Matthew Light

The Montana Big Sky country was beautiful as the plains spread out for miles as far as the eye can see. Herds of antelope does and bucks were weary from hunting pressure and ran swiftly away as our Ford Excursion rumbled down the gravel road, cutting across the vast grasslands.

Antelope are the fastest North American game with speed and eyesight as their best defense against the hunt. Using Swarovski 10X42 SLC binoculars and Leica 1200 range finder provided an excellent ability to spot bucks and plan the route to get that successful shot. Running bent-over and sometimes crawling, we made our way using terrain features to get to a position to take the shot. Optics play an important role to relocate the buck as quickly as possible, preventing detection from sentry does and to move when the animals are feeding. The wind was strong - suppressing noise but providing no cover from human scent. The short grass provided no cover. Using terrain and visually placing this between the antelope, we made our way to a hillcrest. Suddenly, the buck appeared and was moving directly away. He smelled us from the swirling changing wind. This was the pivotal moment of a few seconds that took hours to reach. I led him using my Zeiss Conquest 3 X 10 duplex scope. The 7 mm Magnum roared and the shot was on target. The buck collapsed as he reached full acceleration. There is nothing like the feeling of success and the respect with admiration for a beautiful antelope buck.

Matthew used:

• Zeiss 3.5-10x44 Conquest Rifle Scope