Oregon Antelope

[froggy]

Finally drew an oregon antelope tag this year. Opening weekend was the hottest weekend of august with the highs reaching over 100. We hunted hard for 3 days passing up numerous smaller bucks and messing up a stalk on one nice one. Finally on the 3rd day I spotted this buck. He saw me and started getting nervous when I was a little over 400 yards out. I settled in on my shooting sticks and the first bullet whacked him in the gut. I tried to anticipate him moving again and over-led him and the next shot hit him in the neck which pretty much ruined the cape. It did however put him straight down.
I was shooting my .270 win. with 130 grain BT's. Both shots were a complete pass through

Here are a couple of pics of some of the bucks I passed.

 

[JD338]

froggy

Welcome to the forum, we are glad you have joined us!

Congratulations on your OR Speed Goats. Beautiful trophies and very nice pictures. Thanks for sharing.

JD338

 

[SakoSteve270wsm]

Nice buck froggy ! That antelope hunting is a blast ! Thanks for the pictures. :grin:

 

[FOTIS]

Welcome to the forum Froggy.
Thanks for sharing your adventure, Antelope season is my favorite!

 

[buckfever]

Nice Antelope Froggy maybe in a few years I'll finally get a tag.

 

[remingtonman_25_06]

Nice goat!!

What unit did you draw??

Oregon antelope is getting ridiculous. It takes at least 10 years to draw a tag, and thats for a not so good unit. If you want a good unit, your looking at 15 freaking years to draw a tag.

 

[cloverleaf]

Didnt realize that Oregon had huntable population of Goats. Nice goat and pics. Congrats!!CL

 

[Greg Nolan]

froggy,
Awsome hunt and pictures. All those bucks look good to me. Thanks for sharing.
Good Hunting
Elkhunt :grin:

 

[taylorce1]

Beautiful buck, talk to your taxidermist they might have a cape you can buy. If you don't want to buy a cape then do a european mount, with pronghorn skulls they look pretty cool! :grin:

 

[remingtonman_25_06]

cloverleaf

Oregon has plenty of antelope...They just dont want to give out any dam tags for them, that and everybody wants to hunt them...So your going to be waiting a while for a rifle tag. You can draw muzzleloader/archery with about 6-8 points if thats your thing.

I think the coyotes are really gettin to the fawns though lately. I think I remember reading an article somewhere where only about 10-15% survive, which isn't a very good number at all.

Oregon is a sleeper state for trophy goats. We have some huge pronghorns here. Very good country to hunt them and its pretty desolate.

 

[froggy]

remingtonman_25_06 - I was in the Malhuer River Unit. Took me 11 years to draw.
They are really tight with their tag #'s on pronghorn, but like you said, the coyotes and cougars have been really hard on them. In fact, I've called in several coyotes using antelope sounds. There are still some great bucks out there, but the fear is that the herds are aging without proper fawn recruitment. It's frustrating when you wait that long to draw a tag, and then realize that there aren't near as many pronghorns as there used to be.

My taxidermist did offer to sell me a cape, but I opted for a european mount instead. I think it will look really cool. Next time I'll get a bigger one and do a shoulder mount on him.

If anyone ever needs a good taxidermist in the central oregon area, I'd recommend Tim McLagan. He gets pretty backed up, but does a really nice job and is honest. He did a great job on a cougar rug for me and should soon be finished with a full mount bobcat. He pays very good attention to detail.

 

[remingtonman_25_06]

Malheur is an excellent unit for goats. Congrats once again!!

Thanks for sharing!!