Harding County Antelope

Getting this up a little late, but was busy fishing as you can see below. We finally worked it out this year to go out opening weekend this year. Weather was good, but windy on Saturday. Mark got his buck on Saturday afternoon. We saw them about a mile and a half from the road and the plan was for Mark to put the stalk on, get seen, and they would run toward me laying on a butte another mile away. Well, Mark got to within 400 yds without being seen and decided to take a shot figuring if he missed, our plan would still work. He adjusted for wind and distance and gut shot the goat. We both could see it was lethal and he figured he could get his doe tag filled at the same time, so he did. Nice shootin', Tex!

No luck for me on Saturday, however I did manage to slam my thumb in the truck door getting out to put a stalk on. The nail should fall off in the near future. Ouch!

Sunday morning we went back out and saw a buck with two does about a half mile from the road, just over a knoll that would give me a pretty easy stalk to within a couple hundred yards. Make the stalk and only had to belly crawl about 20 yards to the top of the knoll. When I got to the top, the grass was too tall for using my bipod on the shortest setting. Even fully extended, I saw mostly grass through the scope. The buck looked a long way out so I raised up a bit on the aim. I fired and got nothing! Tried again with the same result. Just before I shot there was a lot of gunfire in the distance, and my shots must've blended in because the antelope were on alert, but didn't know where to run. I ended up missing again, reloading and getting really pissed. So, I just sighted right on him and let it go. He was kinda quartered to me, but I did hit where I was aiming. Dropped him without so much as a kick as he hit the ground.

After dropping him, we extimated that he was only 200+ yards out. Tough to tell when you're looking through grass without much experience.

We dragged him to the road and just got done taking a couple pictures when the DNR officer showed up. He checked the tags on our goats and we asked if he would take our picture. He did and then got his camera and snapped a couple for himself. Who knows, maybe Mark and I will be on the cover of next year's hunting atlas.

We decided to donate the animals to "Hunter's for Hunger" and are getting european mounts done on our bucks. All in all, a great weekend. We love the country out there. Truly beautiful! Can't wait until next year. By the way, Mark's goat antlers measured 10.5" and mine was 12.5". Guess that means I get to add more "bling" to my hunting shirt!