Much like last year, a couple friends and I put in and subsequently drew a handful of doe/fawn pronghorn tags for western Wyoming. I decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to introduce my six and five year old boys to hunting. I was so impressed with my oldest son when I took him with me on a cow elk hunt right after Christmas last year, that I knew if given the chance to go hunting with me they would all want to go. I underestimated that excitement because my eight year old daughter and two year old son were both devastated that they would need to wait for another chance to go with me. My daughter made me promise that I would only shoot one so that I could take her (and only her… was her requirement) to go hunting a second time.
I arranged with my wife to have her check all the boys out of school when my five year olds morning kindergarten ended and I would work a half day and be home about lunchtime. The agreement was that they would eat lunch and get their homework done and we would head east to Wyoming. It took a little longer than expected to get all the homework done, but without too much of a delay we were on the road. I was so focused on making sure each of the boys had warm clothes, a good jacket, a fully charged tablet, and a good supply of snacks that I forgot my own sweater! When I realized that I only had the clothes on my back I figured that this trip could turn interesting.
We arrived on the ranch where we had obtained permission to hunt I immediately pointed the car towards a large circular field. The field was just covered in mule deer and pronghorn, probably 60 and 80 head respectively. We parked the car out of sight of the pronghorn and me and three boys stalked to the top of a little rise out in this huge field and the pronghorn were still 400 plus yards away. They had us pegged because stealth was apparently not a gene that I passed on to any of these boys. The herd circled far to the east of us back in the direction of the road that we had traveled in on. The wind was cold and the boys were getting a bit chilled so we headed back to the car. I turned the car around and headed towards the spot where the herd had run. We were able to split that herd with the car and I had a couple pronghorn pinned between the car and a barbed wire fence at about 80 to 100 yards. I hopped out and as the doe checked the barbed wire fence for a spot to slip through I fired. It was a clean miss but the doe continued to probe the barbed wire fence and gave me a second chance. I fired and she jumped into the fence then began to run towards the car. The boys were squealing from the car that I had hit her. As she ran towards the car I could see that I had indeed hit her and red swath of blood growing from just behind her right shoulder. At this point I began to get a little concerned because of the graphic nature of this doe running towards the car covered in blood… but the squeals from the car were unmistakable. She found the slightest gap in the barbed wire fence and took a couple more steps into a small grass patch where she toppled over and expired. As soon as she fell to the ground a spontaneous “Mexican fire drill” erupted from the car. Three little boys exploded from the car and ran over to the dead pronghorn doe. I walked back to the car, closed all the doors, put away my gun, and grabbed my pack and a couple of game bags.
The boys watched as I skinned and quartered the doe. It didn’t take long but they were fascinated with the process. They asked where the steak comes from… where the jerky comes from. So I showed them and they each got a chance to hold one of the hind quarters, help peel out the backstrap, and watched me cut out the tenderloins. They have seen me butcher a good number of game animals but for the 6 and 5 year old this was the first time for them to see where the meat actually comes off the animal.
With one doe in the cooler by about 3pm we piled back in the car to try and find another doe. We drove down another road of the ranch and spotted several other large groups of pronghorn but none of the groups were in very advantageous locations for a good stalk with three young boys. If it would have just been me, I would have stalked several of those groups, but I knew that if the stalk lasted longer than about three minutes that I would be dealing with little boys complaining of being cold.
We had one group of pronghorn run across the road in front of us at about 20 yards but I was too slow to get out of the car. We crossed paths with a Wyoming Game and Fish officer and he checked me, he was a good guy and I appreciate that he took some time to explain to my boys what he was doing and why he was doing it. After speaking with the officer for a little while we continued on our way and decided that we should turn around and start making our way towards the Interstate. On our way back, just before leaving the boundary of the ranch I spotted a very large herd of pronghorn just to the east of the road. The problem was… the east side of the road was a neighboring ranch that I did not have permission to hunt. I could see that this herd was making its way toward the road and if they continued the current path would probably cross the road. So I parked the car and we watched and waited. About 15 minutes later, sure enough about a dozen pronghorn were perched 30 yards in front of me right at the edge of the road. I just needed them to cross over to the west side of the road which would put them on the ranch property that I could hunt.
Just when I thought the herd was getting ready to finally cross I looked up and a couple hundred yards up the road I noticed a dark SUV coming our direction. Sure enough, as the SUV neared our location the entire herd of pronghorn filtered their way up the hill from the direction that they came, safe on this other rancher’s property!
We decided that was that, I put my rifle away in the case, and we headed for pavement. Back on the Interstate I told the boys to pick a place to eat and when we hit Evanston we stopped at Wendy’s and had a Baconnator and Frosties. We arrived home before bedtime and the boys couldn’t wait to tell mom all the gruesome details of the bloody doe running at them in the car! I’m sure my wife was not really happy about hearing all the graphic detail, but she humored the boys and was genuinely excited for the boy’s excitement. I am absolutely grateful for her patience and understanding! And now I have an eight year old daughter who can’t wait for her turn.
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