Year of the Antelope???

[brant89]

Sorry to post another, "another first antelope" thread, but I'm sure at least a few of you are interested. I took my stepdad on an antelope hunt in Wyoming unit 9 and we had pretty decent success. Thanks to all who gave me advice to make this a successful hunt. We each drew 6 tags (3 each) and filled both buck tags and two doe tags in spite of antelope numbers being down in our area. Of course, as it worked out, my stepdad (who has only recently gotten into long range, mostly for this trip) got all the long range shot opportunities. I keep telling him that I get half the credit for teaching him and calling the range and windage, LOL. All jokes aside they were all great shots. Here are a few pictures.

I passed up the small buck in the crosshairs on opening day. Cool pic so I thought I would share it. I drew first blood on a doe at 260yds, and he answered back the next day with a heart shot at 530yds. It took a few days to find bucks that we would be happy with in our living rooms, but the second to last day I heart shot my buck at 336yds. On the very last day we got on another shooter buck mid-afternoon and my stepdad put one through both lungs at 568yds. It's also worth mentioning that he managed all the walking and packing out after breaking his foot during a fence crossing on opening day.

It was a fantastic hunt and I'd be thrilled to do it again sometime. (My wife was upset that she didn't get to go so I'll take that as a hint.)

 

[BAR BAR 2]

That is great. It looks like you guys had some good success and alot of fun.

I guided a few hunters here on the ranch already this season and it turned out to be very successful for all the hunters. I had the pleasure of helping an older gentleman fill a couple tags on what was most likely his last hunt and these past few days I had the honor of guiding to SpecOps Wounded Warriors harvest a couple bucks. These past couple weeks of helping these really cool, interesting and deserving people has probably been the highlight of my hunting career. Even managed to tag one myself.

Sorry, to have went off the rails a bit there. I am very happy to hear you guys had a fun time. Hopefully you men can come back out again next year.



Tex

 

[Barrelnut]

Those are a couple nice bucks. Congratulations.

 

[unclefish]

Yes nice deal. I have also seen alot more antelope here near clark colorado this year. Went to craig to sight in my rifle and that place is loaded with them. Even coming back across wolf mountain ranch from craig to clark had alot on there property also

 

[brant89]

Thanks! In response to BAR BAR, some of my most enjoyable and memorable hunts were ones where I took someone else out to pull the trigger for the first time. I really enjoy getting new people into the sport so I can definitely relate. Probably my most memorable hunt of all time was watching my wife center punch the shoulder of a whitetail doe at 63yd with my 44mag revolver, her first handgun kill.

 

[huntinBuddy62]

It really was alot of fun, thanks to my very thoughtful son, Branten. When he said he took me, he means it; he paid for practically all of it after a few years of planning and saving. (Wow!) He told me of his plans almost two years ago and I scrimped, scrapped (literally) and saved and finally got a proper long-range rig: Savage Model 10 Predator Hunter in 6.5 Creedmoor with a Vortex Viper PST. What a tack-driver it turned out to be!
After teaching him to shoot years ago, Brant taught me some of the finer points of L.R. prone shooting and handloading. The obvious side benefit being more time together. I love how it all came together on this trip. We hunted and shot well,and our equipment performed excellently. My Hornady 129 SSTs were horribly brutal and his 140 A-Maxes did no favors.
By the way, I didn't know the Opening Day mishap resulted in a break until a few days ago, just that it hurt. But with everything Branten did for me, I wasn't even considering giving up the hunt. I love him too much to let him down like that. I'm glad I could prove him to be a good coach: he does get half the credit on my kills.

 

[MachV]

Looks and sounds like you had a memorable hunt. Lot different than hunting whitetails aint it

 

[brant89]

Very different! Thanks again for the advice on the unit MachV, I feel like we were pretty well prepared for our first antelope hunt.

 

[MachV]

Glad I could help and that all your planning paid off.
We didn't even get out that way this year, all our tags where the other direction......sorta miss not hunting the Manville area this year.

 

[brant89]

It's a pretty cool area with a little bit of everything as far as terrain goes. We did see some pretty nice mule deer while we were scouting also. And lots of coyotes. If we would have had more time it would have been a lot of fun to set up and do some calling.

 

[revturbo9967]

late to the party but great goats! im lookin into this unit as well just because of the large chunk of public land/walk in.

 

[brant89]

Overall I was happy with that area. Public land access was a breeze and the landowners and WFGD officers were very friendly and helpful. The one officer even directed us to the area where our does were killed. I only saw one buck come out of there that was potentially a B&C buck but we saw several bucks that were worth shooting in our opinions. Just depends on what your goal is.

 

[revturbo9967]

Overall I was happy with that area. Public land access was a breeze and the landowners and WFGD officers were very friendly and helpful. The one officer even directed us to the area where our does were killed. I only saw one buck come out of there that was potentially a B&C buck but we saw several bucks that were worth shooting in our opinions. Just depends on what your goal is.

im just looking for a decent buck, nothing crazy, but mature all the same.

which week did you go?

 

[brant89]

We hunted the first week and a half. It was pretty busy the first 4-5 days but after that most of the people had left. Even opening day there were plenty of areas that were away from the crowds, especially if you're willing to put a few miles on your boots.