My wife, daughter and I headed out for Nebraska from Missouri on August 16^th and the temperature was as high as our expatiations for our antelope hunt in Nebraska. We were all hoping that heading north would produce a little cooler weather. Arriving there early Friday morning we could see this would not be the case although the humidity made the daytime highs of the mid 90s much more bearable than back in Missouri where the humidity is always high.

We arrived three days early to get camp set up and scout the area we would be hunting which was the Oglala National Grassland in the far north west corner of the state but before arriving there we came through Crawford Nebraska and the beautiful Pine Ridge area with jagged hills and pine trees abroad. It was a big surprise from what most of us think of when we hear Nebraska. Just west of Crawford is Fort Robinson which is rich in history of the wild west. They have left the fort pretty much the way it was. You will find plenty of camping spots for tents and RV’s and also cabin rentals and even horse stalls available for rent for your stay if you wish to do a little horse back riding while stopping there. On our way through we saw lots of whitetail and a few mule deer along with a large heard of buffalo. It was quite a sight I wish we would have had a little more time to explore the area.

We drove another 30 miles to our destination to Gilbert Baker wild life management area which was on the western edge of the Pine Ridge area about five miles north of Harrison, Nebraska. There is a small primitive camping area there with about six spots to pitch a tent. There are also picnic tables, a hand pump to get water, bathrooms and plenty of shade trees. Driving through Harrison we found a small grocery store, a café, motel and gas station which by the way is the only one in Sioux county. The folks we met every where we stopped were among the friendliest we have had the pleasure talking to.

From camp a short seven mile drive north will get you to the beginning of the Oglala National Grassland in which you can camp also but shade trees are hard to find. Once we arrived at the grass lands we started seeing small groups of antelope and a few really nice bucks. The biggest problem we had was the rain because while trying to hunt antelope with a bow, blind hunting on a water source is by far the best method and with rain the first three days we were there water was plentiful and the hunting was going to be tough.

We glassed Friday and Saturday before season opened on Monday to get to know the lay of the land and where the antelope were moving. My wife planned on blind hunting over water holes while I was wanting to stalk. While the rain had stopped by now the water holes and ditches were full of water and so Monday had finally arrived and we were ready for the hunt. The first day my wife decided to blind hunt in a wide cotton wood draw were the antelope seemed to be crossing and I set off on a stalk. I had driven about a mile glassing when I spotted my first group of antelope I parked the truck and got my gear ready and off I went trying to circle around a huge area of grassland. This was a lot different stalk than I was use to. There are very few ditches or fast switching terrain that provides any kind of cover as you can see in the pictures but a great hunt never the less. This kind of hunt will defiantly hone anyone’s staking skills. While approaching the first group of antelope as it happens the wind changed and they were off.

What speed and eyesight these things have. They are truly the hardest critter I have ever stalked or should I say tried to stalk. The rest of the day went like this stalk after stalk but the next day while driving I found two on the back side of a large hill so this time my expectations were high. I decided to circle all the hills to make sure they wouldn’t wind me which was about quarter mile around but I wanted to make sure all my bases were covered and they were so I thought. By the way if you decide to go hunt antelope with a bow I have two main words to remember range finder. It was a perfect stalk tip toeing through the cactus and all and as I came to full draw after that long stalk she stood up perfect and that’s when it happened my eyes said 55-yards but when the arrow was released you guessed it she was only 40-yards this wide open country is deceiving but that is the reason they call it hunting. The next three days went like this but I learned a lot and had a great time I will definitely be back in Nebraska next year.

Tags in Nebraska for antelope are only $133 and it is archery only for non-resident but there is no draw just buy them over the counter or on line. There is also a $13 wild life stamp to buy and that is it which is a lot better than most states were you can antelope hunt in which tags are a lot higher and you usually haft to put in for a draw. The herd in Nebraska is estimated at 6000 which doesn’t seem like many but most of them are in the panhandle of Nebraska. We hunted mostly in a six mile square area and seen about 25 antelope this is where a good spotting scope is a necessity and just spotting and driving is the best way to find these prairie ghost and with thousand of acres in the Oglala National Grassland we barely scratched the surface of the area we were in. So find your prong horn and then let the stalk begin.

Out where a lonely stretch of Nebraska’s highway 29, breaks up and ends in gravel the prairie ghost wander the rolling hills and dissected plains. Sand hills break through the short grass prairie that is free range to cattle. An occasional elk is seen in the edge areas of brush that border the vast open fields of Oglala National Grasslands.. Unusual rocky escarpments and buttes reach upward to break the skyscape and deep ditches, that have been eroded into the plains where water flows on rainy days, are lined with cottonwood trees and a thriving mule deer population.

We had set up camp at Gilbert Baker a wild life management area that offered amenities of vault toilets, picnic tables, a hand pump water source, shady creek side camping, hiking trails and a near by WMA wildlife management area for hunting. What a life. Seven days and five nights of camping and hunting awaited us.

