Hey Folks,

It seems pretty quiet here at the BowCast office.  Why?  Everyone is out hunting!  I am getting ready to head up to my elk camp today - hopefully for a little early season action.

Anthony is heading to the field next week as well, and Sean Degrey from Trophies West is busy guiding clients on some monster speed goats.  So, with that being said, we have made the decision to extend the contest for the free Pronghorn hunt by a few weeks.

What does that mean?  We will announce the winner on 9/21/2008 instead of 9/1/2008 as originally published.  It also means that if you HAVE NOT registered for this free hunt give-away, you still have a couple of weeks to do so.  Get registered......if you win a free hunt you are going to be pretty stoked that you took the 3 minutes it takes to register!  You can get all the details at the following URL:

http://www.freehuntcontest.com/

Good luck in the field, and we will have plenty of reports from the BowCast team forthcoming!

Aneal

I pulled this off the wire today. The way I read this is there has been no purchase of Ross Archery, however, sounds like Andy Ross will be influencing some promotion of new BowTech models.

Eugene, Oregon- Contrary to our prior announcement, BowTech was unable to consummate a proposed asset purchase agreement with Ross Archery, Inc. BowTech has not purchased or acquired any Ross Archery, Inc. product designs, equipment or inventories. BowTech has not assumed any of Ross Archery, Inc.'s liabilities.

However, BowTech is pleased to confirm that Andy Ross, the founder of Ross Archery, is assisting BowTech in the promotion of a new line of bows designed and produced by BowTech. BowTech's R&D team has designed the new line of bows to feature the benefits of solid reliability and extreme accuracy; qualities that translate to immediate gratification for the demands of today's passionate bowhunter.

BowTech manufactures and distributes the world's finest compound bows and archery equipment. Founded in 1999, BowTech's corporate offices and manufacturing facilities are located in Eugene, Oregon. With a worldwide distribution network, BowTech's family of brands include: BowTech, Diamond and Ross compound bows, Octane archery accessories, Stryker crossbows, Airow Gun and WaterDog Surface Technologies. BowTech is a wholly owned subsidiary of Savage Sports Corporation, located in Westfield. MA. Savage brands include Savage Arms, Stevens, Fox, Savage (Canada), Savage Range Systems and PortaTarget.

For those of you who were at the BowCast VIP event and FMP World Premiere you got to see this commercial on the big screen when we unveiled it for the first time. For those of you who were not at the event, I thought I would share the video ad with the BowCast community.

You're gonna see a lot more of it - enjoy!

Talk about RAIN!!! It has been a long time since I have seen this much rain this late in the year. In fact, we had TORNADO warnings for the first two days of our Antelope season. I was praying that the area that I was hunting was relatively dry and that I might be able to sit a tank until I was forced to do a little spot and stalk.

Because of birthdays and family visiting I wasn't able to make the first two days of the hunt, usually two days isn't that big of a deal but our Antelope season is only 7 days long so you have to take advantage of everyday. So I rolled out of Silver City Monday morning around 5:00 am trying to make it to my hunting spot before noon. I was able to get to my camping spot around 10:00 am. So I quickly setup camp and headed to the mountain. I say mountain but in reality the area I was hunting was pretty flat. The good thing about this area is that I could see and glass a long way but the problem was that the antelope would see me coming.

A picture of some of the country

So I headed to the trailer for the evening to regroup and come up with a plan. There was no way that sitting water with that many cows around it, was going to work.

I think that the best hunters spend 75% of there time scouting and 25% of the time hunting. With Mother Nature throwing me a curve this year, I needed to do some serious speed-scouting. I needed to find one of two things; a tank that was being hit by goats that didn't have cattle around it or find some habitat that was more conducive to stalking.

Tuesday morning I covered a ton of ground with my Duramax and with my Swaro 15x's. I eliminated some unproductive ground and I found one little area that held some good goats. I saw them the previous day and if was lucky they might hold in the area during the hunt. If worse came to worse I could setup in the rocks and try to wait them out.

This is a picture of the area.

I was starting to feel a little better about my chances but I knew it wasn't going to be as easy as last year. So my game planned changed from sitting water to spotting and stalking or hunting travel corridors.

Before I headed back to camp I did put the stalk on a nice buck with big cutters but I just wasn't able to get any closer than 125 yards before the sky's opened up. It was pretty dicey getting back to camp but I made it without any drama.

