Nevada Antelope and other Critters HAC

dillon

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I finally drew a tag in Nevada! Okay, I have lived in Nevada for less than three years. I went into the Nevada draws with two bonus points for buck deer and buck antelope, and one point for antlerless elk, antlered elk, and bighorn sheep.

With only "2" points I drew a 132-134, 245 any weapon buck antelope tag! I am super excited!

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I have never killed an antelope so this is going to be a great adventure. My wife and three kids age 4 and younger will be my guides. I have a lot of work ahead of me to make this a successful hunt because I have never been on any of these units. I put this hunt as my 1st choice because it is one of the closest areas to my family in southern Utah and according to NDOW it was one of the hardest hunts to draw for buck antelope in 2014. I originally thought I drew my 5th choice for archery antelope on these units.

I have 160 hours of annual leave on the books right now so I am going to be able to take off the entire hunt.

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I only have one tag in my pocket after striking out in Utah. That said, this is my first tag since 2012 so I am going to make the best of this opportunity.

I will try to keep my post on this site interesting. You can also follow my hunting adventures on my hunting blog at www.dillonhoyt.com under the 2015 Season tab.

This is going to be a great season!

Dillon Hoyt
 
Rough Start in 2015

Rough Start in 2015:

I had my appendix removed on December 30th, came home on the 31st, got really sick, and went back to the hospital on January 3rd. The doctors determined that I bled internally after surgery and for some reason the space between my heart and lungs filled with 5 liters of bloody fluid. I had a second surgery on January 11th where the doctor cleaned the blood out of my stomach and collapsed my lung so they could drain out the bloody fluids. I was discharged from the hospital on the 15th.

I returned to work on January 28th, but I was pretty worthless until mid-March. Five months later I have gained back the 20 pounds that I lost and I am starting to feel healthy again.

I had a lot of time to over think my hunting applications.

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My 2015 hunting applications

I don't know about the rest of you but I spend copious amounts of time looking at draw odds, harvest statistics, and whatever other information I can find. I have a tendency of making fancy spreadsheets to track my research and my hunt choices. Each application tends to change right up to the point where I submit payment and move on to the next state.

I went into the 2015 draws with points in Utah, Colorado and Nevada. I elected to buy my 5th preference point for deer in Colorado because I am doing graduate school online and my oldest brother is building his new house this year. Maybe in 2016 we can get our schedules in order and slip away to Colorado.

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Utah:

? Mountain Goat (11 bonus points)

? Limited Entry Elk (13 bonus points)

? Limited Entry Deer (2 bonus points)

? Bull Moose (1 bonus point)

? Bison (1 bonus point)

? General Season Deer (preference point only)

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Even though I knew the odds were not in my favor it still hurt to get my unsuccessful email.

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Nevada:

I didn't have very many points so I mostly guessed what hunts to apply for in Nevada. I just looked at draw odds and harvest statistics, and based my choices on numbers and the opinions of a few co-workers.

-Buck Deer (2 bonus points)

-Buck Antelope (2 bonus points)

-Bull Elk (1 bonus point)

-Cow Elk (1 bonus point)

-Desert Bighorn Sheep (1 bonus point)

I was absolutely shocked when I drew my 1st choice buck antelope tag for any weapon (132-134, 245).

Now it is time to spend some time at the rifle range.

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New Addition to the Family

This past week was chaos! My wife tried to have our third child in our car about halfway to the hospital. She literally had her pants off and was pushing in the front seat of our Camry. I was not about to deliver a baby at 2:00 AM on the side of the highway. She made it to the hospital on an ambulance and gave birth to our little boy shortly afterwards.

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Leap of Faith

I decided to be a responsible adult and quit my job, move my wife and three kids into my in-laws basement and search for a new job. The lake where I have been working as a park ranger is now dry and my job became obsolete. Luckily, I have five interviews lined up right now for the next three weeks.

I only have one item left to pack in the truck, but he gets to ride shotgun in the Budget Truck.

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Also, here is a picture of my growing family.

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I wish I had been hunting and fishing more, but that has not been working out in my favor for the past few weeks.

#Leapoffaith

Dillon
 
One more week...

My daughter (age 4) is very excited to go hunt "cantaloupe-antelope" with me in a week. We are leaving on August 20th and will scout two days before the season opens on the 22nd. Hopefully, we can get a nice buck opening day. I have to be in Cheyenne Wyoming for three days the following week for job interviews and testing. I will have time to do more antelope hunting after my Wyoming trip. The hunt goes until September 7th.

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My kids had a blast fishing at Rockport with their uncles. The 4" small mouth bass were annoying for the adults and fun for the kids. I didn't want to buy a non-resident fishing license in Utah, so I just watched my kids have fun. My son took off running up to camp to show the fish to his mom and we had to carry him back to the water to release it before it died. It is amazing how fast a two year old boy can run when they have a fish to show mom. He was very proud of himself.

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Dillon
 
Antelope down!

I decided to leave home on Thursday for my Nevada pronghorn antelope hunt. I was accompanied by my brother-in-law who had never been hunting and my four year old daughter. On Thursday evening we saw three bucks on my unit. We named the biggest buck M1. Friday we covered just shy of 300 miles looking for antelope. The vast majority of the antelope were located near our camp. We did find one monster buck that we named M2 on the ET Highway just west of Rachel, but he was on the wrong side of the highway and was the only antelope we saw that low on the unit.

Opening day we decided to go about five miles north of our camp and try to find M1. We left camp when it was legal to hunt and drove for about 10 minutes before we saw two antelope cross the dirt road on a dead sprint. Guess who it was? M1! He was making a dust trail straight out through an open flat. I got setup on my bipod, took a shot, and missed. He slowed down and I was able to take a second shot as he switched directions about 300 yards away. M1 was down! Unfortunately, I did shoot him in the butt and we didn't get the kill shot on video. I did get some good footage from the scouting portion of the hunt and after the shot.

This was my first antelope hunt and my first antelope. His horns are 14 1/2 and 15 inches long, he has 6 inch bases, and 5 inch prongs. I rough scored him at 78 inches. I am going to finish my European mount in the coming days. I will post photos in a few days.

 
European mount

This was my first attempt doing a European mount. It cost me $3.21 for two small bottles of 40% peroxide and about 4 hours of my time. My kids had a lot of fun helping me with this project.

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Few good bulls

I stumbled across these bulls and thought I would share the footage. They were pretty vocal.

 
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