2017 Wyoming Doe/Fawn Pronghorn
I've been fortunate to draw a couple of Wyoming doe/fawn pronghorn tags each of the last three years and this hunt has rapidly become a family favorite because I can take any and all of my kids that decide on that day that they want to come along.
Loaded up the ol' Chevy Equinox with my 10, 7, 6, and 3 year old boys and headed over to Wyoming, my 9 year old daughter on this day decided to stay at home with Mom and her 20 month old baby brother to have a "girl's day." We got out of the driveway about 30 minutes later than I had wanted, but we would find later that wouldn't matter one bit. Critters were in no short supply and we basically just bounced from bunch to bunch... action was fast enough to keep the boy's attention all day which was extremely considerate of those goats to do for me. Now, as one might guess, putting on a stalk with such an entourage can be quite problematic but if nothing else it's entertaining.
Shortly before noon I spotted a little herd just up on an alfalfa bench and parked the car. We bailed out and started walking down the old two track that would lead to the creek where we would need to cross. Fifty yards or so down the two track a pickup pulls off the road next to my car and a guy jumps out and hustles his way down to me. He let's me know that they had just shot one in the field to the north and they were going to take an old ranch road that goes right between my current position and the pronghorn herd. He wanted to catch me before we got too far because he didn't want to ruin my stalk. I thanked him for his thoughtfulness and told him to just go ahead... if it worked out it worked out but animals were so frequent that I figured one more blown stalk wouldn't really matter.
Off he went back to his truck and I turned to the boys and told them that if this was going to work we were going to need to hurry. So off we went, I quickly ferried the boys across the stream and made it through a ranch gate quickly enough. Nearing the edge of the alfalfa field the little herd wasn't alarmed but they were alert to our presence. I didn't look like too difficult a shot and several hundred yards to our south I could see the pickup truck driving slowly on the ranch road towards us... we had made good time and had beaten them to the spot so we were definitely going to have a chance.
I told the boys to lay down next to but slightly behind me and I took a prone rest on my pack. I picked out one doe and she stood statue still long enough for me to take several good breaths and took the shot.
The herd took off on a dead run with her trailing but after just a few yards she stopped and toppled over. The boys were thrilled and started running towards the downed doe. I turned and picked up everything that they had left behind in their excitement and began to make my way over. I have a funny image in my mind of four little boys in hunter orange hats running single file, tall to small, across the alfalfa field. They had to negotiate a barbed wire fence, which the littlest two got tangled up in pretty good, but they were able to work themselves free and run up to the doe.
They stopped several yards short because of the graphic nature of the bullet wound. As I'm trying to negotiate the barbed wire fence and cover the last 100 yards or so to catch up with them my 7 year old turns and yells to me, "Dad, she's not in good condition!" The image is graphic... my apologies, sometimes that happens when you shoot and kill a living creature... it's not always perfect and pretty.
Well, actually it was an effective shot... she expired quickly and there was very little meat loss. The doe had expired not 40 yards from the old ranch road and before I had even reached the doe and my boys the pickup truck finally drove past and gave me a couple quick congratulatory honks and thumbs up out the windows and they continued on to their kill.
I began to work quickly getting the doe quartered. As I was working my 3 year old started to feel sick, he wasn't handling the butchering process well and he laid down hiding behind my pack. He ended up throwing up then falling asleep while I finished quartering.
When I was little more than halfway done the guys in the pickup drove by again and they got out and came over and chatted with me. They thought it was pretty awesome that I had brought all the little kids and congratulated me again. They had watched the whole thing play out from about 400 yards away and had stopped the truck when they saw that I was getting ready to shoot. They offered to throw what was left in the back of their pickup and take it back to the car for me which was a generous offer. Since I was quartering it out I figured I could just get it all taken care of right there and leave all the pieces on the mountain. I thanked them for their offer but declined, they did let me know that my car would have no problems on the old ranch road. Off they went on their way... good guys.
I didn't want to haul back a bunch of quarters and a sick/sleeping three year old... so I decided to leave the boys there at the kill site and run back to the main road and get the car. By the time I got the car up to the kill site the 3 year old had woken up and was feeling much better so they were chasing each other around the field when I got up to them. Just a few short minutes later we were loaded back in the car and headed off looking for another doe to fill my second tag.
A couple close encounters later we came upon a good sized herd less than 200 yards from the road. I ran over to one of the fence posts, and waited for a clear shot on anything legal. A fawn near the rear of the herd lagged behind just a little too long and gave me the opportunity I needed.
I turned to the car and told the boys we were done. We walked over to where it lay and I was a little leery of starting the butchering process with the 3 year old nearby so I made a deal with them that I would drag it over closer to the road and they could sit in the car and play on their tablets while I did the butchering.
In short order I had two pronghorn in my cooler and we headed for home.
On the drive home the boys remarked that they are my "good luck charms." Every time my oldest son has come with me we've shot something... a cow elk a couple years ago, a little buck deer this year, and a handful of pronghorn does/fawns spanning a couple years. Somehow I've got to get it into his head that we're not always going to be so fortunate and in my lifetime there have been far more days that I've come home with just memories.
I've got some processing to do at home now... the boys can't wait for the hickory smoked jerky and we're going to give the new Hi Mountain Spicy Lime flavor a try this year. Thanks Wyoming!
Loaded up the ol' Chevy Equinox with my 10, 7, 6, and 3 year old boys and headed over to Wyoming, my 9 year old daughter on this day decided to stay at home with Mom and her 20 month old baby brother to have a "girl's day." We got out of the driveway about 30 minutes later than I had wanted, but we would find later that wouldn't matter one bit. Critters were in no short supply and we basically just bounced from bunch to bunch... action was fast enough to keep the boy's attention all day which was extremely considerate of those goats to do for me. Now, as one might guess, putting on a stalk with such an entourage can be quite problematic but if nothing else it's entertaining.
Shortly before noon I spotted a little herd just up on an alfalfa bench and parked the car. We bailed out and started walking down the old two track that would lead to the creek where we would need to cross. Fifty yards or so down the two track a pickup pulls off the road next to my car and a guy jumps out and hustles his way down to me. He let's me know that they had just shot one in the field to the north and they were going to take an old ranch road that goes right between my current position and the pronghorn herd. He wanted to catch me before we got too far because he didn't want to ruin my stalk. I thanked him for his thoughtfulness and told him to just go ahead... if it worked out it worked out but animals were so frequent that I figured one more blown stalk wouldn't really matter.
Off he went back to his truck and I turned to the boys and told them that if this was going to work we were going to need to hurry. So off we went, I quickly ferried the boys across the stream and made it through a ranch gate quickly enough. Nearing the edge of the alfalfa field the little herd wasn't alarmed but they were alert to our presence. I didn't look like too difficult a shot and several hundred yards to our south I could see the pickup truck driving slowly on the ranch road towards us... we had made good time and had beaten them to the spot so we were definitely going to have a chance.
I told the boys to lay down next to but slightly behind me and I took a prone rest on my pack. I picked out one doe and she stood statue still long enough for me to take several good breaths and took the shot.
The herd took off on a dead run with her trailing but after just a few yards she stopped and toppled over. The boys were thrilled and started running towards the downed doe. I turned and picked up everything that they had left behind in their excitement and began to make my way over. I have a funny image in my mind of four little boys in hunter orange hats running single file, tall to small, across the alfalfa field. They had to negotiate a barbed wire fence, which the littlest two got tangled up in pretty good, but they were able to work themselves free and run up to the doe.
They stopped several yards short because of the graphic nature of the bullet wound. As I'm trying to negotiate the barbed wire fence and cover the last 100 yards or so to catch up with them my 7 year old turns and yells to me, "Dad, she's not in good condition!" The image is graphic... my apologies, sometimes that happens when you shoot and kill a living creature... it's not always perfect and pretty.
Well, actually it was an effective shot... she expired quickly and there was very little meat loss. The doe had expired not 40 yards from the old ranch road and before I had even reached the doe and my boys the pickup truck finally drove past and gave me a couple quick congratulatory honks and thumbs up out the windows and they continued on to their kill.
I began to work quickly getting the doe quartered. As I was working my 3 year old started to feel sick, he wasn't handling the butchering process well and he laid down hiding behind my pack. He ended up throwing up then falling asleep while I finished quartering.
When I was little more than halfway done the guys in the pickup drove by again and they got out and came over and chatted with me. They thought it was pretty awesome that I had brought all the little kids and congratulated me again. They had watched the whole thing play out from about 400 yards away and had stopped the truck when they saw that I was getting ready to shoot. They offered to throw what was left in the back of their pickup and take it back to the car for me which was a generous offer. Since I was quartering it out I figured I could just get it all taken care of right there and leave all the pieces on the mountain. I thanked them for their offer but declined, they did let me know that my car would have no problems on the old ranch road. Off they went on their way... good guys.
I didn't want to haul back a bunch of quarters and a sick/sleeping three year old... so I decided to leave the boys there at the kill site and run back to the main road and get the car. By the time I got the car up to the kill site the 3 year old had woken up and was feeling much better so they were chasing each other around the field when I got up to them. Just a few short minutes later we were loaded back in the car and headed off looking for another doe to fill my second tag.
A couple close encounters later we came upon a good sized herd less than 200 yards from the road. I ran over to one of the fence posts, and waited for a clear shot on anything legal. A fawn near the rear of the herd lagged behind just a little too long and gave me the opportunity I needed.
I turned to the car and told the boys we were done. We walked over to where it lay and I was a little leery of starting the butchering process with the 3 year old nearby so I made a deal with them that I would drag it over closer to the road and they could sit in the car and play on their tablets while I did the butchering.
