we're going to head to western montana after trophy antelope with a bow we're going to be
hunting with eastman staffer jordan brashears he's not very happy right now i think he can hear us
all right here we are in montana on day one of our antelope hunt
matt just showed up here a couple hours ago and we're gonna see if we can
locate a buck to put a stalk on this evening and as you can see smoke just
blasted in here with the wind we got fires to the west of us so it's making visibility
pretty difficult but we're going to just go draw at a time here and see we can put together and
hopefully we'll find one although the antelope sightings were few and far between this evening
jordan did manage to turn up a good buck just before sunset that gives him some hope for day two
we just parked here on the back side of this ranch we just located a nice buck on the
other side of this hill behind me he's a real neat buck he's got good character
he's probably 13 and a half inches tall but he's really really wide got good forks he's
bedded down right next to a hedgerow we're just going to try to just belly in on him and
if we can get close enough to make a shot and put it together we'll be happy
i'm just going to edge up here by myself see if i can see him and i'll signal at you
as jordan is about to find out hunting antelope in the wheat stubble is no easy task
it looks like the guys may have their work cut out for them on this hunt
we've got the road right here you can see it about 150 yards over there we don't know if he
moved or not but we're gonna have to assume that he's close to where he was so we're
gonna just walk right back over to this row and follow it over and be quieter than this stubble
and uh he if our guess is right he should be about 200 yards away right now just barely
over this roll and the wind is kind of going back and forth so we're just gonna have to go with it
he's right over my shoulder about 80 90 yards bedded down just off the edge where we wanted
him to be it's gonna be i just got a little grass to slide behind so we're gonna see if
i can do what's almost impossible to do and uh sneak up on him and get close enough for a shot
he's not very happy right now i think he can hear us
the jig might be up on jordan this buck seems to know there's something awry on the horizon
well we got into about 100 yards the wind has switched to our backs
and we just couldn't be quiet enough in this we're just in some stubble here from straw
so it was close he walked actually up to 85 yards from us and was trying to check us out but
we'll back out of here he's not too spooked and see if we can get back in
here tomorrow or later this evening on him again we'll just try to get him in a better spot
we're getting ready to head back up and this uh goalie behind us here is
some private and mixed with some public land and uh there's probably 100, 150 antelope that
live in these hills so we're expecting to just have them kind of bouncing all over the place
so we'll just kind of ease up into this draw behind me here and see what we can find
yeah just kind of swirling but it's not from us there might it must be another buck shot
with plenty of bucks around the area jordan decides to try setting up a ground blind to ambush
a feeding or traveling buck antelope now he just needs to find the perfect spot to set up his blind
and that could be a challenging proposition in itself
there's like 12 or 15 of them out there one smaller buck he's borderline right at the
bottom end of what we're looking for i think we'll hang tight and uh let's try to get a closer look
it's not shaking out quite how i was hoping we're just gonna have to
keep moving and try to hit get up to that next ridge
see if we can spot anything from there that's settled out into a good spot
after a full day of buck antelope sightings later that evening jordan has spotted a good buck in the
perfect position for a stalk okay we're gonna give it another try we just spotted a huge herd
just right over this edge we got a small draw that we can use to sneak up on them as it started to
rain so it'll help with noise um there's several bucks in the group it's a long shot but we've
got another hour of light so we're going to go ahead and give it a try and see what happens
unseasonably damp ground and a calm wind
might be just what jordan needs to get the job done on this bow hunt
got about 80 yards in front of us there's a pretty good buck
that was pretty good for a 15-minute stalk but not quite enough terrain to help us out
but we still got 80 yards from a good one and uh i'm just not gonna shoot that far so
we're gonna head back up to the truck we got another hour and a half of light hour light
something like that let's see if we can find a couple more we just pulled up here to a little
alfalfa pivot and there's a couple bucks bedded back in here somewhere feeding back and forth
and we're just gonna just go through there's a bunch of fingers in this pivot it's kind of unique
we're hoping we can comb them and get to a point where we can actually see and shoot across
from a finger to a finger or something like that get some cover so the wind is blowing across the
top of this pivot here so we're going to try to stay on the west side and just hopefully
we won't have any problems with it we're just gonna sneak in here and see what we can find
we have about eight or nine of them on the other end of this field
and we think there's still one solo buck that's kind of cutting through
these ones are kind of working their way to the left so we might be able to back
good track and call out this draw and just sit for a minute and see if they walk by
we got this buck bedded down up here in front of us i think he's the one we first saw this
morning that was by himself he's a good buck we're definitely would be happy with him ah
he's in a decent spot to stalk if we can get in the draw with him
which is going to be difficult to say the least this buck is bedded on the perfect
perch overlooking the valley below not exactly the perfect scenario for a stalk
we've got a good three foot difference in between us so we can almost we can set up now without
him seeing us so we'll see how that looks when we get on the other side of this fence
he's 240 yards from us right now and we're gonna have one more pretty skinny
stretch here because he just turned a little bit more towards us
he's still looking the other way but we we're back into his peripheral just ever so slightly
one thing about antelope bucks they don't ever stay bedded for very long
because antelope have a very small stomach relative to their size to make room for their
enlarged cardiovascular system antelope have to feed every two hours or so which
is what jordan is just about to find out back down to the skully that we came up
if we don't blow him getting out of here we're gonna come around behind we can move a lot
faster because there's actually some terrain so we should be able to just walk for most of it
well he turned around on us it was going perfect that was actually turning out like
an awesome stalk but looks like he's going to bed back down with the group of other bucks
and so uh we're going to back off try to get a vantage point see maybe we can get get back in on him
otherwise we're going to try to find another buck something something in a better spot to go after
after several close encounters jordan has been unable to get an antelope to cooperate
during the bow season forcing jordan to come back and hunt for an antelope
buck during the rifle season with his bow making things all that much harder
shortly after the october opener of the montana rifle season
it doesn't take jordan long to find another buck in the perfect spot for a stalk
i always try to take my boots off for the last 100 yards
go with your socks just totally cuts the noise down
before long jordan is off on a stalk orange vest and all
oh he's down just 50 yards man that's awesome that's a perfect shot
i made the bad bad the cardinal sin of filming and i didn't wait for the filmer
oh everything else is perfect we worked our tail off for this buck let's go see what he looks like
beautiful buck very excited about this hunt it turned out great was kind of beginning to wonder
this is the last day remember the only way to hunt and take trophy big game is fair chase