So I’ve debated even writing this but decided to hoping you may find it a good read and maybe put a tactic or two in the back of your mind in case you may need it someday. I’m just warning you, some of you are going to freak out as you read this. I would too if it didn’t happen to me. If you don't know me very well then keep in mind I'm using a lot of sarcasm when referring to McJudgypants.
So I’d spent about 11 days hunting antelope here in Idaho. I’d sat water for most of them. I had little to NO antelope coming in, maybe one or two every other day. I’d missed an opportunity at a bigger buck due to a sage grouse I didn’t know was there flying up while I was drawing my bow induced scare the crap out of me spastic seizure… Fun times. I had burned through most of my available reading material during this time. I had 2 days left to hunt and at this point my dreams of holding out for Mr. Bigger than the one my wife shot had dwindled to just get some Antelope in the freezer. I watched as a doe with 2 fawns moved into range. I held back. A small, slick horned buck came into range. I drew, settled into my hold, drew a breathe, and released. It felt good right up until I felt my bow buck oddly in my hand. I saw a small chunk of sagebrush fall in front of me as I heard a loud “CRACK” and saw my arrow bounce skyward. What the heck just happened? I was sure I hit that Antelope from the sound. I saw him kind of limp/run off over the little hill. I looked in front of me and there plain as day was I a cut off chunk of sage sticking up in front of where I shot. I screwed up. I messed up. I own it. I made a rookie mistake and didn’t make sure my arrow would clear when my sights were clear. Well… Shit… Ok now what? Let’s go up and assess the trail and figure out what happened to the Antelope and go from there. I waited 5 minutes to let the world settle down and went to take a look.
Blood every 4 inches or so… WHOO HOO! Good blood is almost always a good sign. I headed over the hill trailing blood sure to find an antelope piled up on the other side. I crested the hill to find nothing. About 30 antelope grazing around 150 yards from me but none on the ground. The sage and grass are literately ankle deep on this side of the hill so unless I’ve pissed off David Copperfield something is seriously wrong here. Alright. He’s got to be in that group somewhere. I sat down and started looking over every one carefully. After about 12 minutes I saw him. Slick horns and a limp. Ok. Now get a good look and see what happened before you make a move. I could see blood on his right leg. And worst off all his right front knee is bending the wrong way. I’d hit him in the leg and severed the joint. Alright I need a plan for this.
Usual options for wounded critters. 1. Let him bed up and try to make a stalk. 2. Come back tomorrow and trail him down hoping he died. The problem being he may clot up from this injury and move, giving me no way of finding him. 3. Panic. I'm great at panic. But it's not going to help here.
Well I decided to go with option 1. He bedded about 1000 yards from where I shot him. Sweet. I started my stalk which really was more of crawling on the ground on my belly trying to get close. I made it all of 200 yards and he stood up again. Well…. This isn’t going to work. There is NO cover to hide behind and he is alert as ever and won't calm down.
Time to stop and think of another option. Bust out the water and graham crackers and think for a minute. I can’t get close. Giving up isn’t an option. But he is bleeding. If he stops I’ll never track him down. I hate what I have to do now. I don’t encourage this action except under certain circumstances. Those being, He can’t hide because it’s almost 100 square miles of ankle high foliage so I can keep him in sight at all times. He’s bleeding but will clot up if he stops for to long. This wound is fatal but not today, tomorrow, or even the next day. It’s going to be a while for him to die if I don’t kill him and odds are I’ll never find him. I have to push him so he’ll keep bleeding. Oh wow… I just felt some Judgy McJudgerpants rolls his eyes and shake his head in disapproval. “The book says never chase a wounded animal”. Well, Mr McJudgypants. There are exceptions to every rule. Sometimes you have to deviate from the norm to make things right. This is quickly turning into one of those situations. But once you start, you're committed until you've seen it through.
So I went to it. I started after him. He jumped and ran. I kept chasing. He ran. I chased. He ran. I chased. He ran, slowed and bedded. I chased. He stood up and ran, slowed, and bedded. This continued for hours. I was slowly gaining ground on him. He kept getting up and moving but the distance he could go lessened every time. Every bed I crossed had blood and blood clots in it. But after he got up he’d bleed and bed again. I started gaining ground on him faster than he could gain ground on me. On and on. Eventually I was 30 yards from a winded shocky Antelope. THWACK! One arrow to the chest when he stood and it was over. He walked 5 feet and tipped over.
