Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game 2014 Wyoming - my first antelope hunt report

My hunting partner and I arrived in the Buffalo, Wy area after a 26 hour drive from the Toronto, Ontario area. Drove straight through the night. Quite the drive but worth it at the end when we arrived to western landscape.



We spent some time glassing antelope from, literally the back porch on the cookhouse on outfitter's ranch we are staying at. Was great to try out the new Swaro spotter and some other goodies on real game.

Nice that we got out here early as we got to see the landscape before the winter blew in today! Temps dropped overnight from 65 degrees to 12! Winds howled at 40 mph overnight



Made for a more difficult than usual hunt as the day before we had seen antelope EVERYWHERE. Today they were all holed up. We drove with our guide up and down the ranches they have leased. Alas for the most part we only saw antelope but on neighbouring ranches.

After lunch our guide spotted some antelope out far in a distance by a creek bed. Spotting scope came in handy here. Hard to understand when you hunt in Ontario but I consider the spotting scope essential doing this type of hunt.

We put a stalk on them. There was a dried up canal that we used for cover; worked perfectly as it kept us out of view.

We first had a shot at around 350 yards and I'm confident to about there but with a 30mph wind we decided less distance was prudent so we kept on our approach and found a shooting spot 220 yards away from them.

Spotted three bucks but the largest just bedded down so we were going to let my buddy take his doe as he is out for a doe hunt only. At the last minute, the buck that was interesting stood up. Waited a bit for a doe behind him to get out of the way.

I calculated a rough 3 MOA hold ; about 6 inches. Elevation was set at 200m on my ballistic turret which = about 220 yards.

Took one shot. He fell to the ground immediately and kicked around for a bit but then got up and ran about 70 yards before he collapsed.

I thought he was completely broad side but turned out he was standing at a bit of an angle. The bullet caught him on his left front shoulder about 1/3 of the way up to the top of the spine and exited at about the end of the lung on the right side.

We found the bullet had destroyed about 1/2 of the heart and the lungs were jello. Really surprised me that a shot through the heart and lungs would still allow him to run 70 yards!



I was shooting a Cooper 52 Jackson Game 280AI with handloaded 140gr Nosler Accubonds behind 61gr of IMR7828SSC with a muzzle velocity just over 3100 fps. Scope is a Swaro Z5 3.5-18x with Ballistic Turret and 4W reticle with holdover marks for wind.



This is only my second big game animal. The shot wasn't exactly where I wanted it to be but I think the angle helped me ensure the vitals were all taken out. Given it was a one shot kill and a very windy day I figure things went relatively well.

Tomorrow we start the doe hunt. My buddy has two doe tags and I have three. We have two more days to go of the hunt and the weather is getting less windy so we hope the goats will be out and about more.

Thanks for all the encouragement over the years folks.