Alright, I will try again. So here is the story:
Our quest to kill a monster begins back in 2008 when I drew the Plateau unit tag. A good friend recommended that I try for the Plateau rather than wait forever to draw the Snake Valley. This was our first experience hunting antelope. I bought a couple of DVD's on field judging, read some books and frequented the MM's ?Antelope section,? to get antelope hunting in my blood. We did a few summer scouting trips and learned the Plateau unit very well. We found three nice bucks that we would shoot if presented the opportunity on opening morning. The biggest we guessed to be 73? and the smallest was just shy of the 70? mark but had some cool character. I ended up choosing the smallest because of the pictures I got of him on the hoof. We watched him bed down that night and after an hour stalk in the morning he took a dirt nap.
In 2009 my Dad drew the Plateau unit tag. We had heard that they combined the early and late season hunts and increased the total number of tags given. In addition, a good friend of mine drew the Plateau tag with only one point. After 5 years of waiting, I didn't want to share a LE hunt with over 300 other people. I convinced my Dad to surrender his tag and we would hunt with my friend. He was reluctant to turn in his tag but did it and ate the money. We had a great hunt with my friend and saw some good bucks. After a few days of scouting, we found the one we wanted. Opening morning we found him bedded down with his does and another nice buck. He had a yellow collar and made it easy for us to identify. As the sun started to creep up we heard what sounded like I-15 traffic and looked off in the distance at the Loa Hwy and saw the caravan of road hunters beginning their hunt. A couple parked about a mile below us and another decided to bushwack it, leave the hwy and create his own trail only a few hundred yards from us. He parked just South of us. The frustration was building up. The number of hunters made me feel like I was shopping at Walmart the night before Thanksgiving. The antelope began to get restless and started moving around. My friend had a great opportunity to take him at 80yds. Our preparation and planning worked out despite all of the commotion from everybody else. Long story short, we got him, but due to my friends poor shooting, and the buck's elusiveness our hunt didn't end until just before dusk.
After the fiasco last year on the Plateau their was no way I would experience a LE hunt like that again. I did some research in the B&C book, as well as on MM's. Thanks to some good advice from the MM community, we decided to put in for a different unit.
This year we began our summer scouting trips earlier in the summer since we were both somewhat unfamiliar with the unit. Again, the MM community gave me a few pointers and suggestions. A good friend of mine down in Enoch, Reggie, went on a long 120+mile scouting trip that covered a lot of the Southern end of the unit. After the trip, I was somewhat satisfied with what we had seen. Our first choice was a funky antelope with one horn going straight over his face.
I talked with another friend at AAA Taxidermy who was very familiar with the area and had a friend kill a monster there in 2009.
We checked out some additional places and we felt that we could get a 75?+ antelope. That was our goal, 75?+. We had already found four that would meet or pass that mark.
As the hunt approached we set out some trail cameras at some guzzlers to see what was coming in. To our surprise we found one of our choices ?Desert Mammoth.? We found him earlier in the week but about a mile and a half or so further from this particular guzzler. Surprisingly, he looked a lot bigger and better in the picture than he did through the scope.
So let's have a little fun with the pictures. Judging him from the pictures, what is his score? Is he a shooter?
