Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Alberta, Antelope Finally!!

So after baby sitting my draw priorites for 10 years, just waiting for my stars to align with work and family, I was ready to put in for speed goat in Alberta (Alberta has a 999 draw code to build priority points)

I asked around on a Alberta specific hunting forum for zone advice, and one fellow simply PM'd about 3 pictures of some pretty nice goats, and told me these were taken by him last season, and then proceeded to tell me he'd help me out if I drew into a specific set of zones he specified. (I wont disclose)

I finally put in for the zones as requested, and with a bit of time off in July I took the 6 hour trip South with my Son in the right hand seat.

What a trip we had we were seeing about 20 bucks per time in the field, and of the 80 or so bucks we saw, I'd have guessed 25 to 30 would need serious second looks. And another almost dozen were total no brainer go get em type of bucks.

Finally August came and confirmation that indeed my draw was successful.

Time was spent at the range confirming a couple old favorite loads for 2 rifles I had hoped to take on the hunt. The first load was originally my standby long range coyote load for my 25'06, it consisted of a moly coated 85gr. Nosler ballistic tip, going speeds expected of a 257 WTBY. (custom gain twist bbl) I dropped this load for coyotes because no matter the range an exit wound usually big enough to easily put the toe of your boot in was the end result.
The other rifle was my Winchester Mod 70 Sporter II in 270 WSM, my prefered load in this rifle drives a 130 Accubond to 3325fps, and both rifles will (if I'm up to it) place a cluster of shots into a tennis ball at 350yds, some days even smaller.

The end of August and most of September meant a major overhaul at work and 12 hour days, and not many days off, but my vacation was booked far in advance of the scheduled overhaul so on September 25th I punched out and told em I'd be back with stories and pictures on October 6th.

I took the 26th to arrange my affairs and to pack up for the drive, and then on the 27th I lit out from home about 0800, and made a few social calls on my way South, filling my coffee cup as I went.
I arrived at my hunting grounds about the time my mentor and friend got off of work, and we spent till dark looking at no less than a dozen bucks of which two made the have to get list.
My buddy had work the next day, and I spent that day spotting on my own, and while seeing bucks nothing of the caliber of the two from the night before could be found.
Once my friend finished work we went spotting once more, knowing full well we had to locate a good buck so we could put him to bed, because opening day was tomorrow morning.

