Well, here it is - the weekend we had all been waiting for. Turns out my amazing paper shooting skills did nothing for the actual hunt. Like I told Brent, anyone can hit paper, but when it comes to hitting an animal.....hmmm....Brent's got it down though! 
Everything said and done, we managed to come out of Big Sandy with 2 antelope in the cooler. JW had promised me a 1/2 mile hike with a nice easy shot and boy did he come through. The only problem was that I didn't come through on my end of the deal....killing an antelope Sunday morning. I was not able to lay on my belly to shoot (which would've been nice, given the situation) so we watched the antelope COLONY - no joke, there was at least 70 + lopers - move from 30 yards to 75 and further. After I had somewhat calmed down and laid my rifle over JW's back to help steady it, the first shot of the season rang out. BANG! Nothin'....damn. I'll blame it on JW. I used his back as a rest and I'm pretty sure that he was breathing too hard, or was that me?! I was so excited and nervous!
The race was on....antelope running everywhere, a little cussing and packing up for the long haul. As we crested a hill we noticed that the herd had sent out a "satellite doe" to check on the whereabouts of the humans with the guns. That little doe is now in our freezer thanks to Brent's pinpoint accuracy. The weekend continued with more hiking and another shot from the old 270 and yet another miss. By Monday afternoon we had officially turned our 1/2 mile hike into a 10 mile death march. The cold had set in and I'm pretty sure that I had pulled every muscle at this point....I thought all that cycling and working out was doing me some good, but I guess I should consider getting my money back, that YMCA is a bunch of liars!
Late Monday afternoon the buck finally went down....I will spare those of you who aren't big into hunting and just tell you that the whole fiasco involved Brent RUNNING down a mountain and up another one, I think it might have been 2. And to think I'm the one that's been training for a marathon, next year it's going to be him. JW and I stood and watched in awe as 2 long legs overtook the mountain in maybe a minute....it was deja vu for me, the day before Brent and I had watched JW do the exact same thing. Oh, what I would give for long legs! The afternoon also involved JW running down a hillside, back up another and going for a free antelope ride. Finally, it all came to an end with the boys hauling out two packs full of meat and me parading off the mountain with the head in hand....I never knew just how bad antelope smell, I couldn't wash my hands enough to get that smell out. We made it home around 12:30 in the morning and then it was back to the daily grind....thank god!
The meat is now cut, ground and in the freezer (with help from our new FoodSaver, our early xmas present to ourselves). I think that I will call it a hunting season and just help process meat from here on out. Here it is, Friday morning, and I still feel like I've already gone through labor....yep, last weekend was the start and the finish of this girl's hunting season. The boys are going to shoot a few pheasants this weekend and then they still have elk and deer coming up so I'm sure we'll have more exciting stories to post!!
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