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- Jan 28, 2003
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As promised earlier in my epic moose hunt thread here is the hunt report from our mid moose hunt, antelope hunt.
I believe that the correct term for the 2015 hunting season would be “A hostage to fortune.” We put in for everything that we usually put in for and always expect to draw our Antelope tags. What we didn’t expect to draw was my wife’s Mt Goat tag and my once in lifetime coveted Colorado Shiras moose tag. This was the first year in my life that I was thankful that I did NOT draw a bighorn tag, our hunting cup was truly running over.
In any case I “guided” my wife for ten days of grueling high country hunting for her Mt Goat. Unfortunately I was unable to put her on a goat and we ate tag stew on that hunt. While we did not shoot a goat we had a wonderful experience challenging ourselves in the beautiful high country of Colorado. Next came the Moose hunt which started on the 1st of October and ran through the 14th of October. The only “problem” with that was that Antelope season started on the 3rd of Oct this year and my girls don’t take to kindly to missing out on Antelope hunting. We decided to make the best of it. We set up moose camp and hunted the first two days then pulled out and drove 250 miles to our Antelope hunting area.
We were ready willing and able to antelope hunt when the sun came up on opening morning. It didn’t take long before we were glassing and judging antelope bucks. We had done a coin toss the night before and Bailee came up as first shooter, followed by big sister Tori and then dad. Several hours into the first day found myself and Bailee crouching and crawling towards a really thick buck antelope. We had spotted him from the truck and decided he was worth a try. I was able to get Bailee to a good vantage point and the buck cooperated by walking to within 100 yards of her. She quickly settled the deal with her custom 6.5-06 and 140 Gr Nosler Accubond neatly putting the buck down for good with one shot.
Next up was Tori and all of a sudden we couldn’t get close enough to decent buck to save our hides. We made multiple attempts on multiple bucks and we just could not get into position to shoot. She tried one shot on a big buck at longish range and missed clean. We put stalk after stalk on other nice bucks but were not having any luck. Finally towards dark she was able to close the deal on a nice mature buck at about 200 yards with her .308 Rifle using a 165gr Sierra Game king.
With that we were totally out of daylight and dad had still not had a chance at an antelope. I decided that I would hunt until 10:00 the next morning and if I hadn’t done any good that I’d call it an antelope hunt and return to my eagerly awaiting moose hunt. The hunting gods were smiling upon me that next morning.
Within 45 minutes of daylight I was glassing a very nice pronghorn buck. I decided that while he was probably not the biggest buck on the ranch, he was one of the biggest bucks that I had ever had a chance at so I decided to give him a try. He was busy rounding up his harem of does and hardly noticed me slip to within 224 yards of him. I used an old wooden fence post as a rest from a seated position, placing the crosshairs behind his shoulder I pressed the trigger on my M-70, 270 Weatherby. At the shot he humped up spun and stood facing me with his head hanging low. He was obviously hit and hit hard but he wasn’t going down.
I was in disbelief, the shot had been clean and that rifle is an absolute tack driving, instrument of death. I pulled my head off the cheek of the rifle and immediately noticed that CDS turret had been spun down backwards about 3 MOA from zero! The rifle had been sitting in the truck the day before and it had been jostled apparently. The turret had somehow been bumped and spun down from its zero. I had hit the buck low cutting his brisket. I quickly spun the turret back to its 200 yard zero mark and waited for the buck to turn. After a while he turned and started walking slowly towards his group of does giving me a broadside shot. The second round took him cleanly through the heart. The old buck dashed forward for several yards before sinking into the tall grass.
I am not 100% sure if he is the biggest pronghorn I’ve ever taken but he is defiantly in the top three and I am plenty happy with him. We took a few pictures skinned him and had his meat on ice within an hour. I dashed back home loaded him in the freezer and was moose hunting by 4:00 that afternoon. All in all, this combo moose/antelope hunt was a seriously awesome “epic” hunting experience. One that I will live on in my memory as long as I live!