Alas with about 2 hours of light left we spotted one of the bucks from the other evening, he was out in the middle of nothing, all by himself, a stalk on him that night would have been impossible,he had put himself in a nearly un huntable spot, flat as a billiard table and no cover for at least a half mile in any direction. We waited watched and just before final light he began moving looking for a bedding sight, at final light we knew he'd move not much more, unless disturbed in the night, he'd likely be somewhere within a 1 mile radius of his last sighting.
We travelled back to my friends place in the dark, excited like two kids on the night before Christmas, and although totally jacked up we realized our biggest foe in all this was other hunters, because if that buck was sighted by another hunter at first light, and he was close to a road it would be all over, and we'd be scrambling to find another shooter buck. We came up with a plan to do some driving of the roads that surrounded the area we figured he'd be in at first glassable light, then if needed move on him if he was found too close to a road for comfort. We repaired for the evening to some fine food and a few glasses of "aiming oil".
I actually slept fairly well that night waking at 5:00, and having to wait about a 1/2 hour for my buddy to wake.
We had some coffee, a bowl of cereal, and headed out.
We arrived with lots of dark left in the night and waited what seemed like and eternity for the sun to rise enough so we could begin our perimeter search for the buck.
The North route showed no sign of him, we then got our East boundry, and turned South, when we hit some higher ground the optics came out and we let our eyes do the work. I spotted a large group of antelope about 2 to 3 miles West of me on what would have been our South road, I set up the spotting scope and as I focused in on the group I noticed 2 antelope way at the bottom of my 20x spotting scope. I re focused at the lower antelope, and zoomed in a bit and there he was! The buck from the night before. It was such a chance find I had a real bugger of a time relating him to an actual landmark, I finally got him bracketed on a lateral run of coal bed methane wells, and then we realized he was very close to a lease road in the middle of our search grid. We did a driver swap, and I jumped into the passenger seat, and off we went like a couple of bank robbers in an old movie, driving like our lives were at stake.
We came up the road we knew he was by, and I spied the lateral of wells coming down the slope I told my buddy to pull over, as the buck was likely just on the other side of a small rise. We pulled over readied our gear, and headed out accross the native prairie grass, hoping and praying he had'nt moved, or that anyone else did'nt drive by and blow him out.
We got half way up the rise, and we began to lower our shillouetes by first knee crawling followed by belly crawling, and dodging a few low cactus clumps. As we crested the rise there he was a bit further East than I had imagined. He was into filling his stomach with slough grass, and a small buck was with him. My buddy confirmed that indeed it was our desired buck, and a quick zap with the laser given by him, reveiled a distance of 420yds. I slipped out of my fanny pack bunched it up and took a prone rest with the 25'06 upon it. I waited till the buck brought up his head just so I could be 100% sure it was him, settled the first mildot from the 4-12 VXII Leupold's LR reticle on the top third of the bucks shoulder (slight breeze from the bucks front) and squeezed off a shot. The 85gr. Screamer was off and on target with a suprisingly audable swoosh, followed by a tell tail smack. At the shot my buddy said the buck backed up about a step and a half, and when I came back on him from the recoil he was sitting like a dog, and while I jacked a second shell into the breech he simply tipped onto his far side.
A lot of hooting hollering, high fiving and yes even a rather friendly embrace took place.

We sat there on top of that rise for a few moments, reflecting on how it all transpired, how we manged to do it by the book, how lucky my finding him in my optics was, and how no one probalby figured that the internet would ever have been an asset as it was just now. I glassed his lifeless body one last time and we high tailed it back to the truck. We had spotted the mowed track for the gas wells close to the buck, and knew we could simply drive up to him or very close.
When we drove up, the smaller buck that was with him was still close by looking at his un moving buddy, as if to say "come on those humans are really close."
We indeed did get close to my buck, about 80yds. We took a series of on the spot photos, slapped the tag on him, and headed off to a known SRD check stop in a near by town. At the check stop many other hunters were there, and my buck garnered lots of attention.
The SRD biologist measured his horns took photos, and removed two of his lower teeth. We than sped off to a spot my buddy had in mind for some awesome field photos. He subjected me to Kamasutra like poses while he took photo upon photo, explaining the pain will be worth it, I somehow at the time never saw it his way. On our way to one last spot we saw the perfect place it was a coulee with black soil and many boulders in the bottom, we both knew this would make some awesome photos, and when we carried my buck into position low and behold we were sitting on a prehistoric clam bed. Those photos just seemed to come easy, and finally we were done.

All in all it was a perfect scenario topped off by an awesome outcome.

The buck scored 79 4/8" B&C net (green)

First off, that's a very nice buck. The photos turned out nice as well, especially the top one. You did post the score, but how long were the horns? They appear to have good length, but when they don't hook much, and go straight up like that they sometimes appear just a tad bigger than they are. Regardless he's a nice goat and I'm pretty sure I would be headed to the taxidermist if I had killed him.

Enjoyed the story. Your escape from work produced a real nice buck. Congrats!

RR

Portsider284,

Nice Buck Antelope and great shoot'n!

Great buck and pics. He was worth the wait.

Congrats on the buck, nice going.

His horns sure look longer than 15 1/8 inches! He's a beautiful buck...congratulations man. Really good photos too!

Nice story and great buck... I'm still crackin up about the Kamasutra poses though., that was funny as hell.

Good lookin 'lope! Congratulations!

What a wonderful antelope. Good for you, Portsider.

Steve

Portsider - Great Story, great photos and outstanding shooting. Congratulations!!!!