There is a significant difference between hunting antelope and hunting
an antelope. Antelope make up a significant portion of our diet so we tend to mostly just hunt antelope. Late this summer I started getting crappy zoomed in cell phone pictures from my rancher buddy, Tate, of this guyâŚ.
âŚ.and I knew that we would hunting
an antelope. My youngest son and I both had either sex permits as well as four other doe permits in the family. This would be Trevâs first antelope hunt as a shooter and I wanted him to have a crack at the target buck.
We found the buck the night before season and put him to bed. He chose a big swale in the middle of a stubble field that would put him 500 yards from about every hilltop and access road. The plan was simple. Get to the field before dawn, climb to a ridge and see which way he decided to move and cut him off. I donât normally get too nervous prior to an antelope hunt but was a little restless that night as the buck was only a mile or so from being off our permission and we certainly werenât the only folks in eastern Montana with an antelope tag.
Opening morning we rolled up to the selected ridge and were preparing to leave the truck a few minutes before shooting light. We looked at the skyline and âtheâ buck was staring at us 300 yards awayâŚ.
I confess it would have been pretty easy to have Trevin slip out of the truck, lay down and send one. He likely could have pulled it off too but for some reason shooting from the county road, at a skylined buck, 3 minutes before legal light felt like cheating....probably because it would have been cheating.
He drifted back over the rise and we made a long loop around through the stubble and found him bedded again at 400 yards.
We made a stalk around some contour that would put us within 200-250 but when we popped over the hill the buck had moved out and was looking back around 600 yards away. He kept on the move and we tried to watch him till he settled but he topped several rises and we lost sight of him after he crossed onto the neghboring ranch over a mile to the north.
We consoled ourselves by moving to an area we had seen some antelope a long-ways away the night before. They were much more co-operative and were standing on the county road when we came over a small rise.
If you have never hunted antelopeâŚthe best way I can describe their temperament is something akin to a 13-year-old girl. Sometimes they are completely crazy and will bolt at the sight of a vehicle two miles away. Other times their curiosity gets the best of them, and they have to check things out.
These were the curious type and we soon had four goats within 75 yards (sorry for the crap picsâŚcell phone zoomed in through a dirty windshieldâŚbarf).
Trevin was having trouble getting one found in his scope but his mother had no such problems with the 6mm-06. Her doe did a 75-yard dash and was done. I took a too hasty sitting shot with my .25-06 on another nervous doe, now out there a ways, and hit her high. A follow up shot had her down within 100 yards of the other.
There was a small buck in the group that hadnât really tempted me. I had brought my .400 Whelen along and had told myself if the opportunity presented itself, I would try to take one with it.
It did and I did.
The lonely little buck wouldnât completely leave his fallen comrades so the hunt was on.
An embarrassing oversight (rifles need bullets apparently), a few cactus in my knees, a few stalks through the prairie, a little persistence and he eventually gave me a shot on the outer edge of where I had been prepared to shoot (around 225-250 yards).
He quartered slightly when I shot. I heard the whop and saw a blood spot behind his offside shoulder. He went down within a few yards. Figuring he would be done soon and not wanting to push him if he had one last run left in him, we went back to process the other two.
It was forecasted to be in the 70s so everything went straight on ice.
When we drove over to retrieve the buck his head was up so the 6mm-06 barked again.
The initial hit was a bit lower than I would have liked but it had got the liver and a small part of one lung. No doubt fatal, but not ideal. I should not have pushed the range of my setup quite so far on such a dainty critter. There is something unique about him taking two rounds from .30-06 wildcats on extreme ends of the realmâŚone ideal for antelope and one most definitely not.
While we were processing him we spotted a couple more teenage girls heading our way from over a mile away. I didnât even have time to strap on my bino harness before Trevin and I were on the stalk again. They popped up on a small rise within 75 yardsâŚ