In short order I had two pronghorn in my cooler and we headed for home.
On the drive home the boys remarked that they are my "good luck charms." Every time my oldest son has come with me we've shot something... a cow elk a couple years ago, a little buck deer this year, and a handful of pronghorn does/fawns spanning a couple years. Somehow I've got to get it into his head that we're not always going to be so fortunate and in my lifetime there have been far more days that I've come home with just memories.
I've got some processing to do at home now... the boys can't wait for the hickory smoked jerky and we're going to give the new Hi Mountain Spicy Lime flavor a try this year. Thanks Wyoming!
2017 Muzzleloader Deer
What an interesting year leading up the deer hunt this year. For those that recall last year I ended the deer hunt pleased with shooting the nicest buck I’ve taken to date, but also frustrated at the new boundaries that I had to negotiate due to a portion of the landowner association that my family is part of breaking away and preventing me from accessing a handful of my favorite spots. Through the summer I was privileged to work with the folks at the Utah DWR as they negotiated to purchase that parcel of land and incorporate it into the current WMA… making what was previously private, then off limits to me last year, now public land for everyone to enjoy. Not having the boundary hurdles was liberating, but I digress… back to the hunt.
I decided to take my 10 year old son, Logan, with me this year. He proved his mettle on a backcountry fly fishing trip in Idaho where we logged 11+ miles per day fishing one of my absolute most favorite streams on this Earth. Following his soccer game on Tuesday night we loaded up the car, picked up my friend Cody who was waiting at his parent’s home after arriving earlier in the evening from Albuquerque, and headed up the canyon to the family cabin where Grandpa, Dad, my brother Darren and his two boys, and my uncle were already settled in for the evening.
Opening Day
Just like last year we wanted to use all other hunters to our advantage and knew that a large number of hunters would work from the top of Jack’s Canyon so we woke early and hiked in the dark to a point about 2/3 of the way down from the top of Jack’s. As the sun rose it was pretty easy to spot small clusters of hunters working the ridges to the north… and watch the deer stay two ridges ahead of them as they pushed down the canyon. We were in a good spot, Logan and I watched the deer gradually get closer and closer to our position. There were four very respectable bucks in the group and we did our best to get into their path. Cody couldn’t see the deer from his vantage point and unbeknownst to me he began dropping off his vantage point. The bucks nailed him and I watched as they circled between him and the other hunters above him, through some thick aspens and over into the next drainage… smart.
We milled around there until late morning and decided to head back to the cabin for a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich. On the hike back to the car we spotted a hunter walking back to his vehicle through a small clearing and then spotted a nice 4pt buck run probably 40 or 50 yards across the same clearing right behind the hunter. It was rather comical to see… the hunter was completely oblivious to the deer running in plain sight just a short distance behind him. Makes me wonder how often that happens to me!
After a nice late breakfast we jumped on the ATVs and then hiked into one of my favorite elk spots. We sat in the shade of a large pine tree for several hours without seeing anything.
At about 5pm I stood to “take care of some business” and a doe burst from a clump of small aspens about a hundred yards away. She snorted, stomped, and carried on as she made her way up the hill in front of us. From the amount of ruckus she was making we figured she wasn’t alone and within a matter of seconds a small 2pt was spotted trying to sneak out the opposite side of the aspens. I nudged Logan and told him a little 2pt was standing there and asked him what we should do about it. His eyes got about the size of dinner plates and he just smiled… “Shoot it.” I grabbed my muzzleloader and Cody gave me a range of 112 yards. I was facing directly into the setting sun and it was very difficult to even see the buck in my scope, but finally I was able to get a clear enough sight picture and pulled the trigger. The buck jumped and ran but Cody reassured me that I had hit him. Logan jumped up and we made our way over to where the small buck had been standing. Logan led the tracking expedition, following the patches of blood for only about 20 yards up over a slight rise where the small buck expired on the trail. He was pretty excited and I took a picture or two of him with the little buck.
We got to work immediately on skinning and quartering and in 30 minutes we had all the meat in bags and in packs ready for extraction. Logan supervised the entire process making sure I took as much meat as possible and indicating the portions he would pack out. He said he was going to carry out the steaks so I loaded up his little pack with the backstraps, tenderloins, and I snuck in a couple extra pounds of other trim meat. Off we went on the 3/4 mile hike back to the ATVs.
I often feel guilty because I underestimate what my 10 year old is capable of… he didn’t stop once on the hike back to the ATVs and when he tossed his pack on the front rack of the ATV he just smiled and said that was easy & next time he wanted to carry more. He’s got big plans for the meat from this buck. He wants to make snack sticks and we want to try a pastrami recipe that we found in a Cabela’s magazine that came in the mail a couple weeks back. He also said he wanted the little buck Euro mounted for his bedroom.
Thursday
With two more full days of hunting and Cody still with his tag, there was no time to sit back and relax for Logan and I… we would spend the next two days hunting for Cody and following him around. Throughout this whole exercise I wanted to teach my son Rule #1 of my unwritten “Hunting Buddy Code”… just because my tag was filled the hunt was not over.
We woke early and made the same hike that we did opening morning, however as we should have expected there just wasn’t the same amount of traffic as the previous morning and we saw only a handful of does. We made our way back to the cabin late in the morning for more sausage, egg, and cheese sandwiches. Following that breakfast I absolutely crashed and ended up napping for a couple hours. It was a nice recharge needed by everyone… except Logan who spent the entire time running around the cabin area with his cousins shooting grasshoppers with BB guns. They burst into the cabin after several hours of that telling stories of the “Trophy Hoppers” they’d dispatched of.
After I shook the cobwebs loose from my afternoon nap we decided to hike into the same bowl where I shot my buck last year. We made the short drive and short hike and sat in the exact same spot as last year… as Cody sat down he even found the rubber eyecup from his binoculars that had fallen off last year. We sat until the sun went down and didn’t see a single critter, although we did hear a couple faint far off bugles. Since we hadn’t seen anything in several hours we decided to hustle out of there so that we still had a little bit of light left to drive around for a bit. We saw a couple more does but no bucks.
Thursday night my cousin, Devin, and his nephew who had expressed interest in getting into hunting came up and joined us.
FRIDAY
Cody, Logan, and I jumped on the ATVs and headed over to the most northern border of the property and hiked down along a couple small canyons. We saw a couple bull moose, a handful of does, but no bucks. So back we went to the cabin for breakfast. Devin talked the group into a plan… he would go with a couple other guys and get dropped off on top if Cody and I would hike up to a small saddle and they would brush deer out to us. About halfway up to the saddle we noticed a group of guys already up there. They seemed to be working slightly to the north though so we continued up to the saddle. Just as we reached the saddle a shot rang out close by. Neither Cody nor I could see what they were shooting at, but soon the group that had been above us emerged below us and walked out into the sagebrush flat. We could hear them talking and sure enough, right there in the sagebrush flat they had shot a nice 4pt buck… I’m not sure how we missed it… I thought back to opening morning and watching that buck run right behind the hunter… we watched through binoculars as they admired the buck and took a few pictures.
Once we got settled into a good spot to watch the escape routes we had a doe and fawn run across the hillside in front of us. We used those two deer to get good yardages on that main trail and continued to sit back and wait. A couple minutes later a nice little 3pt burst out of the trees and across that same trail. Just like the doe & fawn, as he reached the ridge on the other side of the clearing he slowed, stopped, and looked back. At that point Cody took the shot, and through the binoculars it was pretty clear it was a miss.
We waited for Devin and rest of the group to make their way down to the saddle where we were sitting and Cody went over to closely inspect the area where the buck was standing. A few minutes after we watched Cody go over the ridge we heard him shoot again. So I took Devin and his nephew and we hiked over to try and find him. Cody ended up busting the little buck out of its bed and missing an even better chance.
Friday evening we headed back over the same area we hunted Wednesday and Thursday morning. I will be doing the muzzleloader elk hunt in November in this area and I had heard some discouraging reports for the area from other hunters I had talked to so I wanted to spend some time glassing some of the elk hot spots from previous years. So Logan and I sat and glassed while Cody did some more hiking around. Sadly, I wasn’t able to glass any elk that evening but I’m not overly concerned because they will get pushed around plenty on the general rifle hunt and probably even some more on the rifle deer hunt.
Everyone else had chances to fill their tags throughout the first half of the hunt but only my grandpa was able to close the deal and tagged a nice little 2x3 late afternoon Friday.
Saturday morning I needed to be back home as early as possible so we cleaned up the cabin and headed for home. Logan says he had fun and can’t wait to go again. His younger siblings are looking forward to the doe/fawn pronghorn tags that I have for their turn to go hunting this year.
I decided to take my 10 year old son, Logan, with me this year. He proved his mettle on a backcountry fly fishing trip in Idaho where we logged 11+ miles per day fishing one of my absolute most favorite streams on this Earth. Following his soccer game on Tuesday night we loaded up the car, picked up my friend Cody who was waiting at his parent’s home after arriving earlier in the evening from Albuquerque, and headed up the canyon to the family cabin where Grandpa, Dad, my brother Darren and his two boys, and my uncle were already settled in for the evening.
Opening Day
Just like last year we wanted to use all other hunters to our advantage and knew that a large number of hunters would work from the top of Jack’s Canyon so we woke early and hiked in the dark to a point about 2/3 of the way down from the top of Jack’s. As the sun rose it was pretty easy to spot small clusters of hunters working the ridges to the north… and watch the deer stay two ridges ahead of them as they pushed down the canyon. We were in a good spot, Logan and I watched the deer gradually get closer and closer to our position. There were four very respectable bucks in the group and we did our best to get into their path. Cody couldn’t see the deer from his vantage point and unbeknownst to me he began dropping off his vantage point. The bucks nailed him and I watched as they circled between him and the other hunters above him, through some thick aspens and over into the next drainage… smart.
