Below are a couple of pics of my antelope hunt yesterday in Wyoming. Began the hunt right at daylight about a mile southwest of the old historical mining town of South Pass but failed to see anything close to put a stalk on, except on a little parcel of private land, so head southwest to a spur of the old Oregon Trail called the Lander Cut-off. Parked near an area of hills and steep draws known as Anderson Ridge. There were quite a few hunters in the area driving the roads with ATV's and 4WD's, so I left my vehicle to hunt an area where they couldn't go. The strategy is to glass and once a herd is spotted I try to anticipate in which direction the antelope are traveling and to get ahead of them, find good cover and hope they come by close enough for a shot. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
After playing around with a herd of 5, with one decent average buck and having not luck, at about 9:30 I spotted a herd of about 20 animals coming up from the Sweetwate River about about a mile south of the rocky ridge I was glassing from. Moved to a rocky outcrop on a higher part of the ridge, thinking they would walk close by. And they did about 20 minutes later. About 5 bucks in the bunch with the one below about the same or bigger than the others. They were walking toward me at about 100 yards when for no reason that I could tell, the line of them turned broadside to the east and began feeding that direction. Stupid me, I rushed the shot on this one (even had a good rest), which I determined to be the largest, heard the bullet hit, a sickening sound of a paunch-shot animal. The animals reversed direction, grouped up, and headed over the ridge and into a steep rocky draw know as Palmer Draw. No chance for a follow-up shot. Made my way over to where they disappeared, peaked over the edge and saw him laying down about 140 yards away with his head up...a bad sign. Belly crawled up to a group of rocks to get a good rest, but when I got there and peaked over, the buck was gone. Walked down to where I last saw him, hoping to find him dead, hidden by sage brush, but no luck. He was gone. Feeling pretty rotten by now, knowing I screwed up a shot that should have been easy and having an animal suffer for it. Determined from tracks which direction the herd traveled, I followed them over the edge of the steep draw where I could look down into it. There, near the bottom, where a small spring-fed trickle flowed toward the Sweetwater, lay the buck in tall sagebrush with only his head and neck visible at about 150 yards. Stumbled toward a jagged pile of rocks about 20 feet in front of me to use for a rest. The buck saw me, rose from his bed and began trotting away at a quartering away angle. Finally made it to the rocks, quickly dropped down, and settled behind the scope. Could see through the scope where blood from the exit wound had washed the white paunch with a red streak, a small amount of intestines protruding. Not a pleasant sight, one which I will see for a long time. The buck slowed to a stop, the crosshairs settled on his neck. At the shot he went down hard, kicking briefly. Relief came quickly, but tempered by the knowledge that I had made a poor decision resulting in nearly losing a wounded animal to suffer a slow lingering death. Not too proud of myself for my performance, but at the same time, I'm not going to beat myself up for it forever, just commit to not let it happen again.
The rifle: 30/30 Handi with handloaded with 170 gr. Speer in front of a healthy dose of 748.
Another pic of where the hunt took place:
