I started off my year by joining a winter indoor 3-d league, since I had not put a serious effort into archery hunting in years. I figured I needed to knock the rust off. I started out archery hunting for antelope. I took my son along who turned 9 in October. He was telling me when we set up camp how dumb antelope are, and how easy they are to get. The next morning after we we on multiple stalks, he said dad I was wrong they are pretty smart. I seen an antelope buck up in the juniper’s and figured that may work out for a good stalk. I also had a decoy to try out for the first time. I was able to get into 100 yards and was using a juniper to stay out of the bucks sight. Unfortunately he fed a little faster than anticipated and saw us moving mostly abducted by the juniper tree. I decided to set the decoy up and see what happens. The buck ram over the ridge then circled back to us. He actually came into bow range and peaked over the ridge, I just couldn’t see the kill zone.
The next stalk my son and I clawed into bow range of a herd of antelope with a nice buck in it. I was hurrying the stalk a bit because I was supposed to meet my wife at a set time, and realistically I did not have time for this stalk, she was going to take our son to his soccer game. When I ranged the buck, I just was not confident I was getting an accurate read. (Crawling in and staying low enough not to be seen, then lifting up just high enough to range, often caused you to get an inaccurate read bouncing off of something in front or behind the antelope) so I did not take a shot. When they ran off, I stood up and ranged where they were standing, my earlier read was correct. So I went and dropped my son off with my with and went back out hunting. When I got back to my spot I could see the buck with some does that I had last stalked bedded in the open. Even though this was an extremely low percentage stalk as I had no cover, I tried it anyway. Soon I was at 100, then 80, 70, then I ranged him at 60 yards and knocked an arrow. I was able to get to 52 yards before he’d stood up. I had just ranged him so I was confident in the yardage. I drew back and settled in, and touched off the release. The arrow looked good and I could here the familiar drum sound hit. The the buck ran about 30 yards and went down. I was really jacked as this was my first antelope with a bow. The only down side was this was the first stalk without my son with me.