I believe that the correct term for the 2015 hunting season would be “A hostage to fortune.” We put in for everything that we usually put in for and always expect to draw our Antelope tags. What we didn’t expect to draw was my wife’s Mt Goat tag and my once in lifetime coveted Colorado Shiras moose tag. This was the first year in my life that I was thankful that I did NOT draw a bighorn tag, our hunting cup was truly running over.
In any case I “guided” my wife for ten days of grueling high country hunting for her Mt Goat. Unfortunately I was unable to put her on a goat and we ate tag stew on that hunt. While we did not shoot a goat we had a wonderful experience challenging ourselves in the beautiful high country of Colorado. Next came the Moose hunt which started on the 1st of October and ran through the 14th of October. The only “problem” with that was that Antelope season started on the 3rd of Oct this year and my girls don’t take to kindly to missing out on Antelope hunting. We decided to make the best of it. We set up moose camp and hunted the first two days then pulled out and drove 250 miles to our Antelope hunting area.
We were ready willing and able to antelope hunt when the sun came up on opening morning. It didn’t take long before we were glassing and judging antelope bucks. We had done a coin toss the night before and Bailee came up as first shooter, followed by big sister Tori and then dad. Several hours into the first day found myself and Bailee crouching and crawling towards a really thick buck antelope. We had spotted him from the truck and decided he was worth a try. I was able to get Bailee to a good vantage point and the buck cooperated by walking to within 100 yards of her. She quickly settled the deal with her custom 6.5-06 and 140 Gr Nosler Accubond neatly putting the buck down for good with one shot.
Next up was Tori and all of a sudden we couldn’t get close enough to decent buck to save our hides. We made multiple attempts on multiple bucks and we just could not get into position to shoot. She tried one shot on a big buck at longish range and missed clean. We put stalk after stalk on other nice bucks but were not having any luck. Finally towards dark she was able to close the deal on a nice mature buck at about 200 yards with her .308 Rifle using a 165gr Sierra Game king.
With that we were totally out of daylight and dad had still not had a chance at an antelope. I decided that I would hunt until 10:00 the next morning and if I hadn’t done any good that I’d call it an antelope hunt and return to my eagerly awaiting moose hunt. The hunting gods were smiling upon me that next morning.
Within 45 minutes of daylight I was glassing a very nice pronghorn buck. I decided that while he was probably not the biggest buck on the ranch, he was one of the biggest bucks that I had ever had a chance at so I decided to give him a try. He was busy rounding up his harem of does and hardly noticed me slip to within 224 yards of him. I used an old wooden fence post as a rest from a seated position, placing the crosshairs behind his shoulder I pressed the trigger on my M-70, 270 Weatherby. At the shot he humped up spun and stood facing me with his head hanging low. He was obviously hit and hit hard but he wasn’t going down.
I was in disbelief, the shot had been clean and that rifle is an absolute tack driving, instrument of death. I pulled my head off the cheek of the rifle and immediately noticed that CDS turret had been spun down backwards about 3 MOA from zero! The rifle had been sitting in the truck the day before and it had been jostled apparently. The turret had somehow been bumped and spun down from its zero. I had hit the buck low cutting his brisket. I quickly spun the turret back to its 200 yard zero mark and waited for the buck to turn. After a while he turned and started walking slowly towards his group of does giving me a broadside shot. The second round took him cleanly through the heart. The old buck dashed forward for several yards before sinking into the tall grass.
I am not 100% sure if he is the biggest pronghorn I’ve ever taken but he is defiantly in the top three and I am plenty happy with him. We took a few pictures skinned him and had his meat on ice within an hour. I dashed back home loaded him in the freezer and was moose hunting by 4:00 that afternoon. All in all, this combo moose/antelope hunt was a seriously awesome “epic” hunting experience. One that I will live on in my memory as long as I live!
