RMBHS 2020 raffle Pronghorn

dwatling · Nov 2, 2020

A hot summer day in May my wife and I are doing yard work when my phone rings. My wife says it's a Colorado number and asks if she should answer. I tell her I'll call them back, it's either a potential job interview or a friend from when I use to live in the Springs.

When I check the voicemail it only says, "this is Ryan with the Rocky Mountain Bighorn Society, can David give me a call back." Once I hear this I turn to my wife with what she would describe as the biggest grin she's ever seen on my face. She probably knew it was something hunting related. I proceeded to babble incoherently and immediately call the number back.

RMBHS answer the call back and I tell them who I am. I should mention that the phone is on speaker. The first thing they ask is how many raffle tickets i bought. This draws a look from my wife that I'm all sure we can relate to, and it's not screaming 'I hope he bought a lot.' But luckily she doesn't know how much they cost so I tell them I bought 2 BHS tickets and 4 pronghorn. That's when they let me know I won the pronghorn raffle. Que the incoherent babble again.

It would be embarrassing to admit the amount of times I watched the video of them drawing my name. I always put in for raffles and what not but never really expect anything in return. It's more of my donation to conservation than anything. But with this great opportunity I needed to start planning and scouting. My wife and I just had a baby boy in March so we didn't have any extravagant summer vacation plans. Of course covid wasn't helping, but we decided to spend a couple days in southern Colorado to get out of the house and allow me to scout a little.

Of course once we went up there scouting took a backseat, but none the less still fun. I really wasn't able to make any scouting trips before archery season started because my wife started back with school and it was all virtual. My wife is an Agricultural teacher and FFA advisor so doesn't really go well with online school. Most her classes are all hands on learning so she has been stressed on how to make it all work. That means I had to step up a lot with baby duty. Which I don't mind at all, I'll spend as much time with my son as possible. But we agreed starting August 15th I could spend every Thursday afternoon through Sunday night scouting/ hunting. I was able to scout the weekend before this but it only marked a few spots off of my list.

dwatling · Nov 2, 2020

The way this tag worked was August 15th-27th was archery only and August 28th until December 31st was any legal weapon. Speaking with the biologist he informed me that a pronghorn governor's tag had never been taken with archery equipment. So of course this became a focus of mine. August 13th i headed up for my first couple days in the field. Colorado isn't known for big pronghorn and every thing I was finding was proving that. But Sunday night right at dusk I finally put eyes on a shooter buck!

The following week with bow in hand i chased this buck all around the foothills. Tried sitting one of the 2 water holes in the area and he'd always go to the opposite one. But while chasing him i was able to find more bucks that would make my hit list. I was able to get pictures and review with my taxidermist on what order these bucks should be in. I'm not a trophy hunter by any means, more of an opportunistic hunter but I felt this tagged deserved to be hung on a "trophy". The only person I know that can field judge animals and knows a good buck when he sees one is my taxidermist. I was an adult onset hunter and when researching taxidermist in my area when I started hunting i toured his shop and we've been friends ever since. He helped me put together the Hitlist and off I went.

The start of the 3rd weekend went much the same, watching my top bucks from a far while carrying a bow. But all that would change on Saturday, the day I could pick up a rifle. There's something to be said about an animals intuition, because all 4 of my top bucks disappeared or found refuge on Private that opening day.

It wasn't until about 2 hours before dark I found my top buck in a fairly stalkable area. All I had to do was get into this drainage and follow it down about 600yds and I'd have about a 150yd shot. The drainage itself was shallow and deep in certain areas. The majority of it i had a 3-4ft wall i would just crab walk behind but a few areas had only about a foot of cover I had to belly crawl through. Fast forward 90 minutes and I'd made it to my destination undetected. I peak up over my cover and see the buck with about 20 does and 2 smaller bucks. I drop my pack and get my gun set up and ready to go. When I look up the whole group is running away. They unfortunately where not slowing down and clearly something wasn't right. I start looking around to see what spooked them and a Subaru outback starts coming down this road that is really only suitable for trucks. It is public land so I can't be too upset, plus I have 6 months to fill the tag. I decide to take the easy route back to my truck and the Subaru decided to come talk with me.

"Hey what are you doing out here?" Husband and wife.
"Oh just hunting pronghorn" me
"Is it even season yet? I hope you're a terrible shot cause we love watching them! We just saw a really big group of them back there" H&W
"Yes ma'am I saw them too, I've actually got a special tag that let's me hunt them before anyone else, a governor's tag" me
"Oh you know the governor? That's awesome!"

