LAST EDITED ON Oct-15-19 AT 01:40PM (MST)[p]I appreciated the help and input that I received leading up to the hunt so I wanted to post an update/story. As hunters mentioned, the road conditions were in fact less than ideal! Antlerradar, I now know exactly what you mean by "gumbo".
Fall is the busiest time of the year for me at work, so I left home Friday afternoon much later than I had hoped. I stopped along the way to sleep and didn't end up in the unit until close to noon on Saturday. Trucks and mud galore! I made the drive up to the area that I had hoped to hunt first to find that the road had been gated off due to conditions. I thought about walking in down the road, but I had seen absolutely zero goats in the area for miles, and I could see quite a ways in front of the gate and there was nothing moving there either. I spent the rest of the day driving around getting familiar with some of the larger chunks of public, then I rushed to set up camp before it got too dark on me.
I went to bed feeling a little discouraged about the conditions. The comments I had read about lots of road hunters turned out to be 100% true, but I also was having a hard time fining a place to even walk in from that looked promising. I'm not opposed to walking a long ways to hunt, but when you can drive around the corner and glass two miles into a place you might walk into and not see anything, it feels pretty futile. Seeing the terrain and the amount of roads in the area made sense to me why there are so many road hunters. I think I would need to spend several seasons in the unit to learn which areas are worth walking into, and which areas are best to just check from a road.
Sunday morning was pretty chilly, so the ground stayed frozen for a while. I left camp a little before sunrise and made my way towards a large chunk of public that looked more isolated than the rest. I was hoping to try to get away from some of the crowds. With the ground frozen I was able to drive a little ways in on the two track road, setting a timer in my mind to be out of there before the mud came back.
I stopped and glassed for a minute and picked up a small group of antelope about a mile away. Set the spotter up and one of them looked worth pursuing. I'm trying to maximize my time away from work this year because I cashed in 15 points on a muley hunt in November, so I only budgeted 4 days for this hunt. For learning a new area that's not much time at all, but I was just happy to have the opportunity to chase some critters even if only for a few days.
I managed to sneak my way to about 500 yards from this group of antelope. When I got there, the does started acting a little skiddish and stood up from their beds like they were getting ready to run. I tried my range finder a few times but it wouldn't give me a reading on anything past 250, so I was left to just using guesswork past 250. I got ready for a shot, and in the process the buck stood up. He wasn't very big but he had a nice looking curl and he wasn't small so I decided he was worth it. I shot, and missed. I'm not sure if I guessed the range wrong, or if I hit a blade of grass since I was laying down, or what happened but all I know is that I missed! He sprinted away with the herd. I walked over and looked for blood to make absolutely sure, and was able to watch him running with the herd to know for sure I had not hit him.
I walked back up to the truck, and on my walk back I looked in the opposite direction and saw a large herd of antelope feeding around a little pond. There was a fence between me and them so I assumed they knew where the private boundary was. I got back to the truck and studied my GPS a little harder, and started to think that maybe they actually were on public and what I was seeing was just a grazing fence. I decided to load back up and sneak closer, keeping an eye on my GPS.
Sure enough, the fence was just a grazing fence. The antelope were well on public land. I felt pretty lucky in that moment because looking on the map, it looked like that little chunk of public had been carved out just for me that day. There was about 1/2 a mile of public land past the fence until it hit a large chunk of private. I crawled the rest of the way on my hands and knees and got to a spot where I could see the whole herd. There were 4 bucks in the herd, with this one standing out as the nicest. I had him at about 400 yards (guesswork again, as my rangefinder failed me again). I was able to find where 250 was with the rangefinder and then use guesswork as to how far he was past that. He started to walk away from me so as soon as he showed me his side again I took the shot. I heard the shot connect, and watched him struggle to run for a few yards until he went down in some tall grass. After the shot, finding him in that grass was the hardest part.
I still had a day to hunt when I pulled the trigger, but given what I had seen on the day before, I felt very fortunate to have a decent buck on public land within shooting range right in front of me, without two or three other hunters eyeing the same goat and competing for a shot. If I had had more time to explore the area I would have waited and used more of my time, but I didn't feel confident that I could find another nice buck on public land AND get a shot off, all with just one day left to hunt. I took the opportunity that presented itself, and I'm happy about it!
I'm thankful for the memories and meat in the freezer, as well as the input that you all gave to me that helped me succeed in this hunt! If I were to do this hunt again in the future, my biggest takeaway is to allow more time.
