I love to find out the story behind the picture and this picture doesn't have your usual hunting story behind it. This hunt started when Angie called me and she had just met a guy that had an archery antelope tag in unit one that was having a really hard time getting into the goats. So she nominated me to be his personal guide.I met him early in the morning with the intention of getting him in close to a big buck. We headed to the north side of Escadilla where I had been seeing some nice buck. This county had a lot of ceder trees, which would make a stock a little more comprehensible then the wide open country where antelope are more commonly found. We parked the truck in a little wash, made the short hike to the top of a mesa and instantly started seeing antelope. Just does and small buck to start out with. Then about an hour latter we spotted a real nice buck about 700 yards away. We started a stock from ceder tree to ceder tree and made it about half way to him when he picked his head up and stared running right to us. We looked at each other like neither of us could believe what was going on. Then we saw that he was running strait to another buck that was bedded about 150 yards from us that we never saw.
The two bucks fought there for about 30 seconds and I think the first buck was way over confident about his fighting skills because the other buck kicked the crap out of him. The first buck finally retreated down the hill and out of sight. The we notice that the first buck was headed strait for us at a fast walk. So, we got tucked down behind a ceder tree and waited and prayed.
At about 100 yards he saw us and stared to get really curious about what was behind that tree. So he would walk a little bit and stop and stare, then walk a little further and stop again. After repeating this process about three times I felt my hunter tap me on the shoulder and say "I'll wait until he is in the 50 yard range before I shoot." I gave him the thumbs up to signify not only that I understand him, but I thought that was a wise decision. After about 5 min and lots more stop and goes from our little friend, I pulled the range finder up to see where he was. The numbers read 83 yards and I whispered it to the hunter at the same time I heard him pull his bow back. "I'm taking him" he said to my complete amazement. I replied " not yet". But it was too late and I watched that arrow fly threw the air.
For those of you who don't believe that there is any luck to hunting, I am about to prove you wrong. That arrow hit that buck , who by now had plenty of time to turn and try to out run his fate, in the back of his right hind leg and about 3 inches down from his poop hole. Now for Biology 101 there is a major artery that runs down the leg and it happened to be in the same place that the arrow decided to make impact. By severing the artery, I think the antelope knew the some thing we know, he was ours. He made a run for it and probably ran about 3/4 of a mile, but lucky for is it was in one circle right in front of us. in the middle of his 11th circle, he fell over dead.
Moral of the story is, luck is 99% of successful hunting, crazy shots is the other 1%.
4 comments:
Why can't the 1% lucky shots ever happen to us?
Hey we hear you're back in Eagar. We're moving back to AZ in June and hope to see you guys....
Remember when we were like in the third or fourth grade and we would start out @ Pete's Flume and walk into the foothills of Flat Top with our bows and try to shoot birds? That was a blast! I shot those cedar shaft arrows with the Howard Hill broadheads that my dad used to make, (he would always get so pissed when he found out that i was shooting his hunting arrows, whats the big deal?!) and i had my little 35 lb. Bear bow. We used to think that the girls would be so impressed if we shot a grouse or something and cooked it up and brought it to school for them to try. Or maybe that was just my thinking?? Anyways, the point is, I dont remember ever hitting anything other than a lot of rocks, (maybe that is why my dad was always so pissed when I brought back his arrows) where were the lucky shots when we needed them?! We could have been the most popular kids in the third grade! Oh wait, we were...
Speaking of the third grade, i have one more flash back!! Remember when we were at recess and I had to pee and were were at the top of that huge field where the kids play AYSO soccer at the intermediate school, and i didnt want to walk all the way to the building to pee so i peed up on the field behind a stack of sprinklers and dang Calvin Goodman went and turned me in? You were playing somewhere else and didnt know that i had peed up there. Anyways, the aid came and got me and was in the process of getting me in trouble when you showed up, along with the entire student body. I was adamantly denying that i peed on the play ground, and Calvin was adamantly insisting that I had. All you said was "Matt Finch is my cousin, and I know he wouldn't lie" And the aid let me off the hook!!! That was awesome! I did feel bad for a number of years though that i didn't fess up after you told the entire playground how honest i was! But hey, no detention for me!
It is nice to have someone besides Josh and Colton blogging about stuff i can relate to.
Excellent story! Some of those 99%/1% odds apply to just more than hunting....
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