Joe Hawkins finally drew an antelope tag and capitalized on his opportunity. The following is what he had to say about the hunt.
"The day finally came on September 7, 2012, opening day of antelope
season. I had to work until noon, get
everything loaded up, and finally left Safford at 1:00pm, with a 4-hour drive
to hunt. Finally Friday evening around
6:00pm I found a nice buck with one doe.
It was too far to go after him because it was getting dark soon. So Saturday morning started off really
well. I was only 15 minutes away from my
sister’s house and jumped a really nice buck with six does. I told myself, “Wait, you can get a bigger
one.” I kept jumping bucks and does all
day. At the end of the day, I had seen 9
bucks and 10 does. It had been a good
day. Sunday I got up and rode my
4-wheeler all over. I saw one small buck
and around 9:30am I got a call from my brother-in-law Mike. He said, “I think I found the big one.” He spotted him a mile away and told me to
meet him. When I did we were overlooking
a big valley that was green. I picked up
the buck and four does while I was glassing the area. They were still ¾ of a mile away. We worked our way to the top of another
ridge. They were still 800 yards
away. We worked our way to the top of
another ridge and still too far to shoot.
Mike stayed on top of the ridge; I walked down and got into some juniper
trees. I ranged him at 500 yards. I got set up and all of a sudden the buck
starts walking right toward me. He
stopped at 420 yards and stared forever at Mike on top of the ridge. I told myself that he was not coming
anymore. My heart was pounding out of my
chest. I ranged him again at 420 yards,
set my 25-06 upon my tripod, looked through my Nikon BDC, checked my chart for
range and as soon as the buck turned sideways touched off the round. All I heard was a whack. I knew I had hit him. I just wasn’t sure where. I called mike on his phone and he said I had
hit him. The buck ran about 30 yards and
went down. I watched him for a minute or
two. He did get back up and ran about
100 yards and finally fell over. I
walked over to him. He got back up and
ran. So I pumped another round in
him. He stopped and fell over. I walked back up to him. He still was not dead, so the third round did
the trick. Finally, after twenty years
of waiting for a tag, I got a trophy antelope…wide…tall…super heavy
mass…perfect heart shape. What a great
hunt! Can’t wait until the next one!"
Joe
Hawkins
Safford,
Arizona
Congratulations to Joe on a dandy of a buck.
