bowieknife50
WKR
Hi everyone,
Thought I'd share a few thoughts about my first pronghorn hunt.
By my calculations we spent 478% more time in the truck this trip than out of it. Didn't help we had a 20hr drive to WY but still a lot more truck time than we're used to. I wonder if anybody knows how much WY pays their antelope herders who shew them all close to 90 and the highways and town so when you arrive you think there's a million of them? This had to be happening in our leftover unit because they were extremely sparse out in the huntable areas. Also if anybody tells you it's possible to find private land to hunt on give them a good hard stare down to see if you can call their bluff. We couldn't even find a trespass hunt which ended up saving us some money (that's called foreshadowing).
What we did find was a righteous dude out on his own first antelope hunt. Although at first impression he didn't seem so because he worked for a major ammunition company and was toting a bow. After a day of scouting we were planning on hunting there area he was camped. We caught him by the road mid day and stuck up a conversation. He was so straight up it was scary. There were a decent number of antelope here and we were welcome to hunt it with him. Buuuuttt..there was another spot down the road with a great big pile of goats but probably more people because a two track cut it. Driving to check it out we found him an antelope right next to the road and called to tell him. But the guy behind the wheel wasn't up on his stockmanship skills and couldn't keep it on public for him.
Anyway the other spot was as promised. Lots of critters in every direction easily spotted from the conveniently placed high ground right in the middle of it. We were now calmly picking out the animals we would each shoot shortly after daylight the next morning. Oh hey there's a dude jumping out of a truck with a crossbow about 200 yards from a group. Surely he can see them all starring at him and won't try a stalk. Well that didn't take long so there's one more group in our spot. Time to try to sleep for a while. It's very soothing when the wind flutters the tent wall real hard and fast on the side of your head all night.
At least it was pouring rain when we woke up and got going, that should keep some people home. Drop the two chumleys off on the East side and gumby and I take the truck West. We both were pleasantly surprised to have seen only one other truck in the area-du du dunnn-so far. Five minutes into the walk the circus comes to town. We counted twelve more sets of headlights but I'm not a math major so could be more. Luckily only 5 of them drive right past us on the little two track we were hiking in on. Did I mention the rain? It's hard to keep it on the right side of your coat when it's blowing 27mph. Looks like none of the truck guys are stupid enough to get out of the truck in this so at least we have a head start.
I guess some people have a lot more experience than me and I listened to those people say lopes will be within 100 yards of where you saw them at dark. Except my group. But there's another group and I'm soaked and shivering and up for a hike. Ok they should be right over this hill, yup. Pack off, cactus gloves on, sage brush in front, wind in my face, 392 yards. That's what I closed to before I started getting the old girl ready (I love my old .270). Bipods out, scope wiped, doe, doe, doe, doe, BUCK. Oh hey there they go running the other way what the heck. Scan surroundings. Maybe it has everything to do with the dude walking fully upright 100 yards behind us. I know he could see us because there weren't but 3 blades of grass between us. I'm left to assume he had never hunted before and thus was unable to ascertain I was fixing to kill something. Let's get away from this road.
So Gumby and I go back almost to the line of demarcation and pop a squat. I sure wish I could stop shivering. Hey there's some scattered groups about a mile off on the private. This is where I need to pause and thank Randy Newberg. On his advice (NOTE: I don't mean to imply that I have his direct line and was getting counsel on the fly) I just sat there and watched them, patiently. I'm grateful for his knowledge and more so that he shared it with me. 4 hours later those goats had covered about 5 miles only to end up back where they started. Their constant movement really made the hours pass butt even though the sun was trying desperately to dispel the clouds the shivers remained. PSA: don't get wet because you think your rain gear is too noisy or the shower is just going to pass right over.
In the end my gift was received as they all are: by the grace of God. The does tried to cross the fence onto the battleground that is WY public land in a leftover unit 3 times. 3 times the buck was able to shepherd them back to private land safety. In the end he was no match for the providence that pushed the lead doe right to us. Aided in a similar manner by 5 trucks lining the two track with hunters too lazy to leave them. So anyway we're crawling. We're quite literally hugging the ground because the only cover is about 8"of grass. If I'd researched a bit more of the region's geological history I'd call it an esker we were on because it's stature did not merit the term ridge. It have us a line of sight though and we were too far from the two track for any hum dee dum hunters to screw this one up.
