Method:
Mathews Q2
Arrows: Carbon Express, NAP Thunderheads
Date: 8/18/2009 thru 8/21/2009
Camo: Realtree
AP
Location: Casper, Wyoming
Conditions: Sunny, 83 degrees
The
Cowboy state, a place where the high plains crashes into the mountains
of the continental divide, where the deer and the antelope play
and nothing says antelope, like the cactus, sage brush and the
rolling hill ranches of Eastern Wyoming. A friend of mine invited
me to go bow hunting for antelope on a private ranch and I jumped
at the opportunity.
This was not exactly going to be a wilderness hunt, but we were
going to be camping out on the treeless countryside just outside
of Casper Wyoming. I am used to packing for your typical hunting
trip, but packing for a week long hunting and camping trip involved
much more thought, preparation and gear than I anticipated.
Our camp was set up right on the edge of our hunting grounds we
were nestled into an area at the foot of the Laramie Mountains
near the Platte River. The plan was to hunt the few water holes
that were scattered over this 5000 acre ranch and if that was
not working we would attempt to spot and stalk North Americas
fastest land animal. The day we arrived, we set out to put up
our pop-up blinds and spotted lots of great sign around the waterholes
along with plenty of speed goats that could be seen up to a couple
thousand yards away.
My first day sitting on a waterhole I had several Antelope come
to the water, but none would commit to coming into bow range.
They all seemed a little weary of my pop up blind. It was about
7:00pm that evening when a couple of does started coming into
the water, they circled a couple of times and I guess were thirsty
enough to come to the water. I shot the largest doe at 25 yards,
a double lung shot. I watched as my first antelope fell a mere
50 yards from where I had shot her. I was happy to have meat for
the freezer and excited about concentrating on shooting one of
the many Pope and Young antelope that I had been seeing.
The next couple of days I had seen some nice bucks, but the opportunities
were just not available for a good bow shot. It was not until
the last day of the hunt. I was set up in a blind that we had
named the Honey Hole because it had produced 4 out of the 6 bucks
from our group. As the afternoon came and time was short, I told
myself that I would shoot a buck if he had horns above his ears.
Just then from behind the blind a buck had come to the water.
He was standing 27 yards drinking out of the waterhole.
As the buck turned to leave, I drew my bow picked my spot and
squeezed the release. As my Matthews Bow let the arrow fly, the
buck had taken another step and the arrow went right through the
Bucks paunch. It was a gut shot, I could not believe it. I watched
as the Goat took off speeding over the prairie. He ran about 400
yards up over a small ridge with plenty of blood coming out from
his wound. I knew the buck was seriously hurt and would probably
bed down just over the ridge. I grabbed my gear and started to
track this buck.
When I got to the top of the ridge, I spotted the buck bedded
down on the top of the next ridge over, he was about 100 yards
away. I figured I would sit tight, keep an eye on him and the
buck would bleed out. After about 20 minutes. The buck stood up
and disappeared over the hill. I quickly made my way to the spot
where the buck was laying and spotted him again bedded down after
traveling another 100 yards. I decided that this time I would
put a stalk on him and try to get another arrow in him.
I got down on my stomach and started belly crawling through the
cactus and snake infested sage brush, as slowly and quietly as
I could. I was able to make it to a large sage bush ranged it
to be 30 yards from the wounded goat. I knocked an arrow got to
my knees, quickly drew and shot. This time I had hit my mark a
double lung shot. The buck jumped out of his bed only to stumble
about 20 yards before collapsing.
It had been a long 2 hours since I had first shot my buck. I felt
a great relief after experiencing so many emotions, the excitement
of the encounter, the thrill of the shot, the panic of a bad shot,
the nervousness of losing an animal, the disappointment in myself,
the compassion for the animal, and especially the anticipation
of running into a prairie rattler while crawling through the brush.
He was not the biggest buck, only 10 inches; it was not a great
shot. But I was thrilled to have my first Antelope buck and especially
to recover him. It was the last day of the hunt, and I had just
tagged out. |