I awoke that first morning already two miles from camp. It was reminiscent of my first years whitetail hunting in the east. You never really sleep well the night before the season opener, this was no exception. Justin had already been up eating breakfast and packing up camp for about 20 minutes before I rolled out of my sleeping bag. I made a rookie mistake of leaving my clothes at the head of my sleeping bag the night before. Realizing the error of my ways, and not having spare clothes in my pack, I had to put on dew soaked pants to start the first day off. By the time breakfast was down and our backpacks were packed the sun was just beginning to breach the horizon. We had discussed a plan. We were going to head north, farther into the public land. The ridge we were on would take us 2 miles north, we could cross to another ridge and go another 2 miles to what seemed to be a nice sized pond.

We glassed for a few minutes from the ridge-top that we were on and hadn’t spotted any game. We decided to saddle up our packs for our hike north. Just before Justin put his pack on he spotted an Antelope to the south of us. We both go down low and pulled our binos out. It was a buck, he was across the canyon coming over a ridge-top opposite of us. I asked Justin to range him “538 yards, no way you’re shooting that far” he said. We had made a deal the night before, I got the first shot on an Antelope, Justin got first shooting rights on A mule deer. Trying to gauge an Antelopes size at nearly 550 yards and having very limited experience with these animals (our one day of scouting) had me nervous to even pursue this particular buck on the first day. Justin was sure he was a decent buck and started crawling to the next closest hill between us and the buck. I followed behind, with the top of my pack removed to use as a rest, and my rifle. We got to a good area where we were hidden and I had a steady rest. Justin ranged him again, 410 yards. “What do you want to do” he said. “I don’t know, it’s only 7:30 on the first morning and I don’t even know if hes a decent buck” I said back.

After some thought and conversation back and forth, I adjusted my Leupold 4-12×40 to max power, set the CDS dial to 400 yards and looked through the scope at the buck. He did look nice, compared to what we had seen the day before. As I was looking at him, I realized this was as steady of a rest I could get without sitting my gun in a bench vice. My crosshairs were solid, very little to no movement. To me, it was now or never. Looking through the scope, I clicked the safety off, let out a “ready”, and pulled the trigger. The animal dropped instantly. I looked at Justin, he looked at me, both sort of in shock. It was like our own hunting show (minus the camera crew) we had a momentary celebration, watching the animal to make sure he didn’t get back up and run away. I ran back to where we had camped to grab my pack while Justin headed down the hill. We hiked over to the downed animal.

I ended up being about 4 inches to the left of the Antelope sweet spot, where the white fur and brown fur meet on the corner of the shoulder. This put the bullet at the base of the neck, killing the buck instantly. We took some pictures with the buck before getting to the quartering of the animal. Justin asked if I had it from here, since their was still almost an entire day left to hunt and quartering an antelope is really a one man job, I told him I had it. He set off down the hill, back to his pack and to continue on the day. When we was about halfway down the hill, we heard shots ring out, 5 in a row. We weren’t sure how many guys were hunting this public land or where any of our guys even set out to hunt. They sounded close though, so I was excited to see if it was any of our guys.

I had watched plenty of “gutless” method tutorials online prior to heading out west. Being a primarily whitetail hunter, all I have ever done was a field dress gut job, then a drag to the truck or four wheeler before getting it back to a garage or barn to skin and quarter the deer down. So this was a new experience in and of itself, and I was running solo, so no one would know if I made any mistakes. One thing I noticed immediately with the antelope is that they have thick course hair that just falls out everywhere. It was very difficult to keep the meat clean and get it into bags. It was hot that day (high 70s) so I was concerned with getting the meat back to camp and getting it cooled off in the freezer. All in all it took me about 45 minutes to get everything out and packed up. My pack weight about 90 lbs with all my sleeping gear and meat shelf full. I headed down the hill to the cattle pasture to start back to camp. As I got to the pasture I heard a shot, it came from the direction that Justin was headed to when he left me. I had to wait until I got to camp to get cell service to see if it was him.

About a mile from camp I spotted two orange hats leaned over something on the ground. I assumed it was two other hunters, the ones that shot earlier, quartering out their harvest. As I got closer I realized it was Todd and Matt. Matt had shot a 3pt mule deer. They had jumped a bachelor group of bucks. Three of them about 3 miles north of camp, the deer headed south. They trailed them and jumped them another time. The third time they caught up to them they decided they would do a 1,2,3 count so they could both have a chance at shooting something. Todd was the counter. They spotted the deer and they were sitting still, probably curious as to why they were being followed. Todd started the count 1…..2……. he couldn’t get the deer in his scope. Matt was holding on the deer he was going to shoot. Matt knew if they waited any longer their opportunity would be lost. He pulled the trigger hitting his dead on. Todd, trying to play catch up took a few shots at the other larger buck, but it was too late the other two were gone.

I had sat down with them while they finished quartering out Matt’s deer and packing the meat away. We hiked back the cattle pasture and up the steep trail to get to camp. I had a stream of text and picture messages from Justin when we returned. He downed a really nice 3pt mule deer buck shortly after leaving me. He was only 500 yards from where we had camped, he sat down to glass when a bachelor group of 3 bucks ran 50 yards in front of him. He pulled his rifle up and had only a split second to shoot before they were down the other side of the ridge from him and out of sight. He took the shot, hitting the buck at the base of the neck, dropping him instantly. He returned back to the campsite to get his pack, when he got back to his buck a coyote was already there circling the dead animal. He attempted to get it in his scope, but the coyote was too quick and took off.

Beat from the hike, I put the meat away in the freezer and told Justin I’d be out to help him pack. I laid down on the back of the trailer drop down door to rest for a few minutes. John woke me up, I had been asleep for over an hour. Realizing I left Justin out there on his own to pack his deer back by himself I jumped up grabbed my pack and headed down the ridge, only to spot Justin about a half a mile away carrying two meat bags and no pack. I raced down to him, he was pouring sweat and soaked. He told me he dropped his pack a little ways back and just grabbed to meat bags. We loaded his meat into my pack and went back for the rest of the meat. The first day was a success in our book.