One of my friends decided this year that he wanted to get into hunting big game, so I had him apply for everything I did and he happened to draw an antelope tag. Fast forward to hunting season and our schedules happened to work out that I could take him on the 10th of October. I'd never been in the area before, so the first day was mostly scouting where the access to public ground was and finding which areas held the concentration of animals. On the 11th about mid-day, we found a herd of about 40 antelope in a secluded flat, that we'd later term the Honey Hole, and stalked to within 60 yds of a sub-group of does and fawns, got into position, and waited for the biggest buck, which I guessed would go over 82", to stand out of his bed. The buck stood up and I told him to shoot when he turned broadside. When my friend shot, I was watching through my binoculars and didn't even see where the bullet hit in my field of view. It was a clean miss. The day of the 12th, the weather turned ugly with driving rain turning to an all out prairie blizzard. We managed to spot a group of 10 hunkered down in a protected drainage and made a stalk to within 75 yds of where they were bedded. We waited them out for a good 45-minutes until they decided to move to feed and when the biggest buck of the group, this buck being even bigger than the one he shot at the day before, exposed himself at 100 yds, my buddy fired again and once again I couldn't tell where the bullet hit, but it was a clean miss again. At this point, I new my friend was a better shot than he'd been displaying in the field so I was asking him how he felt about the shot and he said "I was holding on his shoulder real steady and the gun kinda surprised me when it went off". Well, that's exactly how it's supposed to work so I decided that we needed to check out the zero on the rifle. About a week and half and a trip to range later, it was determined that the cheap scope on his rifle wasn't holding zero so I told him the next time we go out that he could use my 25-06. This last weekend we were able to head back out and try again. Saturday we made three successful stalks on herds, one of which spooked from a coyote before we were in shooting position and another was spooked seconds before we ready to shoot by another hunter unloading about a half mile away. The third group we got on just didn't have any mature bucks in it. Yesterday was the last day we were going to be able to hunt so I was determined to make it happen for him. When we drove into our area that morning, we spotted a group of 80 feeding on a distant flat. We watched them through the spotter for a while and determined there were a couple shooters in the group. I made a game plan for the stalk and we took off from the truck about 9:30. At 11:00, we found ourselves lying prone in shooting position 100 yds away from five bedded bucks. I determined which buck was the best and had him hold on him and wait for him to stand up. We waited for what seemed like an eternity, but in reality it was only 15-minutes. The buck stood up and began to graze and when he turned broadside and a doe moved out of the way he asked, "Can I shoot?" to which I replied, "YEAH". This time, the bullet hit it's mark and we were celebrating in our success. While this antelope hunt was challenging towards both of us, the jubilation on his face when he finally had one down was worth all of the trouble, even though it meant I had to sacrifice some of my own hunting opportunities. I think he'll be hooked on hunting for life now.
