Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Would you shoot this antelope?

Mercy kill.

What's wrong with him?

I think I see a black cheek patch so I assume it is a him...but ya, under the right circumstances I would absolutely shoot him.

I've passed a lot like him, but sure as hell wouldn't apologize for killing him, assuming it was legal.

What's the deal with the mercy part? Broke leg? Hit by car?

Only if it was trying to gore me.

I had two doe/fawn tags and was shooting backup for a SIL. We had been watching it for a while wondering why it didn't run off and were speculating it was wounded. SIL took a shot at 200-ish yards and the antelope ran off. There was a 20mph wind (per weather report) at our back and the antelope was running away from us, with a noticeable limp, at a slight quartering angle to us and the wind. I shot at about 300 yards with two feet windage. We both heard the "whump" of a hit and the antelope went down a few yards later.

Turns out SIL had missed. There was an old (a day or two we were guessing) open wound below the neck where the hide and hair were gone in an area the size of a baseball. The blood in the area had dried into a big scab. My shot hit behind the ribs and blew up the liver. 110g AB @ 3163fps from my Roberts.

The right front leg was obviously infected but did not smell of gangrene, Nevertheless, we left it for the coyotes. The rest is being processed by Steve's Meat Market in Arvada (CO) and will go to the Denver Rescue Mission.

Those young ones are "cut it with a fork tender". Is that a bullet crease across the top of the head? A friend of mine once shot one through the ears, just barely missed the back of it's head. It laid down and we thought it was mortally wounded as it let us walk right up on it. He shot it again as it stayed bedded down. No other wound on it.

Nope. No bullet crease. Just the old wound below the neck (looked like a near miss on a broadside) and the entrance wound behind the ribs my bullet made. (No exit on that one.)

I've found that my standards drop the farther I walk, so maybe.

Although I put their skulls on the wall, I really hunt antelope for the experience of the hunt, and for those wonderful backstraps...

So ya, that one might not be my first pick, but sure, he'd do just fine in the cooler!

Guy

What bullet did you use?

Yep/ I have shot a literal ton of them because some idiot had previously wounded them and not bothered to follow up.Makes me furious every time....

Seems that pronghorns on the plains bring out the "if there's lead in the air there's hope" crowd more than any other big game animal.

1989 Ruger M77 .257 Roberts, 110g AccuBond @ 3163fps, Leupold Vari-X III 4.5-14xAO upgraded with vertical knob and 'Varmint Hunter' reticle.

If we shot every gimpy animal we spotted, we'd have to buy 2 more freezers every year. In Oregon a pronghorn tag comes by about 10 or 11 years. That being, I'm only going after the finest.

I would shoot it but I wouldn’t leave it!

I would not shoot it and then leave it.
Looks like a black cheek patch. If so would be an illegal shoot.

If it was clearly injured I probably would not shoot because chances are that no meat could be recovered.
Certainly would not shoot a buck on a doe/fawn tag regardless of any other circumstances.
I am unaware of any mercy kill provisions in regs.

Did you punch your tag?

dink a thon

1. No one left it. It is currently being processed.

2. Wyoming defines "Fawn" as "a young-of-the-year antelope or young-of-the-year deer". "Buck antelope" is defined as a "male antelope with visible horns and dark cheek patch at the base of the ear". There was no patch at the base of the ear, just a thin line lower down. This one was a fawn by Wyoming's definition and I had a doe/fawn tag. It was a legal shot.

3. Yes, I punched my tag. And still had one left I never used.

No too small horns.

15lbs of boned meat?

If I was shooting for horns, I would agree.

As I wrote, this was a mercy kill with doe/fawn tags. We suspected the antelope might be wounded but didn't know for sure until it ran off with detectable limp. Even then we didn't know it it had been wounded previously of if my SIL's shot wounded it. At 200 yards my assumption was a wounding shot by my SIL. It was only later, when dressing the animal, that we discovered he had missed completely.

Regardless, it was legal for my doe/fawn tags and I was shooting backup. Assuming it had been wounded by my SIL, letting it run off or trying to stop it was the issue - at least for me. At 300 yards on a limping run, slightly quartering away with a two-foot hold into the wind, I wasn't certain I would even hit it. But I felt that, under the circumstances, trying was better than not.

Had SIL not taken a shot I would agree with you - no shot - but not for the same reasons. I had helped everyone else tag out and wanted SIL to do so before I tried. Would have been happy to let the youngster go as I wanted an adult doe (or two).

This one is currently being processed at Steve's Meat Market in Arvada and is going to the Denver Rescue Mission after I pick it up this coming on Monday.

I no longer hunt for horns, although if I were to travel a far off land to hunt...

I'm a meat hunter anymore - mostly cows and does.

I've put one antelope out of it's misery quite a few years ago, it was a mess -- green ooze etc. I suspect that it may have been illegal to have left him there for coyotes, so I won't say what I did...

[i][/i]


I don't get it. If it was legal and ethical in your mind, why the cryptic thread title and 20 questions routine?

Attention?

This thread is about as stupid as JeffO.




Dave

The subject line was pretty straightforward, nothing 'cryptic' about it.

It would have been 'legal and ethical' for me either way, whether I took the shot or not.


Had my SIL not taken a shot and possibly (we thought probably) wounded it, I would have let it go.

You may want to check on the legality. I'm personally familiar with a case where a hunter with a doe/fawn permit in Wyoming shot a young buck by mistake that looked just like yours, i.e., no black patch but a black slash.

He self-reported but the local game warden was not available and asked for a cell phone photo of the head, which he provided The game warden thanked him for self-reporting, but then said he had to issue paperwork that was described by the game warden as "allowing the hunter to legally possess the meat."

In other words, it was not a legal kill, according to the game warden.

That'd be my guess.

Been out of touch for a few days but I have checked on the legality with the game warden for the area. Sent him the same photo as above and talked to him, providing more details than the photo shows, like description of size and hanging weight. He was confident it was a fawn, not a yearling (yearlings normally have horns as long as their ears according to him) but that it probably would have grown to be an exceptional buck had it lived. He also stated that all fawns (young of year) are legal with a doe/fawn tag, which is exactly how I read the regs as well. According to him, yearlings typically have at least a small but discernible cheek patch about the size of a nickel or quarter, which this one was missing.

He emphasized it was a legal kill in his opinion.

Good to hear. My mistake, when you said this below, it sounded like the black patch wasn't missing, just smaller than on an adult:

Well we can all rest easy tonight.

Edit

Gave that fawn to the Denver Rescue Mission. A month later I took a nice mulie buck but it tested positive for CWD, got the results after processing. Parks and Wildlife suggested I double bag the processed meat and send it to the landfill, which I did. Did not want to take any chance my grandkids could end up eating it. They hardly know what beef tastes like.

Thanks to the grandkids, pretty much all we have left in our freezer is sausage. Hope to fill it back up this year using two Wyoming doe antelope tags and a Colorado RFW cow elk tag. Like last year, there will be eleven of us going to Wyoming for antelope - four families comprised of five shooters, three non-shooting wives, three kids/grandkids. Plus two more grandkids in the ovens. We're pretty much renting out the south wing of the motel.