I have been putting in for 5 years in montana and this year I finally drew the antelope tag I had been wanting. I got to great falls Thursday afternoon and headed out to check out some block management lands north of town. I signed in at a few and didn't see anything worth shooting the first day. On Friday morning we headed out to some private land I have permission to hunt on about 50 miles north of town, I have shot several deer on the property in past years but this was my first time antelope hunting on it. We arrived at the property shortly after light and we parked the truck and my dad and I walked up the ridge onto the first wheat field where we had always seen the antelope in past years, sure enough as soon as we created the hill there was a lone buck about 200 yards out and he had us pinned down. He had a bent horn and wasn't a monster by any means but as it turns out it was the goat that I would eventually shoot. After watching him for 20 minutes he finally left and we continued on farther into the farm. We spotted some smaller bucks with does and circled back to where we saw the first buck and there was a different buck in the same spot but he saw the truck and spooked. He was quite a bit bigger than the others so I watched where he went and made a stalk on him. I crested a small hill in the wheat field and spotted him, he was broadside at about 450-500 yards and I underestimated the distance and shot low. I was disgusted and we didn't see any more antelope on the property that day. The next morning we did the same thing sneaking up to the first field but we didn't see any anything, we went back to truck and went farther into the farm and spotted a buck about 800 yards away on the skyline, I figured there was enough terrain that I could sneak within range of him but I was wrong, he busted me at over 500 yards when I had to change my route due to a change in the wind. We spooked and headed west back towards the other side of the property so we took the truck and drove over to where we had seen the bucks the day before once again. I got out there and I figured I would head east and try to see if I could intercept him, I wasn't 30 yards from the truck when I looked up and saw two sets of horns looking at me in a small depression in the wheat field. I quickly hit the deck and considered trying to crawl closer for a shot but I figured they had spotted me and wouldn't hang around to much longer, I ran about 10 yards and took a knee. I saw two bucks, the crooked horn buck from the day before and the one we'd seen that morning, I decided to shoot the crooked horned buck since he was just as big and we hadn't been running him all morning. I shot him at about 200 yards. He is not the biggest goat out there but he is my first one and I couldn't be happier. I sure underestimated how difficult they are to hunt in wheat fields because it is so hard to sneak up on them in this kind of country. All in all it was a fun trip and I can't wait to draw it again.
