Brittany Chukarman
Well-known member
I drew an Oregon antelope tag this year and cleared my schedule prepared to hunt all 7 days of the season. I was loading my truck Thursday when we got a call for a family emergency. Unload the truck and make the 8 hour drive. I returned home Saturday, loaded my truck that night and left early Sunday morning for the hunt. Six hours later I entered my unit. I should have stuck to my original plan to enter the unit from the west but instead came in from the north. I hit the worst washboard road I'd ever encountered, 4" washboards from top to bottom. I couldn't go slow enough or fast enough to smooth it out. Lost a fender on the old 4 wheeler trailer. Coming in that way I also used half of my gas and this was a bad mistake in that big country. After 35 miles of that road I found a good campsite. Started preparing camp and no tent. Had everything else for a week of camping but I didn't load the tent Thursday night. Oh well. make the best of it. I went for a scouting run in the 4 wheeler and saw a few bucks but not many antelope. I think they had been pushed farther east out into an expansive flood plain with some shallow lakes. I realized I didn't have enough gas to get out there more than once and still have enough gas to get out of the unit. Monday the hunt came down to getting a buck that day so I would have gas to get out of the unit. The only antelope out on the flats were a long ways out and unapproachable. I glass on the uphill side and a mile away at the top of a basin a big herd was bedded. I saw this herd the day before and knew there was a nice buck with them, not huge but nice. There was a stand of mountain mahogany around the rim of the basin and would be a good place to shoot from if I didn't blow them out. Long, steep climb and I came out just right, The buck was bedded 30 yards below the 25 does 210 yards away from me. Using the tree branches for a solid rest I shot him the neck right in his bed, He never moved. The does didn't bolt and settled back down. TheyView attachment 114374View attachment 114375View attachment 114376View attachment 114375View attachment 114376 didn't run off until I had walked down the hill 20 yards. In one of the pictures you can see the dead buck laying below the does. The buck was in really good shape, even had some fat on him. Real memorable, pleasing hunt the way it all turned out. I shot him 2 days before my 66th birthday.
