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Colorado Guided Antelope Hunt with High Plains Adventures

October 17, 2011.

"Let's keep looking," I said.

My guide and outfitter, Brandon McCullough of High Plains Adventures, took my folly like a pro.

Only about two minutes in to our hunt, he had put me right on top of a very relaxed and very unpressured 80" antelope.

As a reminder, an antelope that scores 82" Boone and Crockett makes the All-Time Record Book. One that scores 80" makes the B&C Awards book.

There are some places — places where you need a very hard-to-draw tag to hunt — where it might make sense to pass on an 80" antelope. I've never had the privilege to hunt one of those places, though, and probably never will.

Still, I just didn't want to end my hunt so quickly.

This all started about a year ago, when I became determined to take a good buck in my home state of Colorado. I've taken small bucks here in the past, and had decided that I wanted to get more serious about hunting big antelope.

Internet research led me pretty quickly to High Plains Adventures, and some phone conversations with Brandon convinced me that he may very well be the top antelope outfitter in Colorado.

His record spoke for itself — 5 bucks over 80" during the 2010 season, a remarkable accomplishment for Colorado. But it was his passion about antelope hunting that convinced me to book my first-ever guided antelope hunt.

Brandon scouts constantly, and all through the summer I and his other hunters got to watch him post video after video of nice bucks on YouTube.

I was pretty excited about the hunt by the time I met up with Brandon, and I just didn't want all that excitement to come to a climax in just 2 minutes of hunting. So, I passed on a B&C class buck — which is not something I recommend doing, by the way.

I had warned Brandon that I was trying to find a really outstanding antelope, and he understood that I didn't want to close the deal too quick. With this in mind, we had scheduled my hunt for the last 2 days of the season. Brandon had had time to make sure his more rational hunters got good bucks (11 out of 12 hunters took nice bucks in the 70-75" range, while 1 hunter missed his opportunities).

We looked over a few more very respectable bucks that morning, but none that topped the buck I had passed on first thing in the morning.

The 60mph winds that were forecast arrived right on schedule that afternoon, and pushed the antelope in to the cover of deep draws and thick cholla patches. Our ability to spot them dried right up, and I began to have second thoughts about the 80-incher from the morning. We spent much of the afternoon trying to find him again, but had no luck.

Wall tents — very well staked down — gave us a chance to get out of the wind after the sun went down. Camp was pretty empty that night, as most of Brandon's hunters had filled their tags and headed home, happy.

The only other hunter left besides me was also holding out for a nice buck. He had had his chance that day, having missed not one but two shots on a trophy buck known as Cutters. Brandon had seen this buck many times during his pre-season scouting, and estimated he would go around 83" — a great trophy.

Scouting photos of Cutters

When the sun came up on friday, the last day of the season, the other hunter headed back out after Cutters, and I went looking for a big buck of my own.

We found antelope, including a doe with strange 8 inch horns that grew forward along the lines of her face, but it took us a while to get on a good buck.

He was in the 80" range, a buck that I had now gained enough sense to immediately want to shoot. Unfortunately, he was in a wide open flat area. We tried a bold frontal assault, but the buck and his does spooked.

We almost got a second chance when he stopped to fight with another big buck that had come out of nowhere to challenge him for his does, but we just couldn't close the distance fast enough.

I had had two opportunities on 80" bucks in two days, but hadn't closed the deal. Time was starting to run short. We got back in to action and started seeing antelope right away. Around 2:00, with just a few hours left in the season, we spotted a good buck.

Brandon stayed with the truck while I snuck behind a low hill to close the distance.

I got prone, settled in to my bipod, and took what should have been an easy shot. I didn't hear a hit, though, and the buck trotted off, unalarmed. When he stopped again, I took two more shots, longer than I should have, after which the buck had had enough and disappeared over the hill.

I took a reading with my range finder, and realized that I had underestimated the distance on the last two shots by a good 100 yards. That explained the misses there, but I was really kicking myself about not bringing the buck down with my first shot.

Brandon took it in stride, and predicted we'd see this buck again.

As we crossed the ridge where the buck had disappeared, we did.

My first shot had in fact connected, but a little far back. The buck bedded as we watched him from a quarter mile away. We waited a little while, then moved in and finished him off.

I had been feeling the pressure as the hours left in the season ticked away, and had been kicking myself when I thought I had missed. When I put my hands on the battered 15" horns of the old buck, I felt great.

We later scored him at 78 1/2", a great Colorado buck.

I headed home, making stops on the way at the meat processor and taxidermist.

The other hunter left in camp had missed three more shots on Cutters on that last day of the season — he's still out there, unless one of Brandon's muzzleloader hunters takes him later this month.

When I talked to Brandon a couple days later, I learned that he had leased another 60,000 acre ranch in prime antelope country on the day after the season closed. I booked a hunt for next year on the spot. With 12 months to scout and even more prime territory, Brandon will be putting his hunters on some great antelope in 2012.

My first 19 antelope were taken self-guided. Do-it-yourself antelope is a fun, high-percentage trip, and I'll do many more such trips in the future. But when you're ready to put a solid buck on the wall, there's definitely a case for leveraging the trophy-judging skills of an antelope specialist, especially one with access to top-shelf bucks that can be hunted without years and years of preference points and years of years of costly tags affixed to 12 inchers.

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