I’ve been hunting Antelope in various states pretty much every year since I was 15 years old with mostly with rifles but also occasionally with bows and muzzleloaders. I’m 51 now so with a couple of seasons missed I’d say I’ve hunted and guided for a solid 25 years for antelope. Many years I’ll hunt and or guide the archery, muzzle loader and rifle season. I’m not claiming to be the expert on speed goat behavior but I have spent a lot of time observing them throughout the years. I’ve seen early season antelope that won’t let you get within 1,000 yards of them and I’ve seen late season bucks come trotting up to you to see what you are if you’re crawling and they aren’t sure. With antelope you don’t get to know what they are going to do. Some days they are spookier than a spring hare, and some days they come charging up to you like an angry, territorial, bull rhino.
The toughest antelope hunt I’ve ever done was with my wife last season during the muzzle loader hunt. Which of course is the early season in fact it’s the first season in that area. The rut was starting, the bucks were running does, and they absolutely would not come into a decoy or respond to flagging. We crawled for miles on the first three days. My knees and hands were raw and filled with cactus spines, and that’s through knee pads and leather gloves.
We had to go home so the wife could do a couple of days of work during the middle of the season then returned for the last two days. On the last day we were both sunburned, tired and beat up from multiple failed stalks and miles and miles of walking and crawling in the hot sun. This hunt is a perfect example of what I’m saying about bipolar antelope behavior. So all week we couldn’t get to within shooting range, no matter what we tried.
On the last morning we spotted a lone buck about 2 miles out, nothing spectacular but he was a mature buck. We got down into a low wash and closed to about 1100 yards from his last known position and then popped up on a ridge line and sat in the shade of a juniper tree. We spotted the buck milling about in an open field of cactus. The wind was blowing stiffly in our faces so the buck couldn’t scent us. As soon as the buck spotted something out of the ordinary he came trotting towards us to see what we were. He came over 1,000 yards to try and figure out what we were. And my wife killed him at 120+ yards (I’ll have to look but I seem to remember 124 yards) with her open sighted muzzle loader.
That’s was a really long winded way to say that with antelope you never know how they are going to react. The two biggest issues I’ve seen with hunters screwing up on antelope shots are getting frustrated and trying to shoot at too long of a range and getting excited and not having a proper solid rest. That’s when stuff goes bad. This hunt was a prime example, we had plenty of shot opportunities at 200ish yards. My wife isn’t comfortable shooting her iron sighted ML much past 100 yards, so we didn’t try those shots. And like I said above shooting past 400 yards With your rifle or whatever your true capabilities in the field are is a choice. There are hunters who can shoot way beyond 400 yards In the field and get the job done. I’m not one of those guys. The last time I tried to spot and stalk an antelope with a bow I got frustrated and impatient and slung an arrow at a buck at 90 yards. I cut hair on his back, lost the arrow and didn’t get a goat, it was a stupid thing to do. Don’t let yourself get frustrated almost always in antelope hunting you’ll get your shot eventually if you have patience.