Sunday morning I was able to spot all three of my top bucks all within an hour. Number one and two were on private property and where not coming off probably for another day or two. All the pronghorn followed a pattern and would make a giant circle from public to private that took about 3 days. So I decided to put a stalk on number 3. Mr number 3 wouldn't win a scoring contest but in my house he'd be number one. My wife likes the tall bucks and doesn't really care how B&C score because apparently they're wrong.

I park the truck and immediately start belly crawling towards the buck. He is bedded 1000 yds away looking in my direction. There is a little tiny drainage maybe 10 inches deep but better than nothing. I belly crawl for what feels like forever and get to 500yds from the buck. He would occasionally get up and feed towards me so he helped cut the distance. Looking at my OnX it appears he's about 50yds into private but intermittently feeding towards me and north. It's only 11am so I've got a lot of time to wait. I decide to roll on my back and just rest, in the process looking back towards my truck. That's when I see a white panel van stopped about 50yds from my vehicle. Hmm that's odd I think. Then the van reverses towards my truck and drives right up to the windows peering in. I've left my bow, spotting scope, 15x binos, glock, & countless other items in plain view. The man starts to get out of his van so I decide the pronghorn can wait and start running towards this jerk. Imagine thinking you're alone then out of nowhere a man covered in orange toting a rifle starts running towards you screaming obscenities and threatening your life. He quickly got back in his van and sped away never to be seen again. I've thought what would've happened if I put a round or two into that van and I think i made the right choice. All I could think about was my wife and son at home and if i shot this dude (who was within range) liberal Colorado judges would not be on my side. The pronghorn? Slowly walked further into private watching me very carefully.

After this encounter I was very upset and missing my family. Being the 4th weekend in a row away I was ready to be home. But there was still a job to do. I spent the rest of the afternoon watching number 3 to see if he'd come towards me at all but it wasn't happening. With 2 hours to go before I headed home I decided to go look for number one again. He was about a 10 min drive from where I was so I headed that way.

Right when I pulled up to the location I spooked the Hurd of 20 does and 3 bucks. They were running into a very large tract of public so the rodeo began! I'd drive down a road when they'd go out of site only to drive too far and spook them in a different direction. This happened 3 times before I ended up on a mesa with them below. I grab a headlamp and the rifle and head towards the group. Right when I crest a ridge I spot them all at 200yds but only one buck, a smaller one. I continue to glass and just watch until I see the other 2 bucks about 200yds further in some brush. I should mention these 2 bucks to the untrained eye (mine) look very similar but number 1 is a lot heavier with larger prongs. I make sure that I've picked the right buck out and get a good range, 425yds. I set up take a few breaths and let my xbolt bark. I must've pulled the trigger cause the shot was a little back, i set up and take the finishing shot and the buck falls. A sigh of relief and I watch the pronghorn all bunch up together..... that's when I see it. My number one buck. Except he's not the one laying in the field, he's running away with his does and the other 2 bucks. The buck i shot wasn't even part of the group.

None the less I have an obligation to full fill at this point so I leave my rifle right where I shot and head down towards the buck. The brush is a little thick and tall so I wanted to be able to see where I shot from while searching for the buck. He was not hard to find. I drop a pin and head to the truck to get my pack, kill kit, and pistol. Hunting solo you come up with ways to take your pictures and I'm sure my way is similar to all of yours. I struggle to set my phone up on my pack in video mode and just take screen shots off the video. The pictures turned out good and kind of over sell the buck. But that was the intention. The sun fades quickly and I finished my task in the dark surrounded by howling coyotes, hence the pistol. 3/4 hike back to the truck and it's over.

I call my wife and let her know the news. Because I harvested I'm going to have to stay an extra night because the animal has to be inspected by CPW being a raffle tag. I think my wife was just excited because it meant I'd be home now and her buck was still the champion at the house. I contemplated getting a hotel room but I figured why change things now? I've spent this whole hunt sleeping under the stars might as well enjoy the last night out. The next morning was uneventful just some odd looks from the CPW inspectors on not their typical raffle sized pronghorn.

That day I got home and took the buck strait to my taxidermist. We both laughed as I told the story from the guy in the van to how it all unfolded. My original plan was to get a pedestal mount but decided to go with the wall mount. That's what I get for putting the cart before the horse.

As they all say, he's not the biggest but he's mine and I'm very happy. I was able to spend a lot of time in the field and found a lot of game. Pronghorn isn't the only thing you'll find while spending countless hours behind the glass. Found a lot of mule deer and better yet a ton of elk in OTC areas. I'll be using that info to my advantage in the future. I also found pronghorn in the middle of the forest at 11000ft! I'm very thankful for the opportunity the Rocky Mountain Bighorn Society provided me. I may never have an opportunity like this in the future but I'll always buy my raffle tickets! I encourage you all to do the same, you just never know!