The drive there and back was long but pretty uneventful. I listened to several audio books and that makes a tremendous difference on the drive for me. I left the house around 3:00 Thursday afternoon and pulled into Glasgow around 12:00 Friday afternoon. There was still plenty of daylight so my mom hopped in and we drove around the old hunting grounds to get myself familiar with the area again during the daylight because I was planning on heading out before sunrise the next morning.
We saw some antelope but they were all a long way off and most of the time they were running. I saw one decent buck but it was over 1/2 mile away and running hard when I saw it. Overall we saw about 20 antelope but only 1 would have been close enough to shoot and it was a fawn. We drove back into town and I was hoping that tomorrow would be a better day.
I got out to where I wanted to hunt before daylight and saw 3 antelope right as it got light enough to hunt, but they were all does. I went to a spot where we had seen antelope a few times the day before and walked out into the bottom and hung out for a while thinking some might filter in as it got light, but after about an hour of that I decided I was going to have a better chance finding them than I would of them finding me so I went back to the truck and drove around a little.
I saw 2 different groups of antelope way down in the bottom and watched them for awhile to see what they were going to do. One of the groups had 3 bucks in it that didn't stand out as monsters or anything but looked like they were decent. They seemed like they were moving slowly toward some water so I decided to go after them. About 2 miles later I saw them about 1/3rd of a mile away, still walking toward the water so I backed up and went around a hill thinking I could head them off and get into position. Either they sped up or I misjudged how far they were though, because by the time I got to where I thought they would be they were gone. I kept walking in the direction I had seen them moving and spotted them again still about 1/3rd of a mile ahead of me. I stopped and waited until they went over a rise and then went after them. I got to within 300 yards of them in a creek bottom, but I had been walking for close to 3 miles and had crossed a fence line and wasn't sure if I was still on public land or not. It would have been a difficult shot regardless and I decided to pass on it. Then they met up with about a dozen other antelope that were definetly on private land. It was some really nice pasture land and they were settled in grazing. I stood up and made sure they saw me thinking that they would see me and run off, but they seemed to know they were safe on the private land and didn't seem to be in a hurry to run off. I later checked the map and the first area where I passed on taking the shot was actually public land but at the time I wasn't sure so I felt good about my decision.
I walked about 2 miles back to the truck and drove around to the other side of the private land. I could see the antelope still on the pasture and I thought they would continue moving east so I walked down about 1/2 mile and waited to ambush them, however they had other plans. After about an hour they started heading back the other direction right where I had been earlier that morning! By that time I had moved a little over a mile from the truck so I had another mile to walk back to the truck and then I drove back around to where I had been that morning.
I pulled up to a ridge to see if I could find them and saw them about 1/2 mile away down in the bottom. I backed the truck up out of sight and headed off on foot to see if I could cut them off. I walked about a mile around some hills and they were right where I had seen them last. They were bedding down. I belly crawled to the top of the hill attempting to avoid as many catcus as possible and got a good return on my range finder and they were 385 yards away. The wind was blowing pretty hard and I didn't feel confident in that long of a shot so I backed out and walked another 1/2 mile or so around some hills to get a little bit closer. Again I belly crawled the last 20 yards or so and this time I was much closer. I couldn't tell how close I was though because with them laying down and the flat ground and with me laying down I couldn't get a return on my range finder. I also couldn't use my bi-pod because the sage brush was too tall so I couldn't use it. There were 3 bucks in the group of about 20 antelope and I spent a while looking through my binoculars to pick out the largest one. They were all still laying down except for 2 does that were about 50 yards away from the rest of the herd. They had seen the top of my head and were trying to figure out what I was. I knew I didn't have much more time before they got spooked so I just sat up in the sage brush and when the buck I had picked out stood up I took dead aim and squeezed the trigger. I ended up shooting from the cross legged sitting position and hit about 5" forward of where I was aiming, hitting it right at the front of the shoulder at the base of the neck. It dropped like a rock. I calculated the yardage the old fashioned way by stepping it off and it was 220 steps from the spot were I had taken the shot.
Here's a picture of the antelope. I was very happy with the way the picture turned out.
The antelope ended up measuring 13 1/2" from the base to the tip of each horn but it had some decent mass and decent cutters and was a nice looking animal. I was very happy with it as there were a few times during the day where I was really wondering if I would be able to get an antelope or not. It had been 20 years or more since the last time I had been antelope hunting so just finding them on public land was a success.
Step 1 on my combination hunt was a resounding success!
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