Well, not an intentional tease... maybe just a little.
I had a ringside seat for an excellent stalk. The buck had been spotted at a distance moving toward a line of willows.
Our stalker moved quickly into position as the doe the buck was following moved past. In my mind it was all over but the shoutin.
The buck, a nice 14 incher, moved slowly forward. As I watched through the 30 power spotting scope, the distance between shooter and antelope was compressed... as it usually will be.
Vance and I thought that any moment a chartreuse fletched shaft would arc across the short space and end the hunt almost before it had begun.
We waited and waited, but no yellow streak came and no startled reaction to a shot from the buck.
At last the buck turned to face our hunter and we figured the jig was up... and in fact it was.
In time we'd meet our nimrod and get the whole story.
What had seemed like a slam dunk close shot of 10 or 15 yards through the scope was in fact more like 30 for the shooter.
The wind, which was all wrong, was blowing the willow cover almost flat. Gusting hard from hunter to quarry. It's a good thing that antelope don't depend on their noses like a whitetail... though in that wind it would have been tough for even a wiley old whitetail buck to sort things out.
So in the end we had a stand off with the buck. Heavy, gusty winds, coupled with a quartering on angle and long shot distance made for a no win situation and our hunter wisely passed on the shot.
A late evening ride showed us more antelope... duh and as we got back up in the mountains, we saw our first moose of the trip... a paddle horn bull.
We closed out the evening at the lodge with a cold Tecate and a few heated hunting stories.
Topic: The Way West...a bowhunting journey. (Read 67185 times)