We milled around there until late morning and decided to head back to the cabin for a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich. On the hike back to the car we spotted a hunter walking back to his vehicle through a small clearing and then spotted a nice 4pt buck run probably 40 or 50 yards across the same clearing right behind the hunter. It was rather comical to see… the hunter was completely oblivious to the deer running in plain sight just a short distance behind him. Makes me wonder how often that happens to me!
After a nice late breakfast we jumped on the ATVs and then hiked into one of my favorite elk spots. We sat in the shade of a large pine tree for several hours without seeing anything.
At about 5pm I stood to “take care of some business” and a doe burst from a clump of small aspens about a hundred yards away. She snorted, stomped, and carried on as she made her way up the hill in front of us. From the amount of ruckus she was making we figured she wasn’t alone and within a matter of seconds a small 2pt was spotted trying to sneak out the opposite side of the aspens. I nudged Logan and told him a little 2pt was standing there and asked him what we should do about it. His eyes got about the size of dinner plates and he just smiled… “Shoot it.” I grabbed my muzzleloader and Cody gave me a range of 112 yards. I was facing directly into the setting sun and it was very difficult to even see the buck in my scope, but finally I was able to get a clear enough sight picture and pulled the trigger. The buck jumped and ran but Cody reassured me that I had hit him. Logan jumped up and we made our way over to where the small buck had been standing. Logan led the tracking expedition, following the patches of blood for only about 20 yards up over a slight rise where the small buck expired on the trail. He was pretty excited and I took a picture or two of him with the little buck.
We got to work immediately on skinning and quartering and in 30 minutes we had all the meat in bags and in packs ready for extraction. Logan supervised the entire process making sure I took as much meat as possible and indicating the portions he would pack out. He said he was going to carry out the steaks so I loaded up his little pack with the backstraps, tenderloins, and I snuck in a couple extra pounds of other trim meat. Off we went on the 3/4 mile hike back to the ATVs.
I often feel guilty because I underestimate what my 10 year old is capable of… he didn’t stop once on the hike back to the ATVs and when he tossed his pack on the front rack of the ATV he just smiled and said that was easy & next time he wanted to carry more. He’s got big plans for the meat from this buck. He wants to make snack sticks and we want to try a pastrami recipe that we found in a Cabela’s magazine that came in the mail a couple weeks back. He also said he wanted the little buck Euro mounted for his bedroom.
Thursday
With two more full days of hunting and Cody still with his tag, there was no time to sit back and relax for Logan and I… we would spend the next two days hunting for Cody and following him around. Throughout this whole exercise I wanted to teach my son Rule #1 of my unwritten “Hunting Buddy Code”… just because my tag was filled the hunt was not over.
We woke early and made the same hike that we did opening morning, however as we should have expected there just wasn’t the same amount of traffic as the previous morning and we saw only a handful of does. We made our way back to the cabin late in the morning for more sausage, egg, and cheese sandwiches. Following that breakfast I absolutely crashed and ended up napping for a couple hours. It was a nice recharge needed by everyone… except Logan who spent the entire time running around the cabin area with his cousins shooting grasshoppers with BB guns. They burst into the cabin after several hours of that telling stories of the “Trophy Hoppers” they’d dispatched of.
After I shook the cobwebs loose from my afternoon nap we decided to hike into the same bowl where I shot my buck last year. We made the short drive and short hike and sat in the exact same spot as last year… as Cody sat down he even found the rubber eyecup from his binoculars that had fallen off last year. We sat until the sun went down and didn’t see a single critter, although we did hear a couple faint far off bugles. Since we hadn’t seen anything in several hours we decided to hustle out of there so that we still had a little bit of light left to drive around for a bit. We saw a couple more does but no bucks.
Thursday night my cousin, Devin, and his nephew who had expressed interest in getting into hunting came up and joined us.
FRIDAY
Cody, Logan, and I jumped on the ATVs and headed over to the most northern border of the property and hiked down along a couple small canyons. We saw a couple bull moose, a handful of does, but no bucks. So back we went to the cabin for breakfast. Devin talked the group into a plan… he would go with a couple other guys and get dropped off on top if Cody and I would hike up to a small saddle and they would brush deer out to us. About halfway up to the saddle we noticed a group of guys already up there. They seemed to be working slightly to the north though so we continued up to the saddle. Just as we reached the saddle a shot rang out close by. Neither Cody nor I could see what they were shooting at, but soon the group that had been above us emerged below us and walked out into the sagebrush flat. We could hear them talking and sure enough, right there in the sagebrush flat they had shot a nice 4pt buck… I’m not sure how we missed it… I thought back to opening morning and watching that buck run right behind the hunter… we watched through binoculars as they admired the buck and took a few pictures.
Once we got settled into a good spot to watch the escape routes we had a doe and fawn run across the hillside in front of us. We used those two deer to get good yardages on that main trail and continued to sit back and wait. A couple minutes later a nice little 3pt burst out of the trees and across that same trail. Just like the doe & fawn, as he reached the ridge on the other side of the clearing he slowed, stopped, and looked back. At that point Cody took the shot, and through the binoculars it was pretty clear it was a miss.
We waited for Devin and rest of the group to make their way down to the saddle where we were sitting and Cody went over to closely inspect the area where the buck was standing. A few minutes after we watched Cody go over the ridge we heard him shoot again. So I took Devin and his nephew and we hiked over to try and find him. Cody ended up busting the little buck out of its bed and missing an even better chance.
Friday evening we headed back over the same area we hunted Wednesday and Thursday morning. I will be doing the muzzleloader elk hunt in November in this area and I had heard some discouraging reports for the area from other hunters I had talked to so I wanted to spend some time glassing some of the elk hot spots from previous years. So Logan and I sat and glassed while Cody did some more hiking around. Sadly, I wasn’t able to glass any elk that evening but I’m not overly concerned because they will get pushed around plenty on the general rifle hunt and probably even some more on the rifle deer hunt.
Everyone else had chances to fill their tags throughout the first half of the hunt but only my grandpa was able to close the deal and tagged a nice little 2x3 late afternoon Friday.
Saturday morning I needed to be back home as early as possible so we cleaned up the cabin and headed for home. Logan says he had fun and can’t wait to go again. His younger siblings are looking forward to the doe/fawn pronghorn tags that I have for their turn to go hunting this year.
2016 Cow Elk
November 26
Four thirty came really early, and I was definitely not ready for my alarm to go off. I staggered downstairs and dressed quickly then sat and waited for Brian and Drew to pull into my driveway. A couple minutes before 5, I received a text that they were on their way so I carried my things out to the porch and waited outside for them. We made the short drive up the canyon, meeting with Josh and Carsen at a gas station about halfway to our destination. As we began the drive up the dirt road the lack of snow at the lower elevations prompted us to drive past our planned starting point and head to higher elevations. Our starting point for this hunt would be the same as the muzzleloader elk hunt in early November.
Since our plans had changed our timing was off quite a bit, and we had to make an hour and twenty minute hike through an easement on private property to where we would be able to hunt. As we crested the northern rim of a large bowl we began to glass. It was 8:30am and I figured that we were too late and we would need to now be looking for elk that had bedded for the day. We began to work to the west along the rim of the bowl up towards the head of the bowl and right about when we reached the head of the bowl we glassed back to our southeast to see a string of 8 cow and calf elk working their way up along the bottom of the bowl. The elk were right where I figured they would be… but they were much later than I had anticipated. Here we thought we were late, but in fact we were early and the elk were late. If we had just stayed put where we initially crested over the ridge into the bowl we would have had long but manageable shots at the small herd. Instead, we were left to plan an attack on the herd as they worked up to the patch of pines that is a regular bedding location.
Josh and Carsen volunteered to gain elevation and get about even with the pines then work back to the east into the bedded elk while Brian, Drew, and I would drop down lower and head back to the north to potentially shorten the distance if the elk busted out of there and headed downhill.
We sat and watched Josh and Carsen close the gap on the cluster of pines and when they reached about 400 yards we were able to see some movement and could see one cow standing in the smallest of openings in the pines. Josh and Carsen got to about 150 yards and the elk moved out. They ran exactly where I thought they would and headed east along the ridge and across a rocky chute. A moose was in their path and 3 cows split from the herd and began to run straight downhill towards us. They were moving fast and covering ground quickly. The best shot we were presented was a 450 yard shot on a running elk… so no shots were fired.
We continued to work around and try to determine where the 3 cows went. We searched for a while to see if we could find their tracks but they must have made a change in direction or went over a small ridge where the snow had already melted. We ended up spotting three cows bedded a long ways off on the opposite side of the canyon ¾ of a mile to a mile away and there was some dispute as to whether these were the same cows… we’ll never know.
Early in the afternoon we decided to head back to the truck and try the spot that I had originally planned near the power lines. We didn’t see anything in the early evening light and the younger boys were ready to call it a day so we headed for home.
This was the third time that I have hunted that bowl and had bedded elk use that same escape route. I’ve got to come up with a strategy to put somebody in a spot to take advantage of that escape route. There are a handful of challenges that I’ll need to address. The first challenge is timing. For me to get to the ambush spot I will need to cross the path that the elk will inevitably take to get to the beds. I can’t hike up to the spot early because I could spook the elk before they even get to their beds, so I essentially have to wait until they pass me then circle back behind them and get myself into position. I should be able to take advantage of this by setting up early in a spot advantageous to me as they file on past up to the bedding area and if no good shot presents itself to just let them file on by. Then I could circle back behind them and hike up to where I should be able intercept them if they get pushed from the bedding area. The second challenge however is the wind. In this area there always seems to be a prevailing breeze or wind from the south. This escape route is in the southeasterly direction so I would need to position myself so that my scent does not get carried into the bedding area to begin with. If I can figure out how to best position myself along that escape route I should be able to fill a tag there pretty easily… but I will probably need to be pretty creative to accomplish this with a muzzleloader on the bull elk hunt.
