Lopes, where to find ’em how to hunt ’em

spot -

click here for my expereinces on antelope. as far as i can tell, it is pretty typical. also, if you can get ahold of o'connor's book, THE ART OF HUNTING BIG GAME IN NORTH AMERICA, you will find some fairly good insights.

I have shot them from 15 yds to 300 . You can never tell. Driving until you see a herd is the most popular. Drive off so they can't see you get out ( over  a hill or?). The biggest onei have shot 15 1/2 iches, came running past me at 20 yds from in back of me as I was walking acorss a pasture, spooked by some one else.

Be prepared for some hands and knees crawling and some belly crawling, taking advantage of every clump of grass and sage brush you can. They will spook at a walking human at 800 yds, but get confused if you are on your hands an knees (but not always).

If the area is not hunted hard, they are extremely curious and have been known to come into a small white flag raised up on  a stick.

They do make  a sound like whitetail grunt

They can be easy, or hard. If you put them to bed at night, they will be close by in the morning. It helps if you can get out before light to a settting area. By mid day they are usually out in the middle of some bowl 3 -5 miles across, and hard to get at. Always sneak over the edge of ahill, as they like to bed down right off the far side , where they can see aways.

They usually cross a fence line at the same point every time. You can tell these by the divit under the fence where they slide under.

Once they bust you, they get mighty wary, and your chance for a shot goes way down. At that time it's best to go find another one.

Shoot the ones that haven't ben running and you wil have  a lot better eating

CB900F  I didn't know that flagging was illegal or considered unethical. Why would it be unethical when you can use a full size decoy when hunting them which is the same type of baiting if you will? I have seen it done in NM and CO, and have never heard of any one saying it is unethical. Wouldn't be any differnt than setting out a barrel of chicken guts for bears, or corn feeders for deer , like they do in Texas, using an elk bugle or cow call or whitetail grunt tube, duck or turkey call. Strange how it is viewed in different states.

I would consider chasing them in an ATV or pickup  a lot more unethical than flagging them, and I have sure seen that done a lot in WY.  

Hey,

    Ya think you could use a cow board fer lopes?  I've seen them used fer geese, you cut a cow pattern out of a couple of sheets of plywood, paint it and put handles on the back to carry it upright walkin in a circle but closin in.  I hate the idea of tryin to crawl out there in Western Kansas - Them dern sand burr's go right through denim, and are hard to get out.  Too 3 months to get them out of my forearms from tryin to take a mulie with my Muzzleloader. 

Spot

Saddlesore;

Flagging, baiting, feeding, cowboards, all used to be illegal in Wyoming, where I was raised.  I presume they still are illegal, but haven't checked the game laws there for a while.  As for the ethics or morality of it, I'll try to explain.

It's a given that the hunter is supposed to be smarter than the prey.  In the animal kingdom, stupid hunters starve.  When the human is matched against the game animal, the difference in mental ability is out of proportion to the purpose served.  In other words, very few humans in the USA are hunting for survival.  That's why hunting is regarded as a sport rather than a necessity.  For the plains indian in pre-Columbian America, hunting was a necessity.  For Al the accountant from Akron, it is a sport.

As a sporting proposition, there is little difference between caged hunts on game farms and using tactics such as flagging, baiting, feeding, and cowboards.  Particularly when  the modern hunter has tools available that extend his ability to lengths that the plains indian didn't know, until they met the white man.  And then it was human against human.  We know the results of that one.  The two factors that spelled the demise of the indian as a whole were socital differences and tools. 

The indian had an atlatl and/or a bow to extend his killing reach.  The maximum effective range was about 50 yards for his tools at that time.  Look at the tools available to us now.  Rifle and cartridge designs that can easity & cleanly kill game at a quarter of a mile - given that the hunter using them isn't a lazy slob & actually has learned how to shoot.  Laser rangefinders so that shooting can be far more precise.  Four wheel drive pickups, rather than the horse or shank's mares.  Optics that were flatly impossible to imagine let alone create when Chris met the Caribs.  Clothing and gear that keeps us warm & dry under conditions that killed 100 years ago.

With all those advantages, why do we need to lure the animal to us?  That isn't sport in my book.  That's being lazy.  I know the animal is dumber than I am, because of that I feel I owe that animal a clean death.  But I also feel that I should have to work for it.

Why do you suppose that with the tool advantages that we have today, many hunters self-handicap themselves with muzzle loaders and bows?  So they can wound more game?  I think not.  Most of them will tell you in some fashion or another that it is to give the game animal a sporting chance.  With the emphasis on sport.

This isn't a personal attack on you & I hope you don't take it that way.  But honestly, I have a low regard for 'hunters' who are too lazy to hunt.

900F

CB900. Now that is an honest reply. My antelope hunting usually involes a lot of crawling , hands and kness and belly. (Dang cactus). But I'm with Klallen. Most hunters I talk to, with a bow and muzzle loader  hunt that way to extend the season, or have less other hunters around.

I don't like to shoot much past 250 yds. Just a  personal preference. How ever all these flat shooters. optics , range finders, etc, do about the same as flagging or  what ever. It' puts too much on the side of the hunter .

I have shot more antelope under 100 yds than over. But usually by stalking or setting