TexasUplander
Well-Known Member
I did some tractor trading with a gentleman in NM last year and was able to get my boys some antelope permits out of the deal. We left out saturday morning when the kid finally woke up about 9:00! It was only 100 miles from out house NE of amarillo to the area NW of dalhart where we would be hunting so i wasnt too concerned with running out of time on the 3 day hunt. When we were about 15min out the land owner texted me and said he had a good buck spotted and he would meet us by the highway. When we pulled up and made our greetings, he explained where the animals were at when he last saw them. We drove on down to his hay lot to park the pickup and formulate the plan. He also mentioned he has seen a pretty nice buck that had possibly been shot and was limping badly. As we were standing there talking, he spotted am antelope oj the horizon and it turned out to be the injured buck. He looked pretty decent to me so we decided he would be the one we would go after first. My son said he thought he could get him from the hay lot. Turns out he was 600yds away when i ranged him! We definitely had to close the distance. There was a small rise and a group of yucca between us so we used that to belly crawl until we ran out of cover. I ranged him then at 250yds but my son never could get as steady as he wanted to be shooting off his elbows. I took that oportunity to mention that was the reason i always suggested to the boys to practice like you hunt! We waited for a minute for him to calm down and when he was about ready to take the shot, the buck took off running! I asumed he must have winded us so we headed back to the hay lot. The rancher informed us that buck had spotted some more does and had ran after them. We started talking about going after a different group when we looked up and saw the wounded buck chasing a group of does right back where he was when we started! We told the rancher we would just stay after him until we got him since he wasnt confident he would survive anyway. As he left to finish his work, my son and i discussed another stalk on the buck. They were in the same area as before but we decided to try a different approach that would keep them from winding us. The problem was, There wasnt any cover other than very sporadic and SMALL yuccas. After another 45min of army crawling we had made it to the last little yucca we could get to. I ranged him this time at 350yds. My son said he felt good about a shot so we waited for the right opportunity. The buck would stand, take a couple of steps, and bed again. This went on for 30 min or so until he had finally cleared the does enough for a shot. I told my son to be ready amd take the shot the next time he stood and the angle was right. At the shot, the antelope stood straight up on his hind legs and almost turned over backwards before collapsing to the ground. It turned out the kid made a picture pefect shot for the angle and It had smashed both shoulders and taken the heart out along the way. On a side note, i just built him this .308 rifle and he had mentioned the recoil difference over his .243 so i loaded up some speer 125tnt at 2900fps. The only field testing that was done prior to this hunt was on a large hog. It appeared to work well enough hut inwas still somewhat worried. In any case, the bullet performed well enough to break both shoulders but it didnt exit. I think i will start loading 155's for him and i really doubt he even notices. The buck measures 13" which tickles us hoth to pieces especially for the first one.
