One of my more rewarding memories of my years of hunting has to be the antelope hunt of 2002. It was the year my wife Dorié finally had a buck tag. She had waited patiently for four years to collect enough preference points to draw the tag.

We went on our usual Saturday and Sunday hunt and those of us with doe tags filled them despite a little visit with the local game warden after we crossed a fence in pursuit of a doe and wound up on the Pawnee Grasslands. The weather was beautiful on the weekend and turned colder and wetter as the week wore on.

On Wednesday we called the rancher who managed the property we were hunting on and arranged to hunt in a different area than we had been hunting. Thursday came and it was the last day of the first rifle antelope season and if my wife did not get her buck it would be a few more years before she would get another chance.

We got up at the usual dark hour and left the house around 5:30 a.m. to get to inside the gate of the ranch as the sun came up. That day we could have waited until mid morning to get up. We could have had a nice warm breakfast and driven ten miles an hour under the speed limit.

When we got to the ranch the fog was so thick that the visibility was around fifty feet if that. There was a soft, drizzling rain and the temperature was in the mid thirties. The conditions remained for the first couple of hours. After that the fog would drift in and out and increase our visibility to perhaps two hundred yards for short periods of time.

When we got there I drove the truck down near the bottom where, on a clear day we would have a great, wide view of the clearing below us. On this day all we could see was a wall of dark gray mist. We walked through the cactus, sage and yucca until we found a very large group of yucca to use for cover if the sun ever burned off the early morning fog. We set down a blanket and bundled up for what could be a long, patient wait.

After staying in that area of the section for a few hours we retreated back to the truck to warm up and get some warm coffee and tea into us. I decided to drive the perimeter of the section to see if the fog was only in the bottom area we were hunting. As we drove around the fog lifted and settled back down several times in the half hour or so it took to make the circle. At one point we did spot some antelope that had just crossed the road to the north and ran down to the bottom where we had been sitting. We probably would not have seen them when we were down there unless they trampled us as they made their way south.

The fog was one thing was to our advantage just as much as it was a hindrance. Antelope have a very keen sense of sight. It is said that they see as good as looking through an eight-power set of binoculars. In the dense fog, they could see only as far as we could.

We went back down to our original spot and the fog was still very thick there so I drove back to where we had seen the antelope on the top. It was a very well draw that they came out of and perhaps more would follow. The visibility was at best 200 yards even though the sun was somewhere up above us. It was a much lighter shade of gray, but all color was absent from the scene. It was rather eerie for an antelope hunt.

Then, as a ghost, the same buck that we had seen a half an hour ago was standing in front of us right next to the two track. All we could see was a gray silhouette slightly darker than the surrounding mist about a hundred and fifty yards in front of us. Eerie indeed.

We got out of the truck and Dorié aimed the rifle at the buck and put the crosshairs on him. I was impatiently waiting for the report of the rifle and told her to take the shot. She said that she couldn't because the background was not clear. She informed that there was one of the rancher's cows standing behind the buck. Sure enough, about fifty yards beyond the antelope was a cow with a really hefty price tag on it if it wound up shot.

We had to wait another five minutes as the buck slowly walked to the south side of the two track. When it did, Dorié once again raised the rifle and this time she sent the 125-grain projectile towards the target. The antelope dropped in its tracks and was down. Dorié looked up toward the heavens and quietly and solemnly said, "This one is for you Mom." You see, ever since her mother was a child she always wanted to go hunting and was told that women do not hunt. With that fatal shot, all of Dorié's patience and persistence proved that statement to be false. I paced off the distance and it was 162 yards, which is very close for a shot at a gorgeous buck antelope. The fog turned out to be a definite advantage.

I drove the truck up and Dorié and I field dressed the buck. We decided to have the head mounted so I had to do my first cape of a big game animal and it turned out to be a good job. We packed the animal in the back of the truck and went and had breakfast before dropping the head off at the taxidermist for mounting.

I was so proud of Dorié because she was battling a cold and was miserable for a few weeks afterward. She proved to be a real trooper by staying out there in the cold mist for several hours. She also showed me that patience pays off in the long run.

I have a new appreciation for big game guides and what they have to endure. It is no different, however, than instructing or guiding anyone in any area of life. It helps to have a built up supply of patience. It is also not a job for anyone who has control issues and has a predetermined vision of what the hunt should be. The hunting experience will be different for everyone. It is almost weird to be out in the hunting ground without a firearm to bag and tag something.

Guiding is actually more along the lines of teaching because what is really happening is knowledge is hopefully being passed from one person to another. It is a process where the teacher and the student probably will learn something out of the experience. I learned not to get too exited and rush a shot and always be sure of the background especially in the fog.