this week the eastman's hunting tv crew is in
search of trophy antelope bucks on the plains of southeastern colorado
it's the tail end of the rut and the bucks are busy covering territory
in search of second cycle does after looking over quite a few decent bucks
in search of one to put john lacord on in the morning this one caught our eye
well folks that is one beautiful buck he's got six six and a quarter inch prongs that go straight out
just like this you know in my book i have a whole section on how to field judge a buck antelope and
it's pretty hard to field judge out here but this buck he's got probably six and a half inch bases
and he's got those six six and a quarter inch prongs that come out straight if you notice just
above his prongs he's really long and curls over so i think he's around 15 15 and a quarter high
and above his prong those circumferences are a little light they're not real heavy
so that buck would probably be in the 81 82 gross probably net awards maybe if we're lucky but a
really beautiful beautiful buck that is the type of buck we're looking for after thoroughly looking
this buck over through the spotting scope there's no doubt that we've found a shooter for john
now all we can do is hope that the buck will stick around until the hunt begins in the morning
in the meantime my brother ike is on the way to the airport to pick up our guests
john plaster of savage arms and john lacord of nikon sport optics
good good to see you likewise
guy john plaster guy how do you do
once everybody was settled into camp we headed
down to the rifle range where we were greeted by this tarantula
fire in the hole
after sending a few rounds downrange it was apparent
that john's scope had survived the flight from the east coast
and he was ready to head out in search of the big prong buck first thing in the morning
it wasn't long before john was looking at the first buck of the trip
as well as the first coyote but so far no sign of his big buck
two of them one in front of the other oh yeah look at that
walk up there and shoot that buck
they have pretty red hides don't they the coyotes
although these goats seem undisturbed by the predators there still is no sign
of the large prong buck that we turned up during our scouting mission the day before
mike and john decide to keep moving passing up on a few very respectable bucks in the process
there is to the left
you see him yeah chasing him off
yeah that could be him right there
finally after peeking over one last rise they turn up the buck john is looking for
he's bedded down in a dip and the stalk is on
he's looking at us
okay
well that's an antelope tag filled i heard it hit i saw him buckle
did he go down oh yeah i could actually hear your heart you know what though
when when that stops happening it's time to take up golf for another sport
exactly if you don't get it if that's that's part of the deal the adrenaline rush that is awesome
wow he's huge
i'm gonna congratulations on the shock congratulations nice work thank you thank you now
that is what we call a trophy antelope yep that is that is and for me you know having you come out here with
ike and and with us with the eastmans and and really getting a great trophy we passed up on six
or seven bucks today one that would probably score 78 seven that one that was chasing the doe around
yeah but you know just that that's our deal is you just tone in on one particular buck
if you would if you would boogered him or something happen today or on this stalk we would have been
on this buck for the next two or three days until he got in a position like this that you were able
to harvest him yeah well john this is a heck of a buck i appreciate you coming out taking the time
and uh hunting antelope with us man we uh we've had a we've had a really fast morning haven't we
well ike it's it's been an incredible morning we saw a ton of antelope passed on a couple of
good bucks and we're fortunate enough to get in uh get in good range of this buck and i'm sure
proud of him awesome buck he's got huge diggers some really pretty ivory tips and he's even got
a little cactus in his nose there um you know the key to key to this animal putting it is is
honing in on one goat and and just make sure that you know you spend the time to to find him and and
take him you know we passed up on a 78 inch goat this morning in order to get this 80 plus we uh
found him last night or yesterday came in here this morning he was in a perfect spot underneath
this hill we were able to stalk in about you know about five six hundred yards stalk in get in with
uh 257 yards john made a heck of a shot took the air right out of him and uh one shot that was it
tags filled we're not it's like nine o'clock well now you can uh can really enjoy this country and
uh work on getting your tank filled yeah not now so on to mine and well let's get him cleaned up
and and get him on his way get him to the meat processor before it gets 80 some degrees today
now that we've got john all tagged out he has become our official gate opener
for the remainder of the trip as ike tries to punch his tag on an 80-incher of his own
well we spotted a real nice buck down here it's starting to get towards the middle of the day
and so the heat waves are starting to get back so you never know one of those things with heatwaves
is it'll make a buck look bigger than it really is so you kind of get get close so let's go get close
well that's a good buck it took us a while to get on him um you know to where we could actually
judge him i think we're going to back out of here and kind of leave these guys as is and go see if
maybe grab some lunch but i don't want to booger these guys too much you know undue stress so
the sun is barely risen on the second morning of the hunt and ike has already located a great buck
one that the eastman family is all too familiar with two years prior
ike's sister-in-law rinda spent a week chasing this buck and now ike has a shot at redemption
clipping along down the road and here's the antelope so
this buck is on the move running his does but luckily ike has a pretty
good idea of where they're headed and how to get in front of them
you see him yeah
you tell me when
that's a dead goat
yeah holy cow look at that toad look at that oh my gosh
look at that jiminy christmas
got huge third measurements you know this this is an awesome buck just an awesome buck he's he's
almost 15 or he's probably 15 and a half he's got huge bases nice prongs his fourth measurement or
third measurement here is just absolutely stunning but this is an awesome antelope and to be able
to take an antelope that that one of my family has been hunting uh for the last three years my
sister-in-law rinda hunted him three years ago and just couldn't get the stars to align to
take him my brother hunted him last year and just couldn't get the stars to align and i just focused
in on him all day we made six other stalks in order to take him i did shoot him at only 80 yards
but that's you know it just worked out that way i was able to get ahead of them in front of them
they didn't and over a little rise and they didn't know we were there and we were able to stalk him
he's just a beautiful goat um this has just been an awesome experience we we we looked at a ton of
antelope saw a bunch of coyotes you know this is just a lot of fun down here remember fair chase
is the only way to hunt and take trophy big game we'll see you next week on eastman's hunting tv