December 27
Four thirty again came early and I dressed again in the kitchen. Hopping in my car I headed to the designated meeting point to meet up with Doug who was in town from Idaho and was willing to accompany me for the day. We arrived at the parking lot of the WMA about 30 minutes before I had planned so we had some time to sit and contemplate our plan of attack in the dark. After the series of snow storms that had plowed through the valley over Christmas I was worried that hiking would be strenuous, however I found that there was no more snow at the parking lot there than piled up on my front lawn. Doug left the strategy to me and said he would follow my lead wherever I went. My plan was to begin hiking about an hour before legal shooting light and get on a ridge overlooking a saddle to our south, a large bowl to our east, and a large sagebrush flat that stretches up onto the main face to the west. We attained the ridge just shortly after legal shooting light and began to glass. We saw a staggering number of deer, and a small handful of bucks that were some of the biggest I have personally laid eyes on in the field. We glassed a couple of bulls out in the sagebrush flats and a small herd of cows just across the private/public boundary. A hail of gunfire erupted from the direction of the parking lot, from my recollection I would estimate 8 to 10 shots maybe. That got things moving as strings of deer began running from that direction, and with all the movement it was tough to keep track of where everything was going. Just below us three elk rounded the hill and made their way at a trot into the trees just south of the saddle. When they reached the trees they slowed to a fast walk and by the time they had made their way through the trees and to the saddle they had slowed to a normal walk. Doug was talking in my ear the whole time telling me this was going to be easy and to wait. The elk were clearly preoccupied with the commotion below them and had no sense of any danger lurking above, so I seized the opportunity to get even closer and shuffled my way to a cluster of rocks… I had my eye on one particular rock that appeared to be an ideal rest. I reached the rock about the same time the three elk reached the saddle and as they began to cross the saddle they stopped and grouped up. I was perched on the rock a mere 70 yards away from the small herd ready to take the first good shot offered me, the three elk all appeared to be the same size and all appeared young so I really had no preference.
One cow stepped clear enough that I felt comfortable with the shot and fired. I saw the impact in the scope and almost immediately heard the “whomp” of the bullet hitting flesh. The other two elk just stood there for a second with their companion lying in the snow. I stood from behind the rock and they ran. I sent my wife a text at 7:57am letting her know that I had shot one… her response was, “Nice! So you’ll be home before lunch?”
I wanted to maximize the meat from this small cow so I decided to try and drag her out whole. Doug helped me get her gutted and we took stock of our gear before heading back towards the parking lot. I realized that I had left a glove back up at the rock cluster, so I returned to retrieve it. Then I realized I was missing a ski pole, so I returned again to the rock pile to retrieve it… I had stuff scattered all over that mountainside, it’s funny the way that happens when you have a surprise encounter with the quarry you’re after and you’re so focused on making sure you get a good shot.
Doug had started dragging the elk down towards the parking lot while I had returned for my ski pole, and he was making darn good time and was having an easy go of it because it was entirely downhill. There were spots where the elk would get going just a little too fast down the slope and he’d have to put the brakes on her to slow her down a bit. Even dragging the elk, we made it down off the mountain in about 15 minutes.
At the parking lot, we threw her onto the tailgate of the truck and skinned and quartered her there. It was like having her up on a nice little workbench! By 10:30am we were headed home and I’ll be working on the final butchering here over the next couple days.
This was a cool and very satisfying experience, I had a very clear plan of attack on that December morning and a companion that was willing and able to help me execute that plan. The elk did exactly what I was hoping they would do and we put ourselves in a position to shoot the “easiest” elk I’ve gotten to date. That’s not to say we didn’t put a lot of effort into trying to get one earlier in the year… because we certainly did, I don’t think I put on more miles over a full year than this year. I do believe in Karma and I believe that getting this “easy” one late in the year was a product of putting everything we learned through the hard miles previously into a solid plan on that morning and having that plan come together perfectly.
Four thirty came really early, and I was definitely not ready for my alarm to go off. I staggered downstairs and dressed quickly then sat and waited for Brian and Drew to pull into my driveway. A couple minutes before 5, I received a text that they were on their way so I carried my things out to the porch and waited outside for them. We made the short drive up the canyon, meeting with Josh and Carsen at a gas station about halfway to our destination. As we began the drive up the dirt road the lack of snow at the lower elevations prompted us to drive past our planned starting point and head to higher elevations. Our starting point for this hunt would be the same as the muzzleloader elk hunt in early November.
Since our plans had changed our timing was off quite a bit, and we had to make an hour and twenty minute hike through an easement on private property to where we would be able to hunt. As we crested the northern rim of a large bowl we began to glass. It was 8:30am and I figured that we were too late and we would need to now be looking for elk that had bedded for the day. We began to work to the west along the rim of the bowl up towards the head of the bowl and right about when we reached the head of the bowl we glassed back to our southeast to see a string of 8 cow and calf elk working their way up along the bottom of the bowl. The elk were right where I figured they would be… but they were much later than I had anticipated. Here we thought we were late, but in fact we were early and the elk were late. If we had just stayed put where we initially crested over the ridge into the bowl we would have had long but manageable shots at the small herd. Instead, we were left to plan an attack on the herd as they worked up to the patch of pines that is a regular bedding location.
Josh and Carsen volunteered to gain elevation and get about even with the pines then work back to the east into the bedded elk while Brian, Drew, and I would drop down lower and head back to the north to potentially shorten the distance if the elk busted out of there and headed downhill.
We sat and watched Josh and Carsen close the gap on the cluster of pines and when they reached about 400 yards we were able to see some movement and could see one cow standing in the smallest of openings in the pines. Josh and Carsen got to about 150 yards and the elk moved out. They ran exactly where I thought they would and headed east along the ridge and across a rocky chute. A moose was in their path and 3 cows split from the herd and began to run straight downhill towards us. They were moving fast and covering ground quickly. The best shot we were presented was a 450 yard shot on a running elk… so no shots were fired.
We continued to work around and try to determine where the 3 cows went. We searched for a while to see if we could find their tracks but they must have made a change in direction or went over a small ridge where the snow had already melted. We ended up spotting three cows bedded a long ways off on the opposite side of the canyon ¾ of a mile to a mile away and there was some dispute as to whether these were the same cows… we’ll never know.
Early in the afternoon we decided to head back to the truck and try the spot that I had originally planned near the power lines. We didn’t see anything in the early evening light and the younger boys were ready to call it a day so we headed for home.
This was the third time that I have hunted that bowl and had bedded elk use that same escape route. I’ve got to come up with a strategy to put somebody in a spot to take advantage of that escape route. There are a handful of challenges that I’ll need to address. The first challenge is timing. For me to get to the ambush spot I will need to cross the path that the elk will inevitably take to get to the beds. I can’t hike up to the spot early because I could spook the elk before they even get to their beds, so I essentially have to wait until they pass me then circle back behind them and get myself into position. I should be able to take advantage of this by setting up early in a spot advantageous to me as they file on past up to the bedding area and if no good shot presents itself to just let them file on by. Then I could circle back behind them and hike up to where I should be able intercept them if they get pushed from the bedding area. The second challenge however is the wind. In this area there always seems to be a prevailing breeze or wind from the south. This escape route is in the southeasterly direction so I would need to position myself so that my scent does not get carried into the bedding area to begin with. If I can figure out how to best position myself along that escape route I should be able to fill a tag there pretty easily… but I will probably need to be pretty creative to accomplish this with a muzzleloader on the bull elk hunt.
December 27
Four thirty again came early and I dressed again in the kitchen. Hopping in my car I headed to the designated meeting point to meet up with Doug who was in town from Idaho and was willing to accompany me for the day. We arrived at the parking lot of the WMA about 30 minutes before I had planned so we had some time to sit and contemplate our plan of attack in the dark. After the series of snow storms that had plowed through the valley over Christmas I was worried that hiking would be strenuous, however I found that there was no more snow at the parking lot there than piled up on my front lawn. Doug left the strategy to me and said he would follow my lead wherever I went. My plan was to begin hiking about an hour before legal shooting light and get on a ridge overlooking a saddle to our south, a large bowl to our east, and a large sagebrush flat that stretches up onto the main face to the west. We attained the ridge just shortly after legal shooting light and began to glass. We saw a staggering number of deer, and a small handful of bucks that were some of the biggest I have personally laid eyes on in the field. We glassed a couple of bulls out in the sagebrush flats and a small herd of cows just across the private/public boundary. A hail of gunfire erupted from the direction of the parking lot, from my recollection I would estimate 8 to 10 shots maybe. That got things moving as strings of deer began running from that direction, and with all the movement it was tough to keep track of where everything was going. Just below us three elk rounded the hill and made their way at a trot into the trees just south of the saddle. When they reached the trees they slowed to a fast walk and by the time they had made their way through the trees and to the saddle they had slowed to a normal walk. Doug was talking in my ear the whole time telling me this was going to be easy and to wait. The elk were clearly preoccupied with the commotion below them and had no sense of any danger lurking above, so I seized the opportunity to get even closer and shuffled my way to a cluster of rocks… I had my eye on one particular rock that appeared to be an ideal rest. I reached the rock about the same time the three elk reached the saddle and as they began to cross the saddle they stopped and grouped up. I was perched on the rock a mere 70 yards away from the small herd ready to take the first good shot offered me, the three elk all appeared to be the same size and all appeared young so I really had no preference.
