steep mountainside where he fell.
The shot was only 180 yards across the canyon, but the climb down from our position and then back up was quite a bit further – and steep. It took us about 25 minutes to reach the area where we watched him roll. We went from rockpile to rockpile and we found nothing! No blood, no hair, no buck. We would regroup, grid search, repeat. After about an hour of searching, we’re starting to think he got up while we were scaling the mountain and slipped away. It gets quiet. Elation turns to doubt. Every rockpile looks the same as the next, and none of them are hiding a dead antelope. We went higher up, we went lower, we went back and forth, still nothing.
We regroup one last time, and I decide to walk down to where we shot from and get a better view of the layout from that location. As I’m walking down, I see one last rockpile way off to the left of where we thought he went down. I head over and sure enough, I find his buck. I called the boys over, we took some photos, then the work began. We rough scored him in the high 70’s. We caped him, broke him down and headed off the mountain.
I couldn’t ask for better company or better hunting partners than I have today. Like every hunt, there are highs and there are lows, but this one was mostly just highs with a brief low – and one epic fail on my part the following day. That’s another topic that I will share because there’s a valuable lesson that is relevant to anyone that hunts remote locations that have minimal traffic. I made a mistake, and it almost cost us a lot more time than it did in the end. I will say that I have renewed faith in my fellow man and I owe a debt of gratitude that I will repay one day.
Enjoy the photos…
We got up Wednesday morning and headed to an area to glass. Within a few minutes we spotted a nice buck that appeared to be alone and made a mental note of his location and the closest water. With very few hunters in the area we had no immediate need to chase him that morning. We spent the remainder of the morning hiking and glassing.
Around noon on Wednesday we were glassing water and found another nice buck with about 25-30 doe. Unfortunately, they saw us about he same time we saw them, and they were moving up the mountain. We were about 1000 yards away, so they weren’t spooked. They just didn’t want to let us get any closer. We started side hilling and cut them off at 500 yards, but the lead doe wanted nothing to do with us. She kept bolting and dragging the herd uphill with the buck chasing stragglers. My son had the scope on him at 500 yards but every time the he stopped he was facing uphill. No shot! We decided to back out around 2:00 and let them settle down.
Over dinner, we discussed the two bucks we saw that day and decided the second one was the bigger of the two and figured he was a 75”-80” buck. Antelope are one of the toughest animals for us to field judge, but we were confident he was a minimum of 75” which was what my son had set his sights on. That night we made our plan for the Thursday morning hunt.
Thursday morning around sunrise we’re near the location where we first spotted them. The area is hazy due to fires in California and visibility is low. We glassed the water hole and it appeared empty in the haze. We started working our glasses up the ridge and we caught a large herd of doe coming over the top – but the buck was nowhere to be seen. We feared the worst as we saw a hunter in that area Wednesday evening. I kept my glasses trained on the ridgeline while the boys kept looking at the herd trying to pick out horns in the haze. After what seemed like several minutes, our buck was standing broadside at skyline about 75 yards behind his harem. We worked our way to the water hole and sat down about 200 yards away with the breeze in our face and waited… and waited… and waited.
About 45 minutes later we see them up the canyon but they’re not coming down for water. The herd is feeding across the narrow canyon and up the next mountain. As soon as they were out of sight we started making our way straight up the canyon. We figured we could get within a few hundred yards if we hurried. About two miles later, one of my boys sees a few antelope and we sink to the ground. As we’re looking over the herd, the shooter spots the buck at 150 yards staring down at us. He slowly raises the rifle and quietly asks my son to place the tripod under his barrel. Since he’s the only one that can see the buck, my older boy slips the tripod under his gun.
After a few seconds, the shot goes off, we hear the bullet hit and I finally see the buck as he’s tumbling down the mountain side. He rolls a few times, stops in a rockpile, raises his head up and then his head falls behind the rocks. I watched that rockpile for a solid 10 minutes with my glasses sitting on my tripod and trained on that rockpile. Not once did I see that buck move. It was time to climb down from our position and then up the steep mountainside where he fell.
The shot was only 180 yards across the canyon, but the climb down from our position and then back up was quite a bit further – and steep. It took us about 25 minutes to reach the area where we watched him roll. We went from rockpile to rockpile and we found nothing! No blood, no hair, no buck. We would regroup, grid search, repeat. After about an hour of searching, we’re starting to think he got up while we were scaling the mountain and slipped away. It gets quiet. Elation turns to doubt. Every rockpile looks the same as the next, and none of them are hiding a dead antelope. We went higher up, we went lower, we went back and forth, still nothing.
We regroup one last time, and I decide to walk down to where we shot from and get a better view of the layout from that location. As I’m walking down, I see one last rockpile way off to the left of where we thought he went down. I head over and sure enough, I find his buck. I called the boys over, we took some photos, then the work began. We rough scored him in the high 70’s. We caped him, broke him down and headed off the mountain.
I couldn’t ask for better company or better hunting partners than I have today. Like every hunt, there are highs and there are lows, but this one was mostly just highs with a brief low – and one epic fail on my part the following day. That’s another topic that I will share because there’s a valuable lesson that is relevant to anyone that hunts remote locations that have minimal traffic. I made a mistake, and it almost cost us a lot more time than it did in the end. I will say that I have renewed faith in my fellow man and I owe a debt of gratitude that I will repay one day.
Enjoy the photos…
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