10/10/2026
I have filmed a lot of hunts for other people now. But this is the first animal that I also felt like I earned... If that makes sense?
7 days it took.
We found it on the first morning bedded with four other bucks, snuck into 37 yards, the setup was perfect π... But after about 3 hours, a smaller buck got up out of its bed and locked onto Chad. Making the other bucks stand up, Chad drew and released the shot. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the shot missed, which is just crazy for Chad and we still don't really know what happened.
We spent the next 5 days looking for them again, but Antelope hunters had moved in and knowing what we know now, had set up camp right on the edge of their morning route back to the bedding area.
Day 6, two days after the Antelope hunters had gone, we spot them again, but they are further out and heading into a drainage that is not on the property. Chad needs to guide some Antelope hunters, so we head back to camp and I go out Prairie dog hunting for the day.
Day 7, we almost didn't get up, hope was dwindling. But we got up to a glassing spot and within 30 seconds Chad had located them, and they were going to the right place!
We managed to sneak into 20m (22yards) from the bucks, everything was looking perfect again. After about 2 hours, the buck stood up to stretch, Chad drew, the buck looked around at him, Chad settled his pin and pulled through... The arrow flew true, but unfortunately we had miss-ranged this buck and the arrow buried deep in no man's land. I could instantly feel the weight and silence of the moment, it was crushing.
But as you can see we managed to get this buck... And you are just going to have to wait to see the film to see how ππ