Before the roads got bad

I know the picture above isn't the best but let me say that it was slick as owl crap.

That night I went to sleep with raining falling on the trailer, usually that is a soothing sound but I had some hunting to do so it was a little unnerving.

Before I new it my Treo was going off and it was time to hit the hills. I think that when you are spotting and stalking it is all about numbers. The more times you the try, the better your odds get. So I promised myself that I was going to put the stalk on every legal animal that I could glass up(if they were in a stalkable place of course). As I left camp it was obvious that I was in for another rainy day so my decision to spot and stalk was a wise one.

I put two stalks on in the morning and I pretty much blew both of them. I just ran out of terrain to hide behind but my third stalk had some real promise. You can't see it in the picture below but there are two bucks bedded on the top of the ridge. They were looking down and seemed to be nodding out. They were about 3/4 of a mile away and it seemed that they were going to stick around for a little while.

Ridge with bucks on it.

So off I went. The stalk was going pretty well but about 400 yards from where I thought the bucks were bedded it started raining and lightening really hard. Crap, I had a few options; Call off the stalk like a wuss, put my noisy rain gear on and hope that the bucks wouldn't hear me or suck it up and hunt. All I could think of is a saying my buddy Dan Staton (fitness god) says, "Suck it up, Buttercup".

THE HUNT WAS ON... Something was going to hit the mud; a buck or a Jason.

I was using a little bush as a marker to guide me to where the bucks were bedded. I was able to get to that bush without a problem but now I needed to relocate the bucks. I knew that they had to be close. Danger Close. After about 10 minutes I was able to glass up some little tips sticking thru the sage about 80 yards away. Yes, I mean little but I was committed and given the conditions any buck would be great. The best part is that he was still looking downhill.

I have been practicing all summer and 80 yards would be a doable shot but I wanted to close the distance to about 40 yards. So I decide to push my luck and try to close the distance. Luckily, it was still raining so I had some background noise and I ground would be really soft.

It took me about 30 minutes to cover those last 40 yards but it seem like eternity.

So, I was close enough and I had a decent angle on his vitals but he was bedded and I didn't want to take that shot. To be honest, I don't know why I didn't want to shoot the buck when he was bedded but I just didn't. The wait was on.

To make this a successful stalk I had to do three things; Wait for him to stand, make the shot and don't get hit my lightening.

Taking a hint from the bucks I bedded down next to a sage bush and got comfortable.

After about 10 minutes he started to get fidgety and I knew he was about to stand. So I started to get ready for my opportunity. Almost in unison we both came to our knees. The only difference is that as I rose I also drew my bow back. I let my 40 yard pin on settle on his heart, whispered to myself "Confidence is Deadly" and let the arrow fly.

WHAAACK!!!!!

At first he don't know what happened but when he looked up the hill he saw me and he knew he was busted. He started running uphill to my right but I also ran than way hoping that he would see me and run downhill towards the truck. Guess what? He headed right to the truck but stopped to get a feel for the situation. I quickly ranged him again at 78 yards, I moved my sight and hit him again behind the last rib angling forward towards his front leg.

What a rush! I had just made the best stalk of my life. Is he a monster? No, but that really doesn't matter. I had everything against me and I had every reason to quit but I didn't. I sucked it up and I made the shot.

Nice Shot!

How about a hero shot?

A few things that I learned or could have done better on the hunt?

--- I recently switched from a Badlands 2800 pack to a BLACKHAWK! Blacktimber and that was a great move. I think that carrying a little bit smaller but very functionally pack made it easier to stalk my buck. IMO we often we try to get the highest capacity pack but that is always the best decision. Stick to a pack size that fits the situation.

--- I need to find another place in this unit that has more stalkable terrain. Flat is great when hunting water but not so great when spotting and stalking.

--- I really like my new Sure-loc sight. It is a basic 3-pin but it has a slider so I can adjust it on the fly. I had my pins set at 20-30-40 but my sight tape went out to 85 yards. I just moved my slider and I was dead-on out to 85 yards.

--- The new Tekan II's do fly like field points.

This is one of my favorite pictures

A Bloody Bumper - That means you had a successful hunt and the animal is loaded.


So that was my 2008 Antelope hunt... WOW.... What a hunt...

I hope you liked the story...
Take Care

Jason