One cow stepped clear enough that I felt comfortable with the shot and fired. I saw the impact in the scope and almost immediately heard the “whomp” of the bullet hitting flesh. The other two elk just stood there for a second with their companion lying in the snow. I stood from behind the rock and they ran. I sent my wife a text at 7:57am letting her know that I had shot one… her response was, “Nice! So you’ll be home before lunch?”I wanted to maximize the meat from this small cow so I decided to try and drag her out whole. Doug helped me get her gutted and we took stock of our gear before heading back towards the parking lot. I realized that I had left a glove back up at the rock cluster, so I returned to retrieve it. Then I realized I was missing a ski pole, so I returned again to the rock pile to retrieve it… I had stuff scattered all over that mountainside, it’s funny the way that happens when you have a surprise encounter with the quarry you’re after and you’re so focused on making sure you get a good shot.
Doug had started dragging the elk down towards the parking lot while I had returned for my ski pole, and he was making darn good time and was having an easy go of it because it was entirely downhill. There were spots where the elk would get going just a little too fast down the slope and he’d have to put the brakes on her to slow her down a bit. Even dragging the elk, we made it down off the mountain in about 15 minutes.
At the parking lot, we threw her onto the tailgate of the truck and skinned and quartered her there. It was like having her up on a nice little workbench! By 10:30am we were headed home and I’ll be working on the final butchering here over the next couple days.
This was a cool and very satisfying experience, I had a very clear plan of attack on that December morning and a companion that was willing and able to help me execute that plan. The elk did exactly what I was hoping they would do and we put ourselves in a position to shoot the “easiest” elk I’ve gotten to date. That’s not to say we didn’t put a lot of effort into trying to get one earlier in the year… because we certainly did, I don’t think I put on more miles over a full year than this year. I do believe in Karma and I believe that getting this “easy” one late in the year was a product of putting everything we learned through the hard miles previously into a solid plan on that morning and having that plan come together perfectly.
2016 Muzzleloader Deer
It was a complicated summer leading up to the deer hunt this year. Early in the summer a long standing lawsuit between landowners was settled and the number of huntable acres that I previously had access to was dramatically reduced. As part of this deal, the ATV trail that would lead me within a reasonable hike distance to access one of my favorite spots for elk was now posted “No Trespassing” and I was on the outside looking in. Combine that with a bit of a family feud that left me with a sour taste in my mouth and little desire to spend much time at the family cabin throughout the summer. It honestly wasn’t until I started seeing the limited entry early rifle elk success pictures posted around that I began to feel those twinges of excitement welling up inside again.
My friend Cody arrived in town from New Mexico late Tuesday night and I loaded up my car and headed to pick him up after getting my kids in bed. We arrived at the cabin at about 10:30pm where my dad, brother, uncle, and grandfather were waiting for us. We got ready for open morning, and called it a night.
A DEATH MARCH
For opening morning, we decided to use other hunters to our advantage knowing that a couple of groups would begin working down one of the canyons on the property at first light. We arrived early and discretely hiked about two thirds of the way down the canyon and waited. Within just a couple minutes six bucks made their way a mere 20 yards from our location, being pushed by hunters above them. The plan worked great however, we were not up to the task. One was a very nice 4x4 that never presented much of a shot because he was moving pretty quickly, however two 3x3s and a small 2x2 stopped and stood in the head high sage staring at us. With only their heads visible and standing directly in front of Cody, I elected to not shoot simply because it didn’t feel right to be pointing my gun in the direction of my friend. Cody had completely neglected the 3x3s after seeing the 4x4 buck and was determined to give chase, so off we went for the rest of the morning pushing through the aspens attempting to get another glimpse of the biggest buck. We were able to get one last look at him as he high tailed it away from us now two ridges away. We decided to abandon this canyon for now because we could see a number of other groups also working the ridges around us.
We wanted to try to get to the area where we were able to kill a cow elk and fill an antlerless control tag last year, we knew the hike would be long but we knew there would be elk there and we again had a couple cow tags. We drove the ATVs over to a small parking area where the creek turns west and heads into a narrow canyon and down the bottom of that canyon following the stream we went. As we negotiated the steep rocky trail alongside the creek, being also an avid fly fisherman I couldn’t help but peer into the clear pools of this small mountain stream. The number of trout found in each of these pools was really fun to see and made me wish I had my fly rod in my hand.
We reached the confluence of two forks of this stream, crossed and began climbing the opposite side. We found an excellent game trail that followed the ridge and as we began climbing the ridge a bugle rang out from the pines directly across from us. We stopped and scoured the thick pines and eventually glimpsed a herd of elk making their way up and over the top. We decided that going much further up the canyon would not be a wise move because we were at our physical limit in the event that we were successful at putting a cow elk on the ground. So we picked out a saddle just ahead and decided to make our way up to that point, take a break, and slowly work our way back. We reached the saddle at about 1:30pm and sat down in some scrub oaks to take a break for a little bit. I peeled off my boots, hung my socks up in the tree and tried to take a quick nap on my pack. I would have been successful… if it weren’t for the several different bulls within a half mile that were bugling regularly.
I laid there basically until my socks were dry and we decided to try and work our way into one of these elk herds nearby, fortunately there were at least two bulls that were below us and would essentially be on our way back. We got to where the closest bull sounded like he was screaming from and I let out a locator bugle. I received an immediate response from the bull in the pines directly across the canyon. Try as we might we were not able to get eyes on him. Then Cody spotted a herd of elk moving through a small clearing casually feeding about 350 yards further down the canyon. The race was on because we could clearly see that there were several cows in this herd… and with those cows were calves. The plan would be to shoot a calf to facilitate the pack out. The hillside we were on had very little cover but we went for it trying to keep any piece of cover, any tree, and rock between us and the elk to help us close the distance. When we hit about 300 yards the herd caught our movement and began to make their way up into the pines. But we kept closing the distance hoping that by some small miracle there would be a straggler or two that would give us a shot. Another 50 yards closer and we spotted a cow elk and her calf still feeding in the trees below the clearing where the rest of the herd was. I had a clear line on two little scrubby trees that would get me within my range and allow me to close the last little bit of distance with the trees blocking my approach. I eased between the two trees and found a perfect seat on a couple rocks, set up the shooting sticks and waited for Cody to get into place. It felt like he took forever, and I finally looked over at him and told him I was going to take the shot. I settled the crosshairs, accounted for the slight breeze coming up the canyon and applied a slight holdover on account of the distance and pulled the trigger. The calf that was standing broadside disappeared from sight. The shot felt perfect so I figured it had just dropped in its tracks. The cow hurried up out of the trees, through the small clearing and into the pines with no calf in tow. I began to mentally prepare myself for the task ahead, we would have a 2+ mile pack out on a rocky and brushy trail.
I made my way over to where I fully expected to see a small elk piled up only to find nothing… no elk, no blood, just tracks. So for the next hour and a half Cody and I scoured that hillside looking for any positive sign but to no avail. I grid searched the area while he followed the tracks that led from the spot where the calf was for several hundred yards. Admittedly, I’ve got to say there was a slight sense of relief when Cody and I met back up again and determined that I had missed and we would only be hauling our own sorry carcasses off the mountain that night.
We were near the bottom of the canyon and we knew we would have about a two hour hike out so we started towards the creek and then made our way back to the ATVs. I would never fully recover from the strenuous nature of that hike for the rest of the week… I was tired but could not sleep and I was hungry but nothing sounded appetizing for the remaining days of the hunt. It wasn’t until I got home and went back to work on Monday that I was finally able to get enough water in me to feel like I was coming out of it. I did come across a small moose shed which I picked up and brought home for the kids.
HOUDINI
Thursday morning found Cody and I both wanting, rather needing, to take it a little easier on our bodies. Feet were raw and legs were sore so we decided to hop on the ATVs and ride up on top and just do some glassing. Well, we both knew that “just glassing” was a nice idea but nothing that either he or I were really capable of doing. Three hours later we again found ourselves just about a mile away from the ATVs slowly stalking along the bottom of a canyon. We saw a good handful of does and fawns but no bucks so we returned to the ATVs and went back to the cabin for a late breakfast.
We milled around the cabin for a bit and chose to hike up into a bowl that I had hunted several years previously but hadn’t visited in the previous couple years. The plan would be to simply sit and watch this bowl for the evening. We parked the ATVs and made the short climb and found a place to sit. We sat there for the next several hours just talking about anything and everything… our families, work, past hunting trips, future hunting plans. Finally the shadows began to lengthen and the temperature began to drop, and the action started to pick up. Concealed from my view for the previous 5 hours, the angle of the sun was just perfect to illuminate the left antler of a small 2pt buck bedded in the shadows about 230 yards directly across the bowl.
We debated, Cody was on him and ready and we discussed where to aim to account for wind drift at that distance. Ultimately the decision was made to wait and after several minutes the small buck stood and made his way out of sight.