Fort Robinson the nearest state park was located in Crawford, NE about 30 miles from Gilbert Baker. Along the way visitors will see the Pine Ridge Recreational Area, buffalo, Merriams turkey, mule deer, antelope, cattle, roadside Indian memorials and soldier outposts. The Fort does offer historical tours and upscale accommodations, nearby trail heads for equine riders, a restaurant, wildlife game and parks office and many different cabins and campsites. Toadstool Geologic Park and the Agate Fossil Beds are within 25 miles of Gilbert Baker WMA. There are truly many family activities and locations to visit.

The people of Sioux County were quite friendly and very pleasant. The only gas station in that county is about five miles south of the Gilbert Baker campsite in the town of Harrison. The town offers services of a bank, ATM, a school, grocery store, inn, RV dump station, ice and a restaurant.

There is absolutely nothing more exciting to this bowhunter than trekking out a new hunting adventure on my own. That was especially true in the almost bug free region where I would scout, stalk and even ambush hunt antelope from a blind.

The eye can see for miles and miles across the low mound of hills and gently sloping prairie.

Vast distance is deceiving to the eye that is trained to search treed acreage. More of a challenge than that is the method of stalking the prong-horned prairie ghost out on the open prairie. They can see every move and if they are startled in the least they kick up their heels to speeds as fast as 60 plus miles an hour.

2 Days of Scouting

August 18

The haze on the horizon took some getting used to. The rain that began that day brought an impressive display of lightening and left a bit of humidity. It also left water in every ditch and gave me cause to ponder which water hole to spend time scouting. Groups of does and fawns seemed to meander over the hills but the bucks were singled to themselves. Gravel roads snake through the area of grassland and fence lines dissect the region that rolls across the northern tip of the Nebraska Panhandle and spills over into South Dakota. The antelope don’t jump the fences. They either run the length for an opening or dive under it at certain locations.

August 19

To our dismay we discovered on our second day scouting that due to threat of fire we could not drive the 4-wheel drive roads. The lightening had started a couple different fires and even though the daily rains had moistened the dry prairie and filled low-lying areas it was obvious by both the crunch of the brown grasses and the empty reservoirs that the water situation was amiss. After one rain we saw a beautiful double rainbow.

The previous drought was apparent. Local ranchers commented that the last 10 years wad been very dry. One told us that it took 35 free range acres per cow to feed them out there. Looking at the sun-dried grassland nothing seems nourishing or sustaining to cattle or wildlife. The fact is that the sage and wind blown grasses sustain the cattle, pronghorn and other wildlife very well as long as they have water to hold them in the area. The purpose of all those 4-wheel drive roads is to deliver and check the water in the cattle troughs. Some have working windmills to fill them and others require the ranchers to haul water in as needed.

Seeing more antelope today. The bucks are very wary and they run great distances when we get out along the roadside to scope the landscape. A set of strange mounded hills that are grouped together offered us a great vantage point to glass. The antelope that we startled ran and ran and ran toward the distant horizon. There is no where to hide and stalk. The antelope have visual acuity akin to a turkey.

Bowhunters take to the prairie

August 20

Day one opened with an 83-degree expected high and a balmy breeze that would come and go until midmorning. My husband and daughter went their way to stalk the nimble prairie ghost and I set off for a timbered backdrop to pitch a hunting blind and display my antelope decoy. I set up my 2-man blind under a low bowing tree limb that offered enough shade to comfort me and enough leaf rattling to startle me into thinking a snake lay at my feet more than once.

A shallow ditch lay about 30 yards in front of me and to my east and west I was bordered by either flat or rolling plain that fell into the ditch. Just 100 yards away my field of vision was broken by an odd mounded hill side where three rounded hills shared two intersecting ditches.

I was set back 20 yards from the cross trail that broke in two directions to skirt the hills and parallel my blind along the cotton wood draw behind me. It was beautiful in an odd way. So desolate in front of me and surprisingly lush and green with leaves fluttering above and behind me.

The wind began to pick up considerably and I searched the sky for a stormy horizon. Eyes back on the landscape. I had memorized every bush and obvious place I could see and paused many times to look at the cactus grouping on the hillside that looked eerily like a bedded mule deer. More haze settled in as the wind picked up. Strangely I thought about the humidity at home in Missouri and how the haze here was more dust and not moisture. The grass here would have welcomed a morning dew or mid day humidity. Lost to the thoughts that only a bow hunter could enjoy alone on a hunt of a lifetime a dark distraction rose from the rolling prairie to my left. I was caught up in the recognition of black prongs cutting cross ways at an angle to my position from a depression on the prairie and each step bringing more of him into sight. He turned toward my decoy and stopped for about a minute. I pulled my bow up and waited to draw behind the mesh of the blind. He had only glanced my way for a few seconds but was not interested in the blur of camouflage beneath the cottonwood tree. I froze waiting for him to move in. He did not move from that place but stood watching quite taken with the pretty antelope decoy. He closed about ten more steps to just 65 yards, according to my rangefinder before stopping to browse. Oh come on I thought just another 15 yards. Suddenly the wind kicked up and he took a closer look at my decoy as she waved frantically in the wind. By now her head was flapping to and fro in the gusts in between bowing over to the ground beneath the wind sheer. He turned, ran up into the draw and was gone over the hill before I could lower my bow.