Now what. You’ve got a wounded, run, hot antelope and you’re miles from the truck. Well, Common knowledge says cut him up and cool the pieces AS FAST AS YOU CAN or you won’t even be able to stick a fork in the gravy because it’s so tough. If you think that’s what I did you’re in for a shock. Yet again I’m going to deviate from the norm. He ran and he’s stressed. He’s full of amino acids that make meat tough and taste yucky. So I need to let rigor come and go before I cut him up. This means the acids and other things have broken down. I learned this from a butcher. I need to cool him as one big piece of meat instead of 100 small pieces. And it’s going to take some work to make it happen. I gutted him but left the hide on and carcass whole except glands. (I think McJudgypants just had a heart attack…) I layed him open to cool. Cut just down to the bone on the inside of the legs and the back of the neck. Then I wet the hide down with icewater. (I always freeze at least 4 water bottles the night before and put them in my pack so I have cool water to drink.) Then put what was left of the ice inside by the bone at the joints. I pulled up some sagebrush and covered him so he’s now in shade. He’s cooling in one piece and will be fine if I hurry. I actually do a lot of this with every animal I can but I’m going to extremes with this one and doing everything I can think of to cool him in one piece.
I hurried to the truck. Drove as close on the dirt road in the desert and carried him over the 1/4 mile. I felt chilled bone in his hip sockets and shoulders when I got to him. I laid him at the back of my truck and drained most of my 100 QT coolers water on him washing and cooling him. But not to fast. I folded my rear sear up, layed a tarp down, and loaded him in the back of the cab of my pickup and cranked the A.C. to Arctic. I then put what ice was in my cooler inside him by the bone. He was chilled nicely in one piece about an hour and a half after death. Both rump and shoulders where cool to the touch. I went back to my Camper and hooked on and headed for home. When I got there I hung him up and put a fan on him to dry him off so no mold will grow. I kept him cool at about 40 degrees rotating ice packets and fan and waited until the stiffness went away in about 2 days and cut him up.
The result? Glad you asked! Because I did all this he should be ruined and even the dog won’t eat it right!? My wife says it’s great antelope and in fact cooked more up last night. While he’s not a big scoring goat by any means I ended up with 58 Lbs of tasty tender meat. Yeah he was tubby and yes I weighed it twice to make sure. The thing is I feel like I did the right things after screwing up big time. So even though he’s just a little guy I Euro mounted the head as a reminder that sometimes we need to do things different than the book to end up with the right ending. I’ll send McJudgy a packet of meat for making fun of him. And he is right, it's best not give chase and to cut meat quickly but sometimes you have to think outside the box and do things differently when things go south on you.
So I’d spent about 11 days hunting antelope here in Idaho. I’d sat water for most of them. I had little to NO antelope coming in, maybe one or two every other day. I’d missed an opportunity at a bigger buck due to a sage grouse I didn’t know was there flying up while I was drawing my bow induced scare the crap out of me spastic seizure… Fun times. I had burned through most of my available reading material during this time. I had 2 days left to hunt and at this point my dreams of holding out for Mr. Bigger than the one my wife shot had dwindled to just get some Antelope in the freezer. I watched as a doe with 2 fawns moved into range. I held back. A small, slick horned buck came into range. I drew, settled into my hold, drew a breathe, and released. It felt good right up until I felt my bow buck oddly in my hand. I saw a small chunk of sagebrush fall in front of me as I heard a loud “CRACK” and saw my arrow bounce skyward. What the heck just happened? I was sure I hit that Antelope from the sound. I saw him kind of limp/run off over the little hill. I looked in front of me and there plain as day was I a cut off chunk of sage sticking up in front of where I shot. I screwed up. I messed up. I own it. I made a rookie mistake and didn’t make sure my arrow would clear when my sights were clear. Well… Shit… Ok now what? Let’s go up and assess the trail and figure out what happened to the Antelope and go from there. I waited 5 minutes to let the world settle down and went to take a look.
Blood every 4 inches or so… WHOO HOO! Good blood is almost always a good sign. I headed over the hill trailing blood sure to find an antelope piled up on the other side. I crested the hill to find nothing. About 30 antelope grazing around 150 yards from me but none on the ground. The sage and grass are literately ankle deep on this side of the hill so unless I’ve pissed off David Copperfield something is seriously wrong here. Alright. He’s got to be in that group somewhere. I sat down and started looking over every one carefully. After about 12 minutes I saw him. Slick horns and a limp. Ok. Now get a good look and see what happened before you make a move. I could see blood on his right leg. And worst off all his right front knee is bending the wrong way. I’d hit him in the leg and severed the joint. Alright I need a plan for this.