A doe appeared and made her way to a spring that was directly below us. I continued to scour the area looking for any more sign of movement. The doe left the spring and began working her way up the opposite hillside, I would lose her then relocate her just trying to keep tabs on her. Then I spotted movement below her moving in the direction of the spring. It was a buck so I told Cody to get ready and shoot. I didn’t get a good look at antlers but I could tell as the buck made his way through the aspens towards the clearing that he was a nicer buck. As the buck stepped into the clearing near the spring he briefly turned broadside and I was telling Cody to shoot. He was insistent that I get ready in case a follow up shot was needed and waited for me. By the time I was steady on the buck he had turned and was now walking straight towards us. Cody began to panic because there was now a cluster of trees blocking his view and he had no shot. I still had the slightest little gap where I could still see his body but could no longer see his head and knew that it was now or never. It was a shot that they always tell you to never take… the buck directly facing me, steeply downhill from me. .. the margin for error extremely small. The trigger broke and the buck lurched in the air then was gone from sight. Everything went silent… no running, no bounding, no brush moving or twigs breaking… just silence. So we made our way down to the spring and to the spot where the buck was standing when I shot and like the day before with the calf elk we found nothing. Cody went uphill and I went downhill on the trail and as I came around a small clump of aspens I noticed an odd white rock several yards down the trail in some high grass. I pulled out my binoculars to inspect the rock and saw that the rock had antlers. I called Cody over and I finally got my first good look at the buck. He was bigger than I had expected. We both marveled at how this buck just appeared out of thin air, how we hadn’t seen him until he was nearly to the spring.
Light was fading quickly so we began to skin and quarter the buck. We got about halfway through before needing headlamps. With loaded packs we began to make our way back down the mountain towards the ATVs. I had walked into this bowl a number of times and knew the trail well, which was a huge benefit and we negotiated our way down the mountain quickly. It was the smoothest pack out I have ever experienced and we pulled into the driveway of the cabin just a few minutes after 9pm. A search party was assembling to come and find us and make sure everything was ok so everyone was just walking out the door when we pulled in. Cody and I shared the story, hung the bagged quarters, and devoured some dinner (which still wasn’t even remotely appetizing to me but I knew that I needed to eat something).
AN OTHERWISE UNEVENTFUL END
We hiked around some more on Friday and Saturday and the only buck sighting was a small forkie, I thought he was a doe until he skylined himself on a ridge. We did spot a half dozen elk on Saturday morning just above the cabin but from the very brief glimpse that I got of them they appeared to all be bulls so my cow tag remains available for the muzzleloader elk hunt in November.
My friend Cody arrived in town from New Mexico late Tuesday night and I loaded up my car and headed to pick him up after getting my kids in bed. We arrived at the cabin at about 10:30pm where my dad, brother, uncle, and grandfather were waiting for us. We got ready for open morning, and called it a night.
A DEATH MARCH
For opening morning, we decided to use other hunters to our advantage knowing that a couple of groups would begin working down one of the canyons on the property at first light. We arrived early and discretely hiked about two thirds of the way down the canyon and waited. Within just a couple minutes six bucks made their way a mere 20 yards from our location, being pushed by hunters above them. The plan worked great however, we were not up to the task. One was a very nice 4x4 that never presented much of a shot because he was moving pretty quickly, however two 3x3s and a small 2x2 stopped and stood in the head high sage staring at us. With only their heads visible and standing directly in front of Cody, I elected to not shoot simply because it didn’t feel right to be pointing my gun in the direction of my friend. Cody had completely neglected the 3x3s after seeing the 4x4 buck and was determined to give chase, so off we went for the rest of the morning pushing through the aspens attempting to get another glimpse of the biggest buck. We were able to get one last look at him as he high tailed it away from us now two ridges away. We decided to abandon this canyon for now because we could see a number of other groups also working the ridges around us.
We wanted to try to get to the area where we were able to kill a cow elk and fill an antlerless control tag last year, we knew the hike would be long but we knew there would be elk there and we again had a couple cow tags. We drove the ATVs over to a small parking area where the creek turns west and heads into a narrow canyon and down the bottom of that canyon following the stream we went. As we negotiated the steep rocky trail alongside the creek, being also an avid fly fisherman I couldn’t help but peer into the clear pools of this small mountain stream. The number of trout found in each of these pools was really fun to see and made me wish I had my fly rod in my hand.
We reached the confluence of two forks of this stream, crossed and began climbing the opposite side. We found an excellent game trail that followed the ridge and as we began climbing the ridge a bugle rang out from the pines directly across from us. We stopped and scoured the thick pines and eventually glimpsed a herd of elk making their way up and over the top. We decided that going much further up the canyon would not be a wise move because we were at our physical limit in the event that we were successful at putting a cow elk on the ground. So we picked out a saddle just ahead and decided to make our way up to that point, take a break, and slowly work our way back. We reached the saddle at about 1:30pm and sat down in some scrub oaks to take a break for a little bit. I peeled off my boots, hung my socks up in the tree and tried to take a quick nap on my pack. I would have been successful… if it weren’t for the several different bulls within a half mile that were bugling regularly.
I laid there basically until my socks were dry and we decided to try and work our way into one of these elk herds nearby, fortunately there were at least two bulls that were below us and would essentially be on our way back. We got to where the closest bull sounded like he was screaming from and I let out a locator bugle. I received an immediate response from the bull in the pines directly across the canyon. Try as we might we were not able to get eyes on him. Then Cody spotted a herd of elk moving through a small clearing casually feeding about 350 yards further down the canyon. The race was on because we could clearly see that there were several cows in this herd… and with those cows were calves. The plan would be to shoot a calf to facilitate the pack out. The hillside we were on had very little cover but we went for it trying to keep any piece of cover, any tree, and rock between us and the elk to help us close the distance. When we hit about 300 yards the herd caught our movement and began to make their way up into the pines. But we kept closing the distance hoping that by some small miracle there would be a straggler or two that would give us a shot. Another 50 yards closer and we spotted a cow elk and her calf still feeding in the trees below the clearing where the rest of the herd was. I had a clear line on two little scrubby trees that would get me within my range and allow me to close the last little bit of distance with the trees blocking my approach. I eased between the two trees and found a perfect seat on a couple rocks, set up the shooting sticks and waited for Cody to get into place. It felt like he took forever, and I finally looked over at him and told him I was going to take the shot. I settled the crosshairs, accounted for the slight breeze coming up the canyon and applied a slight holdover on account of the distance and pulled the trigger. The calf that was standing broadside disappeared from sight. The shot felt perfect so I figured it had just dropped in its tracks. The cow hurried up out of the trees, through the small clearing and into the pines with no calf in tow. I began to mentally prepare myself for the task ahead, we would have a 2+ mile pack out on a rocky and brushy trail.
I made my way over to where I fully expected to see a small elk piled up only to find nothing… no elk, no blood, just tracks. So for the next hour and a half Cody and I scoured that hillside looking for any positive sign but to no avail. I grid searched the area while he followed the tracks that led from the spot where the calf was for several hundred yards. Admittedly, I’ve got to say there was a slight sense of relief when Cody and I met back up again and determined that I had missed and we would only be hauling our own sorry carcasses off the mountain that night.
We were near the bottom of the canyon and we knew we would have about a two hour hike out so we started towards the creek and then made our way back to the ATVs. I would never fully recover from the strenuous nature of that hike for the rest of the week… I was tired but could not sleep and I was hungry but nothing sounded appetizing for the remaining days of the hunt. It wasn’t until I got home and went back to work on Monday that I was finally able to get enough water in me to feel like I was coming out of it. I did come across a small moose shed which I picked up and brought home for the kids.
HOUDINI
Thursday morning found Cody and I both wanting, rather needing, to take it a little easier on our bodies. Feet were raw and legs were sore so we decided to hop on the ATVs and ride up on top and just do some glassing. Well, we both knew that “just glassing” was a nice idea but nothing that either he or I were really capable of doing. Three hours later we again found ourselves just about a mile away from the ATVs slowly stalking along the bottom of a canyon. We saw a good handful of does and fawns but no bucks so we returned to the ATVs and went back to the cabin for a late breakfast.
We milled around the cabin for a bit and chose to hike up into a bowl that I had hunted several years previously but hadn’t visited in the previous couple years. The plan would be to simply sit and watch this bowl for the evening. We parked the ATVs and made the short climb and found a place to sit. We sat there for the next several hours just talking about anything and everything… our families, work, past hunting trips, future hunting plans. Finally the shadows began to lengthen and the temperature began to drop, and the action started to pick up. Concealed from my view for the previous 5 hours, the angle of the sun was just perfect to illuminate the left antler of a small 2pt buck bedded in the shadows about 230 yards directly across the bowl.
We debated, Cody was on him and ready and we discussed where to aim to account for wind drift at that distance. Ultimately the decision was made to wait and after several minutes the small buck stood and made his way out of sight.
A doe appeared and made her way to a spring that was directly below us. I continued to scour the area looking for any more sign of movement. The doe left the spring and began working her way up the opposite hillside, I would lose her then relocate her just trying to keep tabs on her. Then I spotted movement below her moving in the direction of the spring. It was a buck so I told Cody to get ready and shoot. I didn’t get a good look at antlers but I could tell as the buck made his way through the aspens towards the clearing that he was a nicer buck. As the buck stepped into the clearing near the spring he briefly turned broadside and I was telling Cody to shoot. He was insistent that I get ready in case a follow up shot was needed and waited for me. By the time I was steady on the buck he had turned and was now walking straight towards us. Cody began to panic because there was now a cluster of trees blocking his view and he had no shot. I still had the slightest little gap where I could still see his body but could no longer see his head and knew that it was now or never. It was a shot that they always tell you to never take… the buck directly facing me, steeply downhill from me. .. the margin for error extremely small. The trigger broke and the buck lurched in the air then was gone from sight. Everything went silent… no running, no bounding, no brush moving or twigs breaking… just silence. So we made our way down to the spring and to the spot where the buck was standing when I shot and like the day before with the calf elk we found nothing. Cody went uphill and I went downhill on the trail and as I came around a small clump of aspens I noticed an odd white rock several yards down the trail in some high grass. I pulled out my binoculars to inspect the rock and saw that the rock had antlers. I called Cody over and I finally got my first good look at the buck. He was bigger than I had expected. We both marveled at how this buck just appeared out of thin air, how we hadn’t seen him until he was nearly to the spring.
