Antelope Hunt with Legacy 225
Name: Keith Riggs; age unknown
Date: September 6, 2007
Place: North East of Gillette Wyoming on the Wyoming-Montana border
with the Rawhide Creek Ranches
Horton Crossbow: Legacy 225
I took this antelope in the first week of September of 07. I was hunting in north east Wyoming with Rick Kasper at Rawhide Creek Ranches. It was extremely hot and I'm not just talking about the weather. I had "suffered" through 3 days of sitting in a blind during the hottest part of the day (which is when the Pronghorns seem to like to come and get a drink).
The only thing that made it bareable was the number of antelope that would come in between 10:30 and 3:00. I had several chances to shoot, but since I had five days to "get it done" I was patient passing on many juvenile bucks. There were even a few that I thought would score in the mid to upper 60s.
There was one particular buck that I had my eye on, but he never wanted to come down to water during the day. As a matter of fact, I never saw him make a move toward the water for the first three days. He would just lay up in a cut about a half mile away. The antelope would hardly move at all. Except that he got up ever once in a while to stretch and eat a little.
Finally on the fourth day during the peak of the heat, I saw him walk out of that cut to head towards the water. I couldn't believe it. It took him about a half an hour to come to me. But it seemed like hours. When he finally got to about 100 yards he stopped. He looked toward the blind and started feeding away. The adreniline rush I had suddenly went away and despair started to set in. (When you are as passionate about hunting trophy animals as I am, you go through that every once in a while.)
About five minutes later, the antelope stopped feeding. To my suprise, he made a bee line for the water hole. My adrenaline started pumping and I could hardly stand it. The antelope contined on without missing a step. Finally, he got to the water hole, just stopping briefly to look at the blind one more time.
Unfortunate, he was quartering to me, so I didn't shoot. After about a three second look, he continued his walk to the other side of the tank. But stopped one more time to look around.
This time he was quartering away at 37 yards. I was on him and let the bolt fly. The legacy 225 had done it again. The buck ended up scoring 74 4/8" net. What a trophy, especialy with a crossbow.
Passion and persistence had paid off.
One interesting thing to note. I caught the antelope with the same Horton bolt and Montech G5 broadhead, that I had taken a Gemsbok within South Africa. This was just two months prior.
I used the same combination to take a Javalina in Mexico, and a Turkey in Wyoming. All I had to do was clean the bolt and sharpen the broadhead. That says a lot about their Horton durability.
