Fella's;

It's Monday AM. The antelope opener was Saturday & my son, son-in-law, and myself went to see what we could do about that. Both boys got doe/fawn tags and I pulled an either sex tag.

We spent Friday evening at the ranch, but did not see any goats on the property. Nonetheless, it was up at 0-dark-thirty, in the frosty pre-dawn to scratch butt, drink coffee, and hatch plans. We spread out and awaited developments. The developments came along in the form of our land lessee, two large semi's with pups, and a lot of noise and activity as the trucks were loaded with hay. Needless to say, the antelope were not drawn to the show.

Therefore, we retired to the house, drank more coffee, and hatched new plans. The new plan involved driving to a state land plot about 18 miles to the east & hunting it. We saw antelope! We saw antelope getting harvested. We saw more antelope, but not on the state land, and we saw lots of other hunters. Lots and lots of other hunters. I also lost a small pocket knife and a walkie-talkie. Losing the knife is not unusual, they fairly leap out of my pockets and go free to the wild at the rate of about one every two months. I have a steady order in at the Big R store & take the good-natured ribbing from the staff in stride. The radio is another story. I don't know what that's gonna cost me yet, but probably not too bad.

So, Saturday night I called a neighbor & asked if we could hunt on his land on Sunday. We also offered to help him pick weeds before we hunted. He has a degree in range management and a "thing" about weeds. Therefore, we were up not-quite-so-stinkin' early on Sunday, and drove down to his place. Then, before we could pick weeds, we had to power-wash the truck. This was to knock off the mud, and any weed seeds in the mud, before we went out on his land. When that was done, away we went to unleash unrestrained violence upon burdock, nefarious knapweed, and wild licorice.

Note to hunters: Cutting burdock will take a knife with an edge you could shave with and turn it into a blunt instrument. In my humble opinion, detacord would be the preferred method of lopping the shit off just above the roots. Grump, bitch, fart.

In any case, about 1:00 PM we were released to go hunt antelope. In our version of plan A, I was to sit on the rocky-top and wait. The boys would go east to a little water course, and beyond that to a low ridge, turn and head south to see what transpired. My son went up the little coulee and the SIL went about a half-mile further east to the low ridge. I walked up to the rocky hilltop & plunked myself down & waited.

About 1:45 I saw seven antelope drop into the watercourse headed south. What I didn't know was whether they were ahead of, or behind, my son. Around 2:15 I saw my SIL headed south just this side of the ridge he was to patrol. I saw him glass in my direction, so stood & waved my arms & then motioned to the south, trying to inform him that there were goats in that direction. He then walked about a half-mile south, always in my sight, and then went to one knee. At this point he's about three-quarters to maybe a mile from me. No sign of my son in the watercourse between us. SIL then gets up and angles down to his right, now headed southwest. I have an excellent view to the south and east and am in good cover among the rocks.

Here they come! About thirty head of antelope come busting out of the watercouse depression south-south-east of me about a thousand yards away and headed in my direction. For those not familiar with the pronghorn antelope, a thousand yards is well within their sight range. There's a mature buck, about five or six juvie bucks, and the rest does. A mature doe leads them, and she's not in a panic, just bein' careful about the SIL. As he moves southwest and west, they continue to ease due north into me.

There's plenty of time to glass the herd on their way in. At about an estimated 200 yards, the mature buck presents himself to me broadside with the head down to graze & head to my right. Bang! - THWOP! As I recover from recoil, he's down. I jack another round in the chamber, glass the downed buck & see no movement. The rest of the herd has departed at high speed to the northeast, and I start walking to the buck. At about twenty yards, he lifts his head, and dies. The bullet went in just behind the right shoulder and hit the spine. There's a gaping hole where six inches of his spine used to be. Why he wasn't dead immediately from the hydraulic shock to the spinal fluid, I'll never know.

I get to him, cut his throat, and tag him. As I'm preparing to field dress him, my SIL walks up to the site and we discuss what to do now. Come to find out, he's already shot his doe, very shortly after he & my son split up. So, he's going to go to the truck, proceed to his kill, load it into the truck and come get me. The does are small enough that loading one by yourself is perfectly possible for a young man.

Two hours go by before the truck shows up, driven by my son. I'm still trying to figure out just what the two of them did with all the time. However, my antelope should be the most tender meat ever because of all the times I hit the carcass driving the flies off it. I even considered trying to boost it onto my shoulders & walking to where the truck was supposed to be. I found out at the age of 64, that's not possible to do without more incentive than I had.

But, done is done, we got both animals into town last night and the meat's being processed now. Antelope makes the best chili, it's very important to get a fresh supply every year possible.

900F