Light was fading quickly so we began to skin and quarter the buck. We got about halfway through before needing headlamps. With loaded packs we began to make our way back down the mountain towards the ATVs. I had walked into this bowl a number of times and knew the trail well, which was a huge benefit and we negotiated our way down the mountain quickly. It was the smoothest pack out I have ever experienced and we pulled into the driveway of the cabin just a few minutes after 9pm. A search party was assembling to come and find us and make sure everything was ok so everyone was just walking out the door when we pulled in. Cody and I shared the story, hung the bagged quarters, and devoured some dinner (which still wasn’t even remotely appetizing to me but I knew that I needed to eat something).
AN OTHERWISE UNEVENTFUL END
We hiked around some more on Friday and Saturday and the only buck sighting was a small forkie, I thought he was a doe until he skylined himself on a ridge. We did spot a half dozen elk on Saturday morning just above the cabin but from the very brief glimpse that I got of them they appeared to all be bulls so my cow tag remains available for the muzzleloader elk hunt in November.
2016 Muzzleloader Elk
Brian met me at my house at about 3:30pm and we made the short drive up the canyon to the family cabin. We unloaded quickly, turned on the utilities, made a quick fire in the fireplace, and headed up to the top of the mountain to glass in the last remaining light. With no animals spotted after about an hour we returned to the cabin and finished getting our personal gear squared away.
Opening morning came quickly and as we were preparing our gear for the day I noticed brake lights just outside the window. Jared had arrived early, I wasn’t expecting him until later that day. We piled into Brian’s truck for the short drive to where we would begin our hunt. I hopped out of the truck, set up my tripod, snapped my binoculars into the harness, and immediately spotted a large herd of elk. The elk were on the move feeding up the ridge to the west across the canyon about a mile away… and we were on the move too. We made a brutal 1.5 mile hike (800ft loss in elevation in the first ¾ mile then gained it all back and then some in the next ¾ mile) to try and get above them but were too late.
We began to make our way along the northern edge of a large bowl and as I slipped into a large stand of pines I was met with a mass of tan bodies erupting from cover. I could hear the group heading north onto private property so I just waited and watched. Soon the string of elk began to file through a small opening. I raised my binoculars fully expecting to see the string of 30 or so cows that we had spotted earlier… instead my eyes beheld bull after bull after bull walk through that small opening. Ranging from spike to nice mature 6x6 bulls, I watched twenty plus bulls walk through that opening. I was stunned… and upset that I had been so close yet unable to do anything about it because of the recent boundary changes that now made where those elk were at off limits to me. In previous years I would have fired without hesitation because that was land I could hunt… now the majority shareholder of the property had roped off “his” portion and made it inaccessible.
For the rest of the day we hiked around and didn’t see much else.
On the hike back out Brian’s knee locked up and he dislocated his knee cap. It was pretty painful and he struggled on the climb back up to the truck.
The second morning I met Jesse at the gate early and by the time we got back to the cabin Jared and Brian were just waking up. We had a tough decision to make with Brian feeling unable to do much hiking. We decided that Brian would stay behind and take it easy that day while Jesse, Jared, and I worked around the area that we hunted the day before. We all drove up to the top again and I immediately spotted what appeared to be the same herd of cows and calves so we again headed off on the 1.5 mile hike down and back up the opposite hillside. This morning was different however, the herd had worked into a north facing hillside that we could glass readily and bedded there.
Jesse and I left Jared there on the north edge of the bowl and began working our way towards a bedded bull and two bedded cows that we were in advantageous positions for us to possibly get a shot. We worked towards the bedded elk and shortly before we got to our desired final destination I watched the bull stand and walk across the face of the hillside just beyond our comfortable muzzleloader range. We continued on to where we wanted to stop and sat for a while because I had not seen either of the two cows move with the bull. We waited there until late in the afternoon and watched deer and moose working through the area the entire time. The deer were beginning to rut pretty hard and every group of does was being monitored by at least one buck. We worked our way back out of the bowl and met up with Jared before hiking back to the truck. Jared and Brian decided to call it a hunt and headed for home.
Jesse and I woke the next morning bright and early and began hiking well before first light. We still did not arrive at the north edge of the bowl until after sun-up. We were hoping to arrive early enough to potentially cut the herd off before they reached their bedding area but the elk were not there that morning. We sat and glassed for several minutes before I spotted a lone cow in some deep shadows down in the bottom of the bowl. The race was on and we took different routes towards the cow. Jesse would take a direct line assault while I would circle to the east and head for a large rock outcropping. If she worked her way directly up the hill in front of us Jesse would get a shot but if she turned and tried to escape down the bottom of the bowl then I would be in a prime position for a shot. As I neared the rock outcropping I spotted the cow working her way up the hill across from me. I steadied on her and waited for her to turn broadside. As soon as she turned I fired and a cloud of smoke completely obscured my view for several seconds. She remained standing and continued to work her way up the hill. I ran closer to where she was and tried to get a second shot but she never presented a good shot. It took Jesse several minutes to get to where I was and after we met back up I decided to try to follow her trail. I could easily tell where she went because of her fresh prints in the snow so I followed them for several yards up the mountain. After weaving through some buck brush and ducking under a couple aspen limbs I heard crashing above me. I looked up just in time to see her bolt out from underneath a cluster of pines never giving me much of a chance for a shot. I looped my way west then north along the edge of the bowl and spent the afternoon cat napping in the sun. More deer were spotted in the afternoon and evening along with a few more moose, but no more elk.
My cow elk tag will open shortly in this same area, and I have been unable to make good on two opportunities to fill that tag already. I’m optimistic that I will be able to fill it during the normal season dates for that tag with my rifle.
Opening morning came quickly and as we were preparing our gear for the day I noticed brake lights just outside the window. Jared had arrived early, I wasn’t expecting him until later that day. We piled into Brian’s truck for the short drive to where we would begin our hunt. I hopped out of the truck, set up my tripod, snapped my binoculars into the harness, and immediately spotted a large herd of elk. The elk were on the move feeding up the ridge to the west across the canyon about a mile away… and we were on the move too. We made a brutal 1.5 mile hike (800ft loss in elevation in the first ¾ mile then gained it all back and then some in the next ¾ mile) to try and get above them but were too late.
We began to make our way along the northern edge of a large bowl and as I slipped into a large stand of pines I was met with a mass of tan bodies erupting from cover. I could hear the group heading north onto private property so I just waited and watched. Soon the string of elk began to file through a small opening. I raised my binoculars fully expecting to see the string of 30 or so cows that we had spotted earlier… instead my eyes beheld bull after bull after bull walk through that small opening. Ranging from spike to nice mature 6x6 bulls, I watched twenty plus bulls walk through that opening. I was stunned… and upset that I had been so close yet unable to do anything about it because of the recent boundary changes that now made where those elk were at off limits to me. In previous years I would have fired without hesitation because that was land I could hunt… now the majority shareholder of the property had roped off “his” portion and made it inaccessible.
For the rest of the day we hiked around and didn’t see much else.
On the hike back out Brian’s knee locked up and he dislocated his knee cap. It was pretty painful and he struggled on the climb back up to the truck.
The second morning I met Jesse at the gate early and by the time we got back to the cabin Jared and Brian were just waking up. We had a tough decision to make with Brian feeling unable to do much hiking. We decided that Brian would stay behind and take it easy that day while Jesse, Jared, and I worked around the area that we hunted the day before. We all drove up to the top again and I immediately spotted what appeared to be the same herd of cows and calves so we again headed off on the 1.5 mile hike down and back up the opposite hillside. This morning was different however, the herd had worked into a north facing hillside that we could glass readily and bedded there.
Jesse and I left Jared there on the north edge of the bowl and began working our way towards a bedded bull and two bedded cows that we were in advantageous positions for us to possibly get a shot. We worked towards the bedded elk and shortly before we got to our desired final destination I watched the bull stand and walk across the face of the hillside just beyond our comfortable muzzleloader range. We continued on to where we wanted to stop and sat for a while because I had not seen either of the two cows move with the bull. We waited there until late in the afternoon and watched deer and moose working through the area the entire time. The deer were beginning to rut pretty hard and every group of does was being monitored by at least one buck. We worked our way back out of the bowl and met up with Jared before hiking back to the truck. Jared and Brian decided to call it a hunt and headed for home.
Jesse and I woke the next morning bright and early and began hiking well before first light. We still did not arrive at the north edge of the bowl until after sun-up. We were hoping to arrive early enough to potentially cut the herd off before they reached their bedding area but the elk were not there that morning. We sat and glassed for several minutes before I spotted a lone cow in some deep shadows down in the bottom of the bowl. The race was on and we took different routes towards the cow. Jesse would take a direct line assault while I would circle to the east and head for a large rock outcropping. If she worked her way directly up the hill in front of us Jesse would get a shot but if she turned and tried to escape down the bottom of the bowl then I would be in a prime position for a shot. As I neared the rock outcropping I spotted the cow working her way up the hill across from me. I steadied on her and waited for her to turn broadside. As soon as she turned I fired and a cloud of smoke completely obscured my view for several seconds. She remained standing and continued to work her way up the hill. I ran closer to where she was and tried to get a second shot but she never presented a good shot. It took Jesse several minutes to get to where I was and after we met back up I decided to try to follow her trail. I could easily tell where she went because of her fresh prints in the snow so I followed them for several yards up the mountain. After weaving through some buck brush and ducking under a couple aspen limbs I heard crashing above me. I looked up just in time to see her bolt out from underneath a cluster of pines never giving me much of a chance for a shot. I looped my way west then north along the edge of the bowl and spent the afternoon cat napping in the sun. More deer were spotted in the afternoon and evening along with a few more moose, but no more elk.
