Rough Country Antelope(2)
where you can stald them in the same manner you'd stalk Stone
and Dall sheep in much of northern British Columbia, the Yukon
or Alaska. Anyone who has ever hunted sheep soon finds that
antelope are every bit as hard to stalk as sheep, especially in rough
country. An antelope won't go into the rough stuff as far as a sheep
will, nor as high, but once he's been spooked where he normally lives,
down in the flat lands, you'll find him just as farsighted, alert and hard
to get on to as any ram.
Antelope in the rough stuff do have one habit that make them easier
to stalk than sheep, and that is their refusal to brush up in the timber
where you can't see them. Animals of the wide open spaces, they're
bound to stay where they can see what is going on around them--especially
after they've had a good scare! I've shot them in rough country pockets,
with fairly heavy bunches of scattered timber around the edges, but
they could usually see a couple of hundred yards in every direction.
These were bands that hadn't been disturbed, either. In any event, if you
get high enough so that you can look down into the pockets of onto the
benches or wide open hillsides, you'll have no trouble spotting them.
Then all you have to do is figure out how to stalk them to within
rifle range. That's all!
Rough country Antelope(1)
best. Up here you can stalk them as you would a Bighorn
sheep--and they're every bit as hard to come up on.
by BOB HAGEL
W E HAD BEEN climbing the rocky sage slope for nearly half an hour,
and the first pale, pink glow had just started to spread in the morning sky
above the jagged peaks to the east. Far below, where the long slope of
bench land drifted dounward from the toe of the Lost River Range to
Idaho's Pahsimeroi river, it was all but totally dark.
Domn there on the antelope flats the gleam of headlights traced
meandering, snake-like courses as vehicles pkcked their way between
the dry draws, around heavy patches of sage and greasewood. These
were antelope hunters, hoping somehow to find a herd in the gathering
light before someone else saw them first.
As the first streaks of gold tinted the summits of the peaks above, long
before there was shooting light down on the flats, the crackle of spasmodic
rifle fire drifted up on the thin morning air. Perhaps some trigger-happy
eager-beaver had momentarily frozen a band of pronghorn in the glare
of the headlights; maybe they had been reading about the "grey ghosts
of the plains." Whatever the reason, it would produce but two things:
cripppled or frightened antelope.
This was what we had expected, what we were ready for. As the
growing light revealed details below, the twinkle of headlights was
replaced by trails of dust spiraling upward as speeding wehicles
twisted this way and that try where we sat. With the number of
cars, pickups and feeps streaking across the flats, many of the
antelope failed to make it but, for the most part, the herds gained
the foothills. Some of them took a vigilant stand in the middle of
some high mountain face where they were almost impossible to
approachwithin rifle aange. Others dissolved into the draws that
twisted back into the broken, timbered lower slopes of the range,
foining other small bands already feeding in the seclusion of the
rough brakes.
This was the first day of the antelope season. Tomorrow
there would be few antelope left on the flat benches near the
floor of the valley, and those that were there would be next to
impossible to approach.
As the day wore on we stayed in the rough country, above
and beyond the reach of the 4-wheel-drive hunters. We sat
with binoculars, sweeping the foothills and watching the antelope
drift into pockets protected by rocky ridges or moving behind
the cover of fir and mountain mahogany. When a little band settled
doun we'd glass them until we agreed there was nothing that
looked good; then we'd locate another bunch.
Before the sun slid behind the ridges to the west, we'd killed
a pair of bucks that were both over the 14" mark. We'd passed up
a dozen or so more that were not much smaller. if there had been
any record-class heads about, we'd have had every opportunity
to size them up and collect them.
Not all sections offer this kind of antelope hunting, but there is
a lot more of it than many hunters realize. It may not be as scenically
spectacular as the country that rises from the sage flats toward the
crown of Idaho's 12,655-foot Mt. Borah, but there are often rough
mountains or brakes around the perimeter of the antelope range that
afford the same type of hunting.
Colt's Competiors
After Samuel Colt's patent ran ort on his revolving cylinder principle in
1857, Remington, Smith & Wesson and a number of other manufacturers
had turned to making pistols witha revolving cylinder. Some gained a
degree of popularity in the West, but the Colt remained predominant. The
earlier caplock pepperbox pistols, with no separate barrel and cylinder,
presented the apperance of an elongated multi-bored cylinder from which the
balls were directly fired. They were cheaper than most orthodox revolvers
and gained some popularity in the Far West, especially among the miners.
As the metallic cartridge repeating arms gained in popularity the Spencer
and Winchester became the early favorites. When Winchester's Model
1873, the first repeater to shoot centerfire reloadable cartridges, came on
the maket it gained great popularity. As one of the points in its favor,
the cartridges were of the same calibers (except for the 45) used in Colt
Single Action Army revolvers.
The progress and variety of arms after 1873 was tremendous. Fine single-shot
rifles for hunting and target shooting became available along with
improved repeaters. Derringers and pocket pistols in the populated areas
replaced the big holster pistols, and the carrying of any sidearm went out of style.
By the 1880s prominent Easterners were looking westward to invest
in the newly opened land. Among these was Theodore Roosevelt who,
in 1883, purchased several ranches near Medora, Dakota Territory.
Among his favorite guns while in Dakota was a 45-120 Sharps, a Model
1876 Winchester in 45-75 caliber and an ivory handled Colt Single Action
Army 45.
Once the Indian hostilities had been reasonable controlled, attention was
directed toward building up the settlements, extending the transportation
and communication systems, and developing the land into its most
profitable uses. Hunting to provide food and competitive shooting
for sport dept firearms as a vital implement in every western home.
The establishment of law and order in rough new settlements and
self-pro-tection in the town or in the open called for the presence of a gun.