Usual options for wounded critters. 1. Let him bed up and try to make a stalk. 2. Come back tomorrow and trail him down hoping he died. The problem being he may clot up from this injury and move, giving me no way of finding him. 3. Panic. I'm great at panic. But it's not going to help here.
Well I decided to go with option 1. He bedded about 1000 yards from where I shot him. Sweet. I started my stalk which really was more of crawling on the ground on my belly trying to get close. I made it all of 200 yards and he stood up again. Well…. This isn’t going to work. There is NO cover to hide behind and he is alert as ever and won't calm down.
Time to stop and think of another option. Bust out the water and graham crackers and think for a minute. I can’t get close. Giving up isn’t an option. But he is bleeding. If he stops I’ll never track him down. I hate what I have to do now. I don’t encourage this action except under certain circumstances. Those being, He can’t hide because it’s almost 100 square miles of ankle high foliage so I can keep him in sight at all times. He’s bleeding but will clot up if he stops for to long. This wound is fatal but not today, tomorrow, or even the next day. It’s going to be a while for him to die if I don’t kill him and odds are I’ll never find him. I have to push him so he’ll keep bleeding. Oh wow… I just felt some Judgy McJudgerpants rolls his eyes and shake his head in disapproval. “The book says never chase a wounded animal”. Well, Mr McJudgypants. There are exceptions to every rule. Sometimes you have to deviate from the norm to make things right. This is quickly turning into one of those situations. But once you start, you're committed until you've seen it through.
So I went to it. I started after him. He jumped and ran. I kept chasing. He ran. I chased. He ran. I chased. He ran, slowed and bedded. I chased. He stood up and ran, slowed, and bedded. This continued for hours. I was slowly gaining ground on him. He kept getting up and moving but the distance he could go lessened every time. Every bed I crossed had blood and blood clots in it. But after he got up he’d bleed and bed again. I started gaining ground on him faster than he could gain ground on me. On and on. Eventually I was 30 yards from a winded shocky Antelope. THWACK! One arrow to the chest when he stood and it was over. He walked 5 feet and tipped over.
Now what. You’ve got a wounded, run, hot antelope and you’re miles from the truck. Well, Common knowledge says cut him up and cool the pieces AS FAST AS YOU CAN or you won’t even be able to stick a fork in the gravy because it’s so tough. If you think that’s what I did you’re in for a shock. Yet again I’m going to deviate from the norm. He ran and he’s stressed. He’s full of amino acids that make meat tough and taste yucky. So I need to let rigor come and go before I cut him up. This means the acids and other things have broken down. I learned this from a butcher. I need to cool him as one big piece of meat instead of 100 small pieces. And it’s going to take some work to make it happen. I gutted him but left the hide on and carcass whole except glands. (I think McJudgypants just had a heart attack…) I layed him open to cool. Cut just down to the bone on the inside of the legs and the back of the neck. Then I wet the hide down with icewater. (I always freeze at least 4 water bottles the night before and put them in my pack so I have cool water to drink.) Then put what was left of the ice inside by the bone at the joints. I pulled up some sagebrush and covered him so he’s now in shade. He’s cooling in one piece and will be fine if I hurry. I actually do a lot of this with every animal I can but I’m going to extremes with this one and doing everything I can think of to cool him in one piece.
I hurried to the truck. Drove as close on the dirt road in the desert and carried him over the 1/4 mile. I felt chilled bone in his hip sockets and shoulders when I got to him. I laid him at the back of my truck and drained most of my 100 QT coolers water on him washing and cooling him. But not to fast. I folded my rear sear up, layed a tarp down, and loaded him in the back of the cab of my pickup and cranked the A.C. to Arctic. I then put what ice was in my cooler inside him by the bone. He was chilled nicely in one piece about an hour and a half after death. Both rump and shoulders where cool to the touch. I went back to my Camper and hooked on and headed for home. When I got there I hung him up and put a fan on him to dry him off so no mold will grow. I kept him cool at about 40 degrees rotating ice packets and fan and waited until the stiffness went away in about 2 days and cut him up.
The result? Glad you asked! Because I did all this he should be ruined and even the dog won’t eat it right!? My wife says it’s great antelope and in fact cooked more up last night. While he’s not a big scoring goat by any means I ended up with 58 Lbs of tasty tender meat. Yeah he was tubby and yes I weighed it twice to make sure. The thing is I feel like I did the right things after screwing up big time. So even though he’s just a little guy I Euro mounted the head as a reminder that sometimes we need to do things different than the book to end up with the right ending. I’ll send McJudgy a packet of meat for making fun of him. And he is right, it's best not give chase and to cut meat quickly but sometimes you have to think outside the box and do things differently when things go south on you.
Last edited:
