- Details
- Category: Antelope
- Published: Thursday, 17 August 2017 17:55
- Written by Greg
Devoured
Sitting in a ground blind from just before sunup to just after sundown is grueling. And during that stint we experienced a variety of weather conditions ranging from a moderately cool morning where our coats were a nicety, to a hot mid-day heat wave where our single short sleeved shirt caused us to feel over dressed. Then the afternoon thunderstorm hit where we had hail an inch (and smaller) in diameter followed by two hours of cold rain. However, there wasn’t a shortage of antelope visiting our public land waterhole in central Wyoming, so that definitely helped pass the time.
Rain quit a couple hours earlier, stretching legs Lots of hail made it inside our blind
While most of the antelope were does, fawns and small bucks, we did have a couple of shooter bucks visit. On one particular occasion, we spotted this unique crooked horned buck heading our way from 300 yards out. With plenty of time to get situated for a shot, all we needed was to have the buck commit. And commit he did. At 35 yards the buck had arrived at the waterhole and dropped his to drink. Abruptly his head jerked to attention as he nervously took a glance to double check his surroundings, all clear. Confidently the buck lowered his head again to drink. At this point I remember feeling overly confident and thought this was a done deal. I drew my bow and settled my sight pin right behind his shoulder and let an arrow fly. Much to my surprise my arrow hit directly below him and stuck right into the dirt bank about mid-body. Perplexed, I sat and scratched my head as I watch the buck run off. Clearly the 35 yard shot wasn’t a gimme after all. It took hours before I realized what had happened…as seen in the pic my arrow had actually sliced my ground blind window and had deflected off course.
My next opportunity wouldn’t come until the next day. After spending half the day in the ground blind with very few visitors, we decided to change it up and try the spot and stalk method. We hopped out of our ground blind, took a look around and didn’t see any antelope in sight and began to leave. We hadn’t gone 30 feet when to the east a doe antelope popped up over a small rise 100 yards away. Frozen we stood until the antelope looked away, then we scrambled back to the cover of our ground blind. The antelope continued toward us so all we could do was to duck behind our zipped-up blind. Soon more antelope followed. As I peered out from behind the blind guess who popped up over the embankment and headed down to the waterhole…yep, ol’ crooked horn. Unfortunately my snap decision to draw my bow and slip out from behind the blind for a shot was flawed since several antelope noticed the movement and all scurried off to the top of the dike. Without hesitation I estimated their distance to be 55 yards and flung an arrow. Unfortunately my estimation was off as I hit low and the antelope took off in a cloud of dust.
A few antelope that popped up over dike Comfortably drinking, buck a little too young
It took us a couple of hours but we finally spotted the buck bedded about a mile from the waterhole. The buck was positioned just down from the top of a sage covered hill, providing a perfect stalk opportunity. It wasn’t long before we were an undetected 90 yards from the bedded buck. Crouched low to the ground we slowly continued our assault until we were positioned 50 yards from the crooked horned buck. As I peered through the sage brush my eyes met the stare of the now alert buck. I figured I didn’t have long until the buck bolted, so I decided to slowly stand and hoped the buck’s curiosity would work to my advantage…it did. The buck curiously gave me the once-over and apparently didn’t feel threatened because the standoff continued for at least 5 minutes. Finally the buck had had enough and began to stand…slowly I drew my bow. With my 50 yard pin settled behind the bucks shoulder, I squeezed the trigger and watched my arrow hit its mark. The buck ran off 150 yards and stopped but didn’t tip over as expected. Instead he slowly bedded down. Based on the situation we waited over an hour before cautiously approaching, but that wasn’t long enough. Still over 60 yards away, the antelope suddenly stood and start walking directly away. Obviously my shot had somehow missed his vitals.
We watched as the buck walked 300 yards to the east and bedded down. It was getting late in the day, so we set up our spotting scope and watched the buck until it was too dark to see. At last light the buck was still bedded and looking across the prairie for approaching danger, so our plan was to go after him first thing in the morning. At first light we were up and heading for the spot where we had last seen the buck; marked by a single green piece of greasewood amongst the sage. Just as the first sunrays fell across the plains, I noticed something out of place about 15 feet from where we had last seen the bedded buck. We were only 100 yards away from the greasewood bush, but for the life of me I couldn’t determine what I was seeing. As we finally arrived my jaw about hit the ground. There, shredded, was what remained of my antelope. It turns out that the object I couldn’t identify from afar was the odd colored rib cage juxtaposed against the vast expanse of bluish gray sage brush. The coyotes had completely devoured the antelope overnight, all within 10 hours of last seeing it alive, unbelievable.