In all this great shifting of the population from east of the Mississippi to
the west, guns alone did not "Win the West." It took courage, perseverance
and sweat. But the way was made possible and easier by a tool of man's
ingenuity--the gun. Actually many kinds of guns gave dependable service
in bringing a good way of life to this land. Here it is possible to mention
only those which played the most prominent roles.
The historian Augustus C. Buell wrote: In all the annals of the frontier and
pioneer, of struggles that wrested the continent from its savage owners and
made it a freehold of civtlization, the rifle has been the instrument of destiny
and the symbol of progress."
If there was any way to produce an orderly society and to write the history
of this nation other than by raw courage and superior weapons, that way could
not found.
REF: THE GUN DIGEST
The 45-70 Springfield
had urgently petitioned their
superiors to send them Spencer repeating
rifles and carbines, very few
ever were issued. The standard weapons
used in the Indian Wars of the
late 1870s and 1880s were the Springfield
45-70 trapdoor rifles and carbines
and the Colt Single Action
Army 45 revolvers. Some "44 American"
and 45 Schofield" model
Smith & Wesson revolvers were also used.
It was with the 45-70 singleshot
Springfields and Colt 45 revolvers
that Ceneral Custer's command
was armed when they were trapped
by Sitting Bull's Sioux on the Little
Big Horn and upwards of 300 brave
cavalrymen gave up their lives. Custer
had left his fast shooting Gatling guns
back at his base camp.
On July 17, 1876, a young scout
for the Fifth Cavalry had his big opportunity.
In a duel with the Cheyenne
Chief Yellow Hand, William F.
Cody killed his adversary and
promptly removed the scalp-lock, declaring
it to be "the first scalp for
Custer!" Cody, better known as Buffalo
Bill, started out using Sawken
and Mississippi rifles, Colt cap and
ball pistols and, later, his favorite,
a 50-70 Springfield rifle he affectionately
called "Lucretia Borgia."
In his later showmanship days Cody
used Winchester repeating rifles,
especially the Model 1873.
By the late 1870s the Indian Wars
on the plains were near an end. The
famous Indian fighters General Nelson A.
Miles and General George
Crook were in the thick of this fighting .
After the plains Indians were
driven onto reservations, the scene
of major Indian war activity shifted
to Arizona, and it was not until 1886
that the Apache reign of terror was
broken by the surrender of Geronimo.
Indian hostilities were not the only
dangers that plagued the West. Towns
like Abilene, Dodge City, Deadwood,
Panamint City and Tombstone had
their share of hard characters who
used their six-guns without conscience
or hesitation. Stage holdups were
commonplace. One shotgun-wielding
California stage robber named Black
Bart robbed 28 stages and somtimes
left a poetic note for his victims which
he signed "The Po-8." One such note
Eventually, lawmen like the Earps,
Bat Masterson, Wild bill Hickok,
John R. Hughes, Billy Breakenridge,
John Slaughter, Jeff Milton and others
were able to cool the ardor and
restrain the activities of the lawless.
For a mafouity of these lawmen the
Colt Single Action Army revolver was
a customary piece of attire. It is
doubtful that any would want to have
been caught with one of those Colt
models with a 16-inch barrel dramatized
as the "Buntline."
The Wagon Box Fight
The tide of war swung back to favor
the soldiers on August 2 of 1867. At
what has become known as "The
Wagon Box Fight, " outside of Fort
Phil Kearny , Captain James W. Powell
and a detail of 31 men were attacked
by a great horde of Red
Colud's Sioux warriors numbering
several thousand. As in the Nelson
Story battle, Captain powell had had a
surprise for the Sioux. A short time
before, the command had been issued
S p r i n g f i e l d rifles converted by a
"trapdoor" breech from muzzle-loaders
to breechloaders of 50-70 caliber.
Powell's men had plenty of copper
cartridges and they poured such a
rapid and withering fire into the
Sioux that they were forced to withdraw
with great losses.
A tragic personal note in 1867
wasthe shooting of John Bozeman, for
whom the Bozeman Trail had been
named. Bozeman was killed by a
Model 1841 "Mississippi" rifle, which
had somehow come into possession
of a Blackfoot Indian.
Another costly repulse for the Indians
near Fort C.F. Smith on the
Big Horn River was further repayment
for the Fetterman massacre. In 1868,
at a fork of the Republican
River, in what was Known as "The
Beecher Island Fight," fifty cavalrymen
armed with breechloaders stood
off 700 Cheyennes. But there was
more hard fighting to come. The Indians
became more desperate when,
in 1869, the railroad which had cut
through their hunting grounds Iinked
East and West. With the railroad
come settlements and into the settlements
came hunters seeking quick
money by harvesting buffalo hides.
By this time Sharps and Remington
had developed strong breech-loading
rifles shooting long, powerful metallic
cartridges. Armed with Sharps
rifles 28 buffalo hunters and a woman
held off a war party of 1000 Indians
at Adobe Walls. Among these men
were Billy Dixon, a famous scout,
and W.B. (Bat) Masterson, later to
become famous as a lawman.
The goverment gave tacit approval
to the wanton destruction of the
buffalo herds. They reasoned that the
West was an area which providence
had provided for an expanding population
and once the Indians were deprived
of their food supply they could
be contained on limited reservations
and easily controlled. While idealistic
in conception, government ambitions
were somewhat brutal in their fulfillment .
Turning the empty plains into
farms and ranches, converting the
trails to railroads with towns and cities
strung across the continent was a
nice dream for the white man but the
nomadic red man was not readu to
give up his way of life'without a final
struggle. The 1870s and 1880s were
to see that struggle.
by:Gun Digest EDITED BY JOHN T. AMBER