jnagel32
Active member
My buddy and I returned from our Wyoming Pronghorn hunt a couple weeks ago. We didn't draw our first choice, which we thought we were a slam dunk for and ended up drawing a 2nd choice unit, with obviously little public land.
We decided to tent it at a KOA and arrived there 3 days early. We spent the better part of the next 2.5 days checking out the entire unit to get a lay of the land and scout out some bucks. We were seeing a good herd with a decent amount of bucks on a small parcel of BLM all three days prior to the season opener and there was one big boy in the group. We put him to bed the evening prior to opening day with the intent to hopefully be in position to harvest him at first light on opening morning.
We hiked in well before day light to get into position. Just as it was getting light enough to start glassing we saw a group of a couple does and a buck following them. They were a couple hundred yards away and we couldn't tell how big the buck was, but they were heading directly towards us. Just as it was light enough to be able to shoot, we see another hunter walking directly in between us and the antelope that were heading our direction. The antelope promptly see him and take off the other direction. This was pretty frustrating as we were setup perfectly, but such is life when hunting public ground.
After the other hunter took off after the antelope, we heard 9 shots come from his general direction. I'm not sure how many he hit, but he drove his truck up on the public to retrieve at least one animal. I can't imagine shooting that many times as I only took 5 rounds into the field with me.
We decided to hike further into the same small parcel and check it out. On the back side, we found the herd of antelope with the big boy that we had scouted prior to the season. They were just over the border on private ground, but they looked to be coming back onto public. I previously noticed that they would utilize a draw that was on public ground, but bridged two sections of private. We decided to set up on this draw and hope that they would funnel through. Well, we moved into position. Before we knew it a small buck came through. We continued to wait and just as planned the herd began to travel through the draw. The sage brush was too high so my buddy decided to use his pack as a rest. The big buck worked his way down the draw and stood broadside at 200 yards. As my buddy was getting ready to shoot the buck took off to chase another small buck away and only moved about 10 yards before stopping again. My buddy panicked thinking he was going to miss his chance and rushed the shot. We watched as the impact hit the dirt at the big buck's hooves. Needless to say, my buddy was pretty sick with himself and felt a little defeated after he missed such a great buck.
Neither of us had shot a pronghorn before and decided since we took our chance at the big guy and it didn't pan out that we wouldn't pass up any decent bucks from that point forward. By this time the public land in this area was getting hammered pretty hard and had a few other opportunities slip out from under us, so we decided to go to another area off a county road that was further away and had way less public. It just had two small pieces of public ground, but we figured it probably hadn't been hit as hard. We parked the truck and started hiking in, when a doe jumped up and took off. All of the sudden a buck pops up and starts chasing the doe. I go into prone position as my buddy began yelling out ranges to me. The buck continued to chase the doe for a few minutes, going all the way from 200 yards out to 700 and everywhere in between. Finally, he stopped broadside and I hear 350 yards. I dialed my turret, settled on his front shoulder, squeezed the trigger and watched him drop in his tracks through my scope! Here is my first antelope:
After we cleaned my buck and got it on ice in the coolers we started to head back the direction from which we came. I noticed a buck and a doe bedded not very far from us and I checked the GPS to see they were indeed on public ground. My buddy got into prone position. The doe stood up and then the buck. My buddy dropped him where he stood at 70 yards. We were both pretty ecstatic to fill both our tags on opening day with our first antelope. Here is my buddy's first buck:
The next 4 days we spent exploring Wyoming and ventured down into Colorado to check out an area we are thinking about hunting in the future. It was a great time and an experience niether of us will forget!
We decided to tent it at a KOA and arrived there 3 days early. We spent the better part of the next 2.5 days checking out the entire unit to get a lay of the land and scout out some bucks. We were seeing a good herd with a decent amount of bucks on a small parcel of BLM all three days prior to the season opener and there was one big boy in the group. We put him to bed the evening prior to opening day with the intent to hopefully be in position to harvest him at first light on opening morning.
We hiked in well before day light to get into position. Just as it was getting light enough to start glassing we saw a group of a couple does and a buck following them. They were a couple hundred yards away and we couldn't tell how big the buck was, but they were heading directly towards us. Just as it was light enough to be able to shoot, we see another hunter walking directly in between us and the antelope that were heading our direction. The antelope promptly see him and take off the other direction. This was pretty frustrating as we were setup perfectly, but such is life when hunting public ground.
After the other hunter took off after the antelope, we heard 9 shots come from his general direction. I'm not sure how many he hit, but he drove his truck up on the public to retrieve at least one animal. I can't imagine shooting that many times as I only took 5 rounds into the field with me.
We decided to hike further into the same small parcel and check it out. On the back side, we found the herd of antelope with the big boy that we had scouted prior to the season. They were just over the border on private ground, but they looked to be coming back onto public. I previously noticed that they would utilize a draw that was on public ground, but bridged two sections of private. We decided to set up on this draw and hope that they would funnel through. Well, we moved into position. Before we knew it a small buck came through. We continued to wait and just as planned the herd began to travel through the draw. The sage brush was too high so my buddy decided to use his pack as a rest. The big buck worked his way down the draw and stood broadside at 200 yards. As my buddy was getting ready to shoot the buck took off to chase another small buck away and only moved about 10 yards before stopping again. My buddy panicked thinking he was going to miss his chance and rushed the shot. We watched as the impact hit the dirt at the big buck's hooves. Needless to say, my buddy was pretty sick with himself and felt a little defeated after he missed such a great buck.
Neither of us had shot a pronghorn before and decided since we took our chance at the big guy and it didn't pan out that we wouldn't pass up any decent bucks from that point forward. By this time the public land in this area was getting hammered pretty hard and had a few other opportunities slip out from under us, so we decided to go to another area off a county road that was further away and had way less public. It just had two small pieces of public ground, but we figured it probably hadn't been hit as hard. We parked the truck and started hiking in, when a doe jumped up and took off. All of the sudden a buck pops up and starts chasing the doe. I go into prone position as my buddy began yelling out ranges to me. The buck continued to chase the doe for a few minutes, going all the way from 200 yards out to 700 and everywhere in between. Finally, he stopped broadside and I hear 350 yards. I dialed my turret, settled on his front shoulder, squeezed the trigger and watched him drop in his tracks through my scope! Here is my first antelope:
After we cleaned my buck and got it on ice in the coolers we started to head back the direction from which we came. I noticed a buck and a doe bedded not very far from us and I checked the GPS to see they were indeed on public ground. My buddy got into prone position. The doe stood up and then the buck. My buddy dropped him where he stood at 70 yards. We were both pretty ecstatic to fill both our tags on opening day with our first antelope. Here is my buddy's first buck:
The next 4 days we spent exploring Wyoming and ventured down into Colorado to check out an area we are thinking about hunting in the future. It was a great time and an experience niether of us will forget!
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