It took 10 years to draw my first tag here in AZ and only one  day to fill it.

The hunt started yesterday.  On Thursday evening just before dark, I found a huge buck. I went after him on opening morning.  I glassed him up from about a half mile out and I snuck in to the area but could not find him. I lost track of him for about an hour, and then my brother glassed him up from about two miles out. We got into within a half mile of him, and I made a stalk on him.  The stalk consisted of a belly crawl through cactus and dirt to close the distance. It took 4 and a 1/2 hours to get to within 300 yards of him. He was rutting hard and was surrounded by does. He chased off a little buck, but I stuck with the does. After a little while he trotted back in. The does started to feed toward me and the buck followed them. At 186 yards, I shot and down he went.

He green scored 88 2/8 with 2 inches of deductions for a net score of 86 2/8. Not to bad for my first goat. Cooked some steaks up tonight from him and they were phenomenal.  All in all, a great hunt.

Nicely done!  How about specs. New/traditional rifle? Powder charge? Bullet? Cap. Data man, data!! inquiring minds want to know!!

Whoa!  Great buck!  I thought mine was great, but this is a monster!  Nice read and pictures too!  My muzzleloader buck is posted in the big game forum too.

Holy crap.  Nice buck!

I just read your story.  Very cool and an awesome buck. I love New Mexico. Nice shooting.

My muzzleloader is definitely not a traditional cap and ball. With antelope in AZ it is a lengthy process to get a tag. It took me 10 years to get this tag. I put in for the muzzleloader hunt because it is a slightly easier draw than rifle so I was not in it for the traditional muzzleloader experience. I use a modern muzzleloader because antelope have exceptional eye sight and just getting into that 200 yard range on one can be tricky.

I was shooting a Winchester Apex (made be CVA) with 100 grains of black Hills 209 pushing a 250 grain Hornady SST. I was very comfortable out to 200 with it, and if I had to could shoot out to 300, but at that range with a heavy slow moving bullet a lot could go wrong. I was surprised that my buck went as far as he did after the shot. I hit right where I was aiming and double lunged him, but even with no lungs after being hit with a 250 grain slug he still made it over a 100 yards. The bullet completely passed through (I wish I could have recovered it. Oh well) All in all, I guess when practice, planning, opportunity, and a little bit of luck come together, it equals success.

What a toad! Nice job!

That sucker has mass and length!

That's an absolutely perfect antelope buck.



Congrats.

Holy smokes what a buck!!!  

Holy sh#t!  

Nice goat !  

Damn can't wait to go antelope hunting here in a few weeks

congrats!!!!!!

That's a monster goat!

I've been wanting to do a muzzleloader antelope hunt for a few years now.

Very nice.

Well, I had him officially scored. He scored 89 and 7/8 in. SCI which will put him at #3 in the world for muzzleloader and #42 overall. I am pretty happy

Here is a picture that a guide (Craig Steele @ orghunt.com) sent me of my buck while he was still vertical. He had been watching him for a few years but tags are pretty limited in that area  (2 muzzleloader tags and 2 archery tags per year) so he nor his clients never had a chance at him.

What an incredible buck, those mass measurements had to be ridiculous. Congrats are in order.

Simply incredible - That's easily the largest goat I've ever seen!  

Congratulations!!!

Wow !!!

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