Replay. Oh my gosh. Anger. I should not have put out the decoy. Ohh the wind. I picked up my rangefinder and re-set the button. Confirmed my earlier reading of 65 yards. Frustration . . . with the situation. Strap up and go stalk girl. I was shaking from the moment. Water pack on my back bow in hand I slipped out of the blind and ran across the ditch and up hill. I crawled along the ridge narrowly missing cactus and spying over the top of the hill. I could not see around the lower hillside or beneath the one I was lying on top of but I could see in the distance.

At least a hundred yards from the base of the next hill a group of three antelope were feeding in the green near a water trough. Head down and back tracking to lower ground I skirted the set of mounded hills and cut through them to climb the next hillside. As I found a ditch to crawl through, I made my way slowly higher and sat in the grass to catch my breath. I peeked over again to see how close I was. Along the base of the hill side behind me the buck had been resting in the ditch where it was washed out against the bottom of the hill. He had seen me and stood up. As I turned to see him for the second time that morning he raced back out of the ditch and around the base of the hill I was on top of and took the other three with him. I had a long walk back to the blind and a slow walk out to the truck.

August 21

On the second day of the hunt our party got off to a late start. Everyone in camp had either gaulded and blistered feet or sore toes from our snake boots. The boots were well worn and broken in but all the scouting, walking in to our blinds and stalking two to four miles after pronghorn had done some damage. I had no intention of missing out on a day of hunting because of blisters nor did anyone else.

Always safety conscious, I threw caution to the gusty winds on the panhandle and I donned extra wide band-Aids, sport socks and my Easy Spirit tennies. Having seen a small prairie rattler and forty acres of cactus I put my trust in the Lord and hobbled in to set my blind for the days hunt. Several hours of sitting without seeing anything and I decided to move to a better water hole.

Glassing on the way to a new hunting location I began to see bucks herding does. A little bit different activity than what I had seen the first few days I scouted in the area.

A full pond that showed constant use was my new location. I had to walk even farther to get in and set up but it looked prime. I saw one antelope buck casing the water about an hour before I left the blind that evening. He never came in. I waited for him to bed but he walked out of sight behind another hill. The habit of an antelope is so different from that of a deer. The prairie ghost will bed down in evening and that is where you will find them in the morning. They get up from a bedding area early in the morning, find water and browse all day. My hope was to see his place of rest and return to take him with my bow early the following day but I was not able to see him bed down.

August 22

Last day on the water hole. My daughter shared the blind with me and we took turns scouting with the binoculars. Nothing at all. We enjoyed our time together and she confided to me that she wants to bow hunt next year. Of course I couldn’t be more pleased. Wearily we packed up and walked out to meet my husband for another stalk.

The four-mile hike was not a leisurely one. We walked as hard and as fast as I could keep up with the group. Having short stature means twice as many steps to a taller persons gait. We saw groups of antelope several hundred yards away but they always saw us first no matter how we approached.  The Nebraska antelope have a habit of running great distances when spooked. I understand from other hunters the antelope in other states do not take to the hills five miles away rather they trot off a short distance and wait to see if they are safe or if they need to go farther.

We found three nice muleys and glassed them until they tired of us. When they finally stood up, one in the group was so wide I couldn’t believe my eyes and the others were fair size bucks. As we circled around to take the ridge line back to the truck, we found another group of antelope and approached from a hilltop to spy down onto a lower hill at them. After setting up the decoy one of them stood up and stared for about fifteen minutes before racing away and out of sight.

Our hunt truly became more of an adventure for our family. Many more encounters and wildlife discoveries were experienced than I can share in one sitting. Bring your rangefinder, break in your boots, strap on a hydration backpack and be prepared for a long day of trekking that will push you to the limit. Fill those bow tags or not it is well worth the long walk and the blisters.

Every night the sound of rain against the tent put us to sleep. On two occasions we heard coyote song and once an elk. The stars are brighter in camp and the water from the hand pump is colder than the home tap. Refresh your senses and experience the hunt of a lifetime on the Nebraska Panhandle.

A special thank-you to all of our sponsors listed below and the Nebraska Game and Parks and Tourism departments. A special drawing for a Nebraska five species hunt will take place in December. Hunters you can go online and find out more about this opportunity to get to know Nebraska and find yourself enjoying a hunt in Nebraska.