When the fall of 2008 rolled around, I was headed out to the Northeast of Wyoming in search of antelope and mule deer.
"Camp" this year was some comfortable rooms, all attached with the dining room and lounge in the same building.
First day, while we found hundreds of antelope, we were concentrated on mule deer. We found several smaller bucks. I made a stalk on this one to see how close we could get. Realize, of course, that he wasn’t quire as close as he looks; I had a telephoto lens on my camera.
Next day, we spotted four bucks making their way across a series of canyons. We quickly moved ahead of them and got set up in an ambush. The large buck didn't show up so we spent the rest of the morning looking for him.
Much later, we found him bedded down under a rock outcropping. This photo was taken through an 8X telephoto lens, but he is still barely visible.
Through the spotting scope, he looked like a keeper.
We worked our way through the bottoms of the canyons and dry washes until we were able to get within 100 yards of where he was bedded down. And, the rest is history.
Antelope
After that, I turned my attention to antelope. As you can see in this picture, they were everywhere, but we needed to find "the one."
Judging antelope takes both time and patience, as well as a high quality spotting scope.
Once we finally found our buck, we moved around to get ahead of the herd.
As they crossed in front of us, I used the hood of the truck for a rest and took my antelope at 242 yards.
My shot ruined the antelope cape, so I did not get a shoulder mount. Instead, I cleaned and bleached the skulls of both the mule deer and the antelope, and made European mounts out of them.
A nice 14 1/2 inch antelope with the added character of a split horn, which he received during a fight we had seen earlier in the day.
Although he doesn’t have a great mass, my mule deer was a nice 4X4 with small eye guards and a 28 inch spread.
