A members first Wyoming DIY deer/antelope hunting trip

[375 Ruger Fan]

Cool congrats, back in the 80's when I first started hunting antelope I started in areas 72 and 73. How did you like Hell's Half Acre?

I must have blinked when we passed it, because I didn't even notice it. We did drive out to Independence Rock and climb up it and took some photos.

 

[jduckhunter]

I must have blinked when we passed it, because I didn't even notice it. We did drive out to Independence Rock and climb up it and took some photos.

Yeah, if you weren't looking for it I can see how you would miss it. They tore all the buildings and signs down years ago.

 

[jduckhunter]

Best of luck. I will tell you here in Gillette we have had a VERY wet summer. Been much greener than normal and animals in our immediate area should have as good of horns/antlers as what they will ever have due to great nutrition. Hope to see you.
Bruce

I'm looking forward to hunting this year more then I have for a while, after seeing a bunch of good bucks last year that should be bigger this year. Hope we can catch up this year, going to try and stop on the way home. We have to stop in Hulett on the way home and pick up a deer head that a friend of mine had mounted there from last year.

 

[dailordasailor]

In Denver International waiting for flight back to Myrtle Beach. Had a fantastic week with jduckhunter and his son! We all filled our tags and to me we had great weather. Wind snuck in at the end and on my drive out yesterday Kaycee area was snowing pretty good.

The problem is now, I have to chase antelope again next year. They are such interesting critters and live in amazing country. Can’t wait to show the wife and maybe my nephew next year. Probably just chase doe and if can draw a buck for my wife. The hunt is always the more fun part to me so horns are just bonus.

I’m sure jduckhunter will chime in when gets home and I will load photos and details Monday when plug camera into work computer. My shooting was crap (not proud of that) but the other two shot great and had some fun hunting.

Can’t thank Jeff and George enough for the amazing opportunity!

Dale

 

[Lost Lake]

A little over a year ago a dailordasailor reached out on AH looking for some help on planning his first DIY western US hunting trip. I responded and we talked quite a bit, to make a long story short I had an open spot on this years hunt and decided to ask him to accompany my son and I to WY. I told him that it would be easier for us to show him the ropes then try to explain it all. He accepted my offer and we will be meeting him in Casper in a few days. If he enjoys this trip as much as I think that he is going to, he has no idea the way his life is about to change. You see my first western hunting trip was in 1984 and I've been back every year since, I enjoy it so much that it has almost become an addiction. ( who am I kidding, it's a full blown addiction) I'm really looking forward to introducing this young man to hunting in WY and seeing his reaction to hunting on the open prairie versus what he is used to on the east coast, mainly hunting out of a tree stand. Heck where we're going there aren't any trees for miles and miles, this is going to be fun. I can't wait to take him out to one of the back pastures to hunt and explain to him that the pastures are 2 miles wide and 4 miles deep, that usually gets a new guys