My boy was shooting his new Savage Axis, left handed youth model in 7mm08. He bought it earlier in the year with his own money and we spent the summer working up handloads for it. We settled on 120grn Ballistic Tip Hunting bullets over H4350 powder. It was very low recoil but still pushing 2925 fps, plenty for deer or antelope.
Saturday morning found us on the corner of the unit ready to hunt! It was COLD... 24 degrees cold! Frost was heavy and water in the tire ruts from the previous days storm was frozen over. I was surprised at the number of other hunters there. Its big open country you can see for miles in and antelope stick out like a beacon... but they have 8x to 9x vision so its the getting close that is the trick.
I finally spotted a group of "goats" (alot of people nickname them "speed goats") about half a mile from the truck down in a small depression. I got my boy out and we made a stalk, getting within about 200 yards of them as we crested a hill. He got off a shot hitting a doe which went another 300 yards before pulling and standing, we were able to close the distance carefully and a 2nd shot put her down for good. He was so excited with his first ever antelope, as well as first rifle kill. He wanted to get it back to the truck ASAP so he could try to fill the 2nd tag. We took some pictures then quartered it up quickly and headed back to the truck to get it on ice. One in the cooler by 8am!
For the next few hours, we had different chances but with all the other hunters there pushing them around, getting shot at, they were getting wild really quickly and would run at the slightest motion.
After noon, I spotted a small band we hiked after. Got within 150 yards once but my boy couldn't settle the cross hairs down enough to take the shot. They spooked out and we kept following. A couple miles from the truck we crested a hill and saw a doe 200 yards away. It spooked circling around us but oddly it pulled up and stopped broadside. My boy was ready and nailed it perfectly.
1pm, both tags filled and headed home. I didn't expect to be done this early for sure. I even requested time off from work next weekend to spend more time up there hunting. Glad its done though!
What a lucky kid, 1 deer and 2 antelope his first year of hunting. Pretty cool.
-DallanC