My cow elk tag will open shortly in this same area, and I have been unable to make good on two opportunities to fill that tag already. I’m optimistic that I will be able to fill it during the normal season dates for that tag with my rifle.
2016 Wyoming Pronghorn (Doe/Fawn)
October 18, 2016
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.
November 14, 2016
With one tag remaining in my pocket I knew that I had to make good on a promise that I had made to my daughter after leaving her in school and taking my oldest three boys back in October. I also knew that I just could not leave my two year old son at home again… he sobbed uncontrollably when I left him home with mom on that first trip. So, with permission from my daughter, I strapped a two year old in the carseat, plugged in the tablets, and we pointed the car to the east for the hour drive to the ranch where permission had been granted to shoot doe pronghorn.
The drive was smooth and since it was naptime my son slept most of the way. This was the quietest he would be for the remainder of the trip!
I pulled off the Interstate and after a short drive down the dirt road I pulled off to the side to prep my rifle, get out my binoculars, and get my sweater on. We drove along the road slowly stopping occasionally to glass the sagebrush terraces. In the previous trip with just the boys pronghorn were everywhere… such would not be the case this trip. What we lacked in pronghorn we more than made up for in mule deer. There were clusters of deer around every bend, and where there was a group of a half dozen or more does there was a great buck. We saw some fantastic bucks and I would conservatively estimate 18 to 20 bucks that were 4pt or better… a number of them had inline 5th or 6th points and were heavy and dark antlered. Beautiful creatures for certain, and we watched as these bucks paid little attention to my little silver car on the road just yards away as they focused intently on does. We watched two very nice 4pt bucks go toe to toe over a group of 8 or 9 does at about 30 yards, and watched a very nice 3pt buck corner a doe against a fence and rough her up a bit. Poor doe trotted away from that encounter with her hair all ruffled up and it didn’t even occur to me that an eight year old little girl in the front seat next to me might have some questions about what that boy deer was trying to do to that girl deer… in typical dad response I told her to “ask her mother.”
We drove from one end of the ranch all the way to the other without a single pronghorn sighting. I couldn’t figure it out… just four weeks ago there were pronghorn everywhere. And a friend of mine with the same tag went to the same ranch just three days before and shot a doe early in the afternoon. But today, on this afternoon, it was a ghost town. We turned the car around and traced our path back and made it almost all the way back to where we started before I spotted a small herd of pronghorn bedded up on one of the sage terraces, 3 bucks and 2 doe. I let the kids know that I had spotted some but we would have to hike for them. I received no resistance to the suggestion so we found a spot to park the car, got our coats & orange hats and off we went. We crossed a small stream and made our way towards the terrace edge. The small herd was actually in a highly advantageous place for a stalk. The challenge was not the location of the herd… instead it was my entourage! I wish I could have witnessed that stalk from a distance. I decided that there was little sense in trying to be stealthy about this all… so I just walked in plain view of the herd with my son on my shoulders and holding my daughters hand along a barbed-wire fence until we hit about 300 yards. I told them to sit down on a small hill and plug their ears and I walked another 15 yards away from them, rested my gun on the barbed wire fence and promptly missed twice. To perform my due diligence, we slinked under the barbed wire fence, and again with my son on my shoulders and holding my daughters hand we went to just double check and where the herd had been when I shot. No blood was found much to the disdain of my daughter, and we continued up until we reached the ridge and peeked over into the next valley. I scanned for brief moment but saw no pronghorn. We turned and as we made our way back to the car I spotted a mule deer shed in a clump of sage about twenty yards in front of me. I took my son off my shoulders and when we got right up to it I asked if there was something wrong with that bush? Both my daughter and son thought it was the coolest thing and they wrestled with it to get it untangled from the clump of sage. Pictures were taken and it was stuffed in my pack to be shown to mom at a later time.
They wanted to look for more sheds so I threw my son back on my shoulders and we just kind of wandered through the sage terrace until it started to get dark and they wanted to head back towards the car. On the way back to the car the sage flats came to life with bunnies scurrying about everywhere. My son had the perfect vantage point from my shoulders and whenever he would spot one running along in front of us he would squeal and point and yell, “Bunny!!!”
We got back to the car right at dark. We got buckled back into the car and headed home… but not without stopping first at the Wendy’s in Evanston for a hamburger and Frosty.
All in all, I think both my daughter and son both had fun, the sum of the parts was greater than the whole with this adventure. Even though they were disappointed that I missed and we didn’t get another pronghorn they loved the little aspects of the journey… driving down a dirt road with their heads out the rolled down windows yelling “Hello deer!” to every cluster of deer, eating an entire bag of jerky, going to Wyoming for the first time, finding the shed antler, seeing all the bunny rabbits, and telling mom all about it when we got home. Most times I hunt so hard with the intent of killing an animal and bringing home the meat that I overlook some of these simple things, this hunt reinforced to me that it’s not the kill that makes success. I had so much fun with my daughter and my young son, I hope the memories of this afternoon and evening are as fond for them.
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.
November 14, 2016
With one tag remaining in my pocket I knew that I had to make good on a promise that I had made to my daughter after leaving her in school and taking my oldest three boys back in October. I also knew that I just could not leave my two year old son at home again… he sobbed uncontrollably when I left him home with mom on that first trip. So, with permission from my daughter, I strapped a two year old in the carseat, plugged in the tablets, and we pointed the car to the east for the hour drive to the ranch where permission had been granted to shoot doe pronghorn.
The drive was smooth and since it was naptime my son slept most of the way. This was the quietest he would be for the remainder of the trip!
I pulled off the Interstate and after a short drive down the dirt road I pulled off to the side to prep my rifle, get out my binoculars, and get my sweater on. We drove along the road slowly stopping occasionally to glass the sagebrush terraces. In the previous trip with just the boys pronghorn were everywhere… such would not be the case this trip. What we lacked in pronghorn we more than made up for in mule deer. There were clusters of deer around every bend, and where there was a group of a half dozen or more does there was a great buck. We saw some fantastic bucks and I would conservatively estimate 18 to 20 bucks that were 4pt or better… a number of them had inline 5th or 6th points and were heavy and dark antlered. Beautiful creatures for certain, and we watched as these bucks paid little attention to my little silver car on the road just yards away as they focused intently on does. We watched two very nice 4pt bucks go toe to toe over a group of 8 or 9 does at about 30 yards, and watched a very nice 3pt buck corner a doe against a fence and rough her up a bit. Poor doe trotted away from that encounter with her hair all ruffled up and it didn’t even occur to me that an eight year old little girl in the front seat next to me might have some questions about what that boy deer was trying to do to that girl deer… in typical dad response I told her to “ask her mother.”
We drove from one end of the ranch all the way to the other without a single pronghorn sighting. I couldn’t figure it out… just four weeks ago there were pronghorn everywhere. And a friend of mine with the same tag went to the same ranch just three days before and shot a doe early in the afternoon. But today, on this afternoon, it was a ghost town. We turned the car around and traced our path back and made it almost all the way back to where we started before I spotted a small herd of pronghorn bedded up on one of the sage terraces, 3 bucks and 2 doe. I let the kids know that I had spotted some but we would have to hike for them. I received no resistance to the suggestion so we found a spot to park the car, got our coats & orange hats and off we went. We crossed a small stream and made our way towards the terrace edge. The small herd was actually in a highly advantageous place for a stalk. The challenge was not the location of the herd… instead it was my entourage! I wish I could have witnessed that stalk from a distance. I decided that there was little sense in trying to be stealthy about this all… so I just walked in plain view of the herd with my son on my shoulders and holding my daughters hand along a barbed-wire fence until we hit about 300 yards. I told them to sit down on a small hill and plug their ears and I walked another 15 yards away from them, rested my gun on the barbed wire fence and promptly missed twice. To perform my due diligence, we slinked under the barbed wire fence, and again with my son on my shoulders and holding my daughters hand we went to just double check and where the herd had been when I shot. No blood was found much to the disdain of my daughter, and we continued up until we reached the ridge and peeked over into the next valley. I scanned for brief moment but saw no pronghorn. We turned and as we made our way back to the car I spotted a mule deer shed in a clump of sage about twenty yards in front of me. I took my son off my shoulders and when we got right up to it I asked if there was something wrong with that bush? Both my daughter and son thought it was the coolest thing and they wrestled with it to get it untangled from the clump of sage. Pictures were taken and it was stuffed in my pack to be shown to mom at a later time.
They wanted to look for more sheds so I threw my son back on my shoulders and we just kind of wandered through the sage terrace until it started to get dark and they wanted to head back towards the car. On the way back to the car the sage flats came to life with bunnies scurrying about everywhere. My son had the perfect vantage point from my shoulders and whenever he would spot one running along in front of us he would squeal and point and yell, “Bunny!!!”
We got back to the car right at dark. We got buckled back into the car and headed home… but not without stopping first at the Wendy’s in Evanston for a hamburger and Frosty.
All in all, I think both my daughter and son both had fun, the sum of the parts was greater than the whole with this adventure. Even though they were disappointed that I missed and we didn’t get another pronghorn they loved the little aspects of the journey… driving down a dirt road with their heads out the rolled down windows yelling “Hello deer!” to every cluster of deer, eating an entire bag of jerky, going to Wyoming for the first time, finding the shed antler, seeing all the bunny rabbits, and telling mom all about it when we got home. Most times I hunt so hard with the intent of killing an animal and bringing home the meat that I overlook some of these simple things, this hunt reinforced to me that it’s not the kill that makes success. I had so much fun with my daughter and my young son, I hope the memories of this afternoon and evening are as fond for them.
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