So because of Gumby's generosity in giving me the first opportunity it was just me and the rifle and the critters. Goofy critters from way back when in time. Still lacking familiarity to a person not sure this was all really happening. Gumby was already trying to call ranges when my reticle crossed paths with the buck, but rain and mist and grass conspired against a good reading. I figured they were within 300 and when I was sure they were within 200 I'd fire without a reading. Finally came a definitive 240, they're 240 right now. It's hard to explain how much everything slows down when you're about to put a shot on a critter that has no idea you're there. Don't just aim at the animal aim at a spot on the animal. At 240 I only need to come maybe 2" high. About 10mph cross wind but he's walking the opposite way those will cancel, maybe just a little nudge for the wind. Deep breath, 3/4 exhale, you got this, squeeze until further notice. Down goes Fraiser. I am not a sniper and it was not a perfect shot but down he went. I could hardly hear my own shoot, I'll always remember that. The does didn't triangulate it well either because they ran right at us then stopped at 133. Gumby is already on them and I'm calling ranges for him now. His rifle is a little louder than mine. Two tags filled in less than 30 seconds. Elation ensues.
After filling out packs with the harvest we make the 3/4 mile "pack out" (air quotes) to the truck and inquire after the chumleys. We find them on private land next to a local pickup, from 500yds away on the road it looks amiable but lack of cell service makes that impossible to confirm. As if some sort of race started the pickup peels out of there and the two chumleys grab the antelope and literally run to the fence. I won't tell their story because I didn't live it. The cliff notes are chumley A dropped a doe within 5 minutes of shooting light after seeing the aforementioned circus coming to town. Chumley B got a new rifle a week before the trip (guess where I'm going with this) and fired somewhere in the vicinity of 10 rounds that morning. As is his luck a near booner buck ran into the path of one round, then ran onto the private ground to die. They were good they hadn't even touched the fence when pickup comes rolling up. Despite their lack of transgression the ass-chewing of the decade came next but after a half hour they got permission to get the big dude out.
I feel I haven't yet properly conveyed the craziness that lived on that section of state land that day. If a buck ran on there from private it wouldn't be 10 min before he had orange hats coming at him from 4 directions. And he would die. There were at least 30 people in that 2 mile section that morning. My group went 4 for 4 but it was major stress the whole time. I can't handle being that close to that many people with rifles. Consequently we are not itching to repeat this hunt. We are happy and grateful for safety, memories, and little white 1 pound packages in our freezers.
If you made it this far congratulations, your reward is this picture. Bonus points if you can identify me, Gumby, and chumley A & B.
Thanks for listening,
Tim
Sent from my LGLS992 using Tapatalk
Thought I'd share a few thoughts about my first pronghorn hunt.
By my calculations we spent 478% more time in the truck this trip than out of it. Didn't help we had a 20hr drive to WY but still a lot more truck time than we're used to. I wonder if anybody knows how much WY pays their antelope herders who shew them all close to 90 and the highways and town so when you arrive you think there's a million of them? This had to be happening in our leftover unit because they were extremely sparse out in the huntable areas. Also if anybody tells you it's possible to find private land to hunt on give them a good hard stare down to see if you can call their bluff. We couldn't even find a trespass hunt which ended up saving us some money (that's called foreshadowing).
What we did find was a righteous dude out on his own first antelope hunt. Although at first impression he didn't seem so because he worked for a major ammunition company and was toting a bow. After a day of scouting we were planning on hunting there area he was camped. We caught him by the road mid day and stuck up a conversation. He was so straight up it was scary. There were a decent number of antelope here and we were welcome to hunt it with him. Buuuuttt..there was another spot down the road with a great big pile of goats but probably more people because a two track cut it. Driving to check it out we found him an antelope right next to the road and called to tell him. But the guy behind the wheel wasn't up on his stockmanship skills and couldn't keep it on public for him.
Anyway the other spot was as promised. Lots of critters in every direction easily spotted from the conveniently placed high ground right in the middle of it. We were now calmly picking out the animals we would each shoot shortly after daylight the next morning. Oh hey there's a dude jumping out of a truck with a crossbow about 200 yards from a group. Surely he can see them all starring at him and won't try a stalk. Well that didn't take long so there's one more group in our spot. Time to try to sleep for a while. It's very soothing when the wind flutters the tent wall real hard and fast on the side of your head all night.
At least it was pouring rain when we woke up and got going, that should keep some people home. Drop the two chumleys off on the East side and gumby and I take the truck West. We both were pleasantly surprised to have seen only one other truck in the area-du du dunnn-so far. Five minutes into the walk the circus comes to town. We counted twelve more sets of headlights but I'm not a math major so could be more. Luckily only 5 of them drive right past us on the little two track we were hiking in on. Did I mention the rain? It's hard to keep it on the right side of your coat when it's blowing 27mph. Looks like none of the truck guys are stupid enough to get out of the truck in this so at least we have a head start.
