antelope hunt (now with pics and story)

[chris matthews]

Sent a bunch of pics to Dave King for him to post here for me. Will give the full story in detail when the pics are up.
But to sum it up we had a blast and fillied 15 out of 15 tags!
[img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[ 10-13-2004: Message edited by: chris matthews ]

Congratulations!!! I can hardly wait to see the pics and hear the story.
Wayne

[Warren Barrett]

I`m with Wayne, can`t hardly waite.

[skidlyman]

Lets see if this works

[Dave King]

Just got back from the F-Class Nationals, I'll download and post the pics this evening or tomorrow.

Congrats on the hunt.

[chris matthews]

I'm Chris by proxy, he'll edit this to his liking.


This is the ranch where we stayed, managed by Craig Jamison (Chris Jamison's brother) That meadow is out the front door and would fill up with 10 point whitetails and 100 head of elk including a couple of 360 class bulls bugling their heads off.....

These next two are a heavy horned buck we saw while scouting the day before opening day.



These three pics are of myself and my buck. Made a three mile stalk on him and took him using a 308, built by me. A5 stock, 700 with a 24" Rock 5R barrel. My handloads are 175 MK over 45gr of Varget cruising at 2750 fps. Puts them under 1/4 MOA at 100 and 1/2 at a 1000. The buck grossed 84 2/8 B&C FWIW.






This is Chris Jamison's Mom & Dad in this pic with me. She shot her buck on BLM as we were driving to this ranch at first legal light with the game warden looking over her shoulder! She was using a 308 I built for Chris. A3, 700 with a 22" Rock barrel. David was using a Weatherby in 257 with a Pac Nor barrel and shot his buck at 500 yards thirty seconds after I shot my at 250ish. The bad part is we had to carry them 2 miles back to the truck!
[ 10-11-2004: Message edited by: chris matthews ]

[ 10-13-2004: Message edited by: chris matthews ]

[chris matthews]

More proxy post


This is my doe I took the second day at 475 yards with my 308 again.

This is the walk in cooler after 2 days of hunting. What you can't see are the six elk quartered and hanging above our speed goats.

These are our 4 bucks lined up in the cooler. David's is on the left and should make book also, then mine, Chris which we scored at 74 and then Linda's.

This is my exit with the 175 MK on my buck. He was quartering towards me at 250. Put it through the left shoulder taking off the top of his heart and double lunging him also. I was trying for a high shoulder shot but had on my 100 yard zero with no time to range him and put on any dope. Judging by the bullet drop he was 250 to 275ish. Ran 30 yards and went down.

This is Chris Jamison's exit from 525 yards with a 308 175 MK. Gusty winds sent the first shot through the liver, second shot was a little further foward and 2 inches lower taking out the back of the lungs. Third shot missed in front of his chest, fourth shot went through both shoulders putting him down. Bad shooting- not at all.
The buck was dead from the first shot but he had been chasing a little buck away from his does for 20 minutes and was super pumped up on adrenaline. He was dead but didn't now it!

This is Steve and Damion, Ric Horst and my buddies from PA.Now the truth shall set you free.....after first time hunter Damion connected with his doe at 450 yards, Steve felt bad for shooting that fawn at 15 yards with a 300 RUM. So out came the pistol for the pic and the "cover up story" was born. "She was charging us, so I grabbed Chris Jamison's pistol from his hipped as I shoved him out of the way of danger and fired. It took a full magazine from the 45 to stop the fang bearing, rabid doe......"

This last pic is Craig Jamison with his buck shot at 300 yards trotting after a doe. He didn't lead it enough on the first one and gut shot it but quickly followed up with one to the head to finish it. Again, he was using his brother's rifle.

I put Damion on a nice buck with two ivory tips, classic heart shape later that after noon. He was using a Browning 7 WSM with 140 gr Ballistic tips. Neck shot at 250 dropped him instantly.
Steve connected with a wide horn buck at 700 yards with the 300 RUM. Another funny story here... he was using 200 gr AccuBonds and put a perfect heart shot on the buck. But that's where it all went wrong. The bullet hit a rib going in and took a right turn, splitting the bucks belly just like a knife. A second shot in the neck was needed. Steve was pretty hard on himself until for gut shooting the animal until we got up on him and I did a post mortem on him. Finding the entry was pretty easy and it was a perfect heart shot like I mentioned. The heart itself was severely bruised from the hydralic shock due to the temporary wound channel, but that AccuBond sure did make a weird turn.
Anyway, I think Ric got his buck the next day but he had to head home in a hurry and I'm not sure. If he did, we filled 15 out of 15 tags.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[ 10-13-2004: Message edited by: chris matthews ]