Man, what a blast, this is turning in to by far my favorite hunt of the year.
My annual pilgrimage East started with me picking up my brother last Tuesday, and making the eight hour drive to Wyoming to check out one of the leftover units. We pulled in late that night and threw together camp in the dark.
I did as much research as I could leading up to the hunt, and decided on starting out on a piece of BLM that was a real hassle to get in to. It was two miles in across a 1/8 mile strip of public that ran straight across a bunch of deep-cut breaks. My thinking was it'd be our best bet at getting in to antelope that hadn't been pressured yet, as the season had been running for a week.
Just as if you had scripted it, when we got to the edge of the narrow strip to where the BLM opened up, there was a herd feeding.
We got to watch the herd from a distance for a half hour or so, and with not knowing what the rest of unit held for bucks it was a pretty easy decision to try and kill the biggest in this herd. The stalk worked out perfect, and I put down the buck at fifty yards while my brother tipped over a big old doe.
We turned them in to meat, packed back to camp and indulged.
I don't think I could have ever even imagined a hunt working as well as this did considering never being in the unit. Found a perfect camping spot in the dark, walked straight to the antelope, and after looking around the rest of the unit, it looks like mine was about as big as could be expected. Tons of antelope, but all 10-12 inchers with little mass or prongs.
Now that we were tagged out early, we headed of to our spot in MT to meet up with Dad and kill time until Saturday. We found a herd with a couple really outstanding bucks in it, and decided to sit on them until the opener. Kind of fun just hanging out and enjoying country you don't get to see very often.
While waiting around I decided I'd find out if turkey meat is worth anything.
Sunrise on opening day found me in position to hopefully get on the big herd we'd been watching, with the handful of really good bucks in it. They were no where to be found, and I got a little excited when a herd of does brought this buck straight in to me. For the fourth year in a row I had filled my MT tag within the first couple hours of the hunt. I have a hard time laying off decent bucks like this waiting for Mr. Big.
We never got back on the antelope Saturday, but the next morning when we got up a bunch of small groups had gotten pushed back into our area. Dad's not too picky and when this cool old buck came in range he decided to put an accubond in it's heart at 270 yards. He definitely got bragging rights on best shot of the trip.
I can't imagine being able to stuff more fun in to one week, and I'm already counting the days down until next year.
My annual pilgrimage East started with me picking up my brother last Tuesday, and making the eight hour drive to Wyoming to check out one of the leftover units. We pulled in late that night and threw together camp in the dark.
I did as much research as I could leading up to the hunt, and decided on starting out on a piece of BLM that was a real hassle to get in to. It was two miles in across a 1/8 mile strip of public that ran straight across a bunch of deep-cut breaks. My thinking was it'd be our best bet at getting in to antelope that hadn't been pressured yet, as the season had been running for a week.
Just as if you had scripted it, when we got to the edge of the narrow strip to where the BLM opened up, there was a herd feeding.
We got to watch the herd from a distance for a half hour or so, and with not knowing what the rest of unit held for bucks it was a pretty easy decision to try and kill the biggest in this herd. The stalk worked out perfect, and I put down the buck at fifty yards while my brother tipped over a big old doe.
We turned them in to meat, packed back to camp and indulged.
I don't think I could have ever even imagined a hunt working as well as this did considering never being in the unit. Found a perfect camping spot in the dark, walked straight to the antelope, and after looking around the rest of the unit, it looks like mine was about as big as could be expected. Tons of antelope, but all 10-12 inchers with little mass or prongs.
Now that we were tagged out early, we headed of to our spot in MT to meet up with Dad and kill time until Saturday. We found a herd with a couple really outstanding bucks in it, and decided to sit on them until the opener. Kind of fun just hanging out and enjoying country you don't get to see very often.
While waiting around I decided I'd find out if turkey meat is worth anything.
Sunrise on opening day found me in position to hopefully get on the big herd we'd been watching, with the handful of really good bucks in it. They were no where to be found, and I got a little excited when a herd of does brought this buck straight in to me. For the fourth year in a row I had filled my MT tag within the first couple hours of the hunt. I have a hard time laying off decent bucks like this waiting for Mr. Big.
We never got back on the antelope Saturday, but the next morning when we got up a bunch of small groups had gotten pushed back into our area. Dad's not too picky and when this cool old buck came in range he decided to put an accubond in it's heart at 270 yards. He definitely got bragging rights on best shot of the trip.
I can't imagine being able to stuff more fun in to one week, and I'm already counting the days down until next year.