I guess some people have a lot more experience than me and I listened to those people say lopes will be within 100 yards of where you saw them at dark. Except my group. But there's another group and I'm soaked and shivering and up for a hike. Ok they should be right over this hill, yup. Pack off, cactus gloves on, sage brush in front, wind in my face, 392 yards. That's what I closed to before I started getting the old girl ready (I love my old .270). Bipods out, scope wiped, doe, doe, doe, doe, BUCK. Oh hey there they go running the other way what the heck. Scan surroundings. Maybe it has everything to do with the dude walking fully upright 100 yards behind us. I know he could see us because there weren't but 3 blades of grass between us. I'm left to assume he had never hunted before and thus was unable to ascertain I was fixing to kill something. Let's get away from this road.
So Gumby and I go back almost to the line of demarcation and pop a squat. I sure wish I could stop shivering. Hey there's some scattered groups about a mile off on the private. This is where I need to pause and thank Randy Newberg. On his advice (NOTE: I don't mean to imply that I have his direct line and was getting counsel on the fly) I just sat there and watched them, patiently. I'm grateful for his knowledge and more so that he shared it with me. 4 hours later those goats had covered about 5 miles only to end up back where they started. Their constant movement really made the hours pass butt even though the sun was trying desperately to dispel the clouds the shivers remained. PSA: don't get wet because you think your rain gear is too noisy or the shower is just going to pass right over.
In the end my gift was received as they all are: by the grace of God. The does tried to cross the fence onto the battleground that is WY public land in a leftover unit 3 times. 3 times the buck was able to shepherd them back to private land safety. In the end he was no match for the providence that pushed the lead doe right to us. Aided in a similar manner by 5 trucks lining the two track with hunters too lazy to leave them. So anyway we're crawling. We're quite literally hugging the ground because the only cover is about 8"of grass. If I'd researched a bit more of the region's geological history I'd call it an esker we were on because it's stature did not merit the term ridge. It have us a line of sight though and we were too far from the two track for any hum dee dum hunters to screw this one up.
So because of Gumby's generosity in giving me the first opportunity it was just me and the rifle and the critters. Goofy critters from way back when in time. Still lacking familiarity to a person not sure this was all really happening. Gumby was already trying to call ranges when my reticle crossed paths with the buck, but rain and mist and grass conspired against a good reading. I figured they were within 300 and when I was sure they were within 200 I'd fire without a reading. Finally came a definitive 240, they're 240 right now. It's hard to explain how much everything slows down when you're about to put a shot on a critter that has no idea you're there. Don't just aim at the animal aim at a spot on the animal. At 240 I only need to come maybe 2" high. About 10mph cross wind but he's walking the opposite way those will cancel, maybe just a little nudge for the wind. Deep breath, 3/4 exhale, you got this, squeeze until further notice. Down goes Fraiser. I am not a sniper and it was not a perfect shot but down he went. I could hardly hear my own shoot, I'll always remember that. The does didn't triangulate it well either because they ran right at us then stopped at 133. Gumby is already on them and I'm calling ranges for him now. His rifle is a little louder than mine. Two tags filled in less than 30 seconds. Elation ensues.
After filling out packs with the harvest we make the 3/4 mile "pack out" (air quotes) to the truck and inquire after the chumleys. We find them on private land next to a local pickup, from 500yds away on the road it looks amiable but lack of cell service makes that impossible to confirm. As if some sort of race started the pickup peels out of there and the two chumleys grab the antelope and literally run to the fence. I won't tell their story because I didn't live it. The cliff notes are chumley A dropped a doe within 5 minutes of shooting light after seeing the aforementioned circus coming to town. Chumley B got a new rifle a week before the trip (guess where I'm going with this) and fired somewhere in the vicinity of 10 rounds that morning. As is his luck a near booner buck ran into the path of one round, then ran onto the private ground to die. They were good they hadn't even touched the fence when pickup comes rolling up. Despite their lack of transgression the ass-chewing of the decade came next but after a half hour they got permission to get the big dude out.
I feel I haven't yet properly conveyed the craziness that lived on that section of state land that day. If a buck ran on there from private it wouldn't be 10 min before he had orange hats coming at him from 4 directions. And he would die. There were at least 30 people in that 2 mile section that morning. My group went 4 for 4 but it was major stress the whole time. I can't handle being that close to that many people with rifles. Consequently we are not itching to repeat this hunt. We are happy and grateful for safety, memories, and little white 1 pound packages in our freezers.
If you made it this far congratulations, your reward is this picture. Bonus points if you can identify me, Gumby, and chumley A & B.
Thanks for listening,
Tim
Sent from my LGLS992 using Tapatalk
