Antelope season--first day--with more to follow

[Colorado Redneck]

Finally drew a buck tag---needed 7 points in my unit. Grey cool windy day, with lots of humidity. Saw as many hunters as there were speed goats. After lots of glassing, three failed "spot and stalks" it was time for this old man to head for home and a nap. Try again on Tuesday.

Best chance that presented today I was slowly driving a county road looking over some private land I can hunt, when I came up a hill and around a curve and there were three goats looking at me from 75 yards. One was a nice little buck---not big but nice. That was the last thing I expected, as all of the critters prior to that would bolt at the sight of a vehicle. So stop the truck, pull the keys, turn on the flashers, get the gun, slowly open the door and walk off the road right-of-way a few yards. They stood there and watched me! Got a round in the chamber and they bolted---off hand shots at running animals is not my forte so they got away. Dang! The lay of the land didn't provide a chance to shoot prone---they were down across a draw and the grass and brush was too high to even see them.

Tried sneaking in on three different groups, but they always made me and never gave a good chance. Crawling and slithering around in the grass and brush is not as easy as it used to be.
Any day hunting is a great day.

 

[kraigwy]

One hour after shooting legal shooting light, opening day 637 yards, slung prong, (laying in cactus of course). Nothing spectacular, but had to get it over with so I can get ready a long range precision match on the 10th and elk on the 15th. Busy time of year.

I do have to rethink my goat gun. My 270 Win with Horn. 150 IB is great for elk but a bit over kill on antelope. Guess its time to dig out my 257 Roberts.

 

[Colorado Redneck]

Nice work! Is your .257 the AI version? .257 is a great round, evidently. The issue with .257 bullets is the BC is not the best. The .277 IB has a great BC making them good for longer range work.

Not being highly skilled at long range stuff, I need to learn how to sneak around better, or get luckier at finding the naïve bucks. The crews that were out in force over the weekend might be out of the area, so I will try again. And again. This is like having a 5 day pass at a carnival.

 

[kraigwy]

Wife got her goat today so our antelope season is over.

My 257 is a the standard Roberts, not AI. Its in a Model 70 Featherweight with a 24 in barrel.

I use the Berger 115 gr. VLD Hunting bullet, with a BC G7-.239/G1-.466 that comes out of the barrel at a modest 2800 FPS.

It stays super sonic to just past 1300 yards. How ever, Berger tells me to get their round to work as intended the remaining velocity needs to be about 1800 which means I would have to limit my game shooting to about 700 yards.

As too long range shooting I use the G7 BR2 Range finder. You input your rifle/bullet info in the G7's program, and up to 1400 yards it will give you the adjustments needed. It automatically computes for temp. altitude, humidity and angles.

I found it to be quite accurate.

 

[Colorado Redneck]

Got really lucky today. Found a nice buck bedded in tall grass, and had a good way to approach him. Got to within about 100 yards and he spotted me and stood up facing squarely at me. Shot him off hand in the neck (really lucky!) So that does it for goat season for me. Going to have a guy do a European Skull Mount for me. I am not a pro at scoring, but went to the B & C web page and scored him as good as I could--came up with a score of 77.

Kraig--I shoot prairie dogs out to about 400 yards with fairly mundane optics. I do use a range finder but many times cant because of the grass and the lay of the land. So Kentucky Windage and Hold Over are my tools. I really envy you shooters that have the higher end equipment and the skill to use it, but am not that committed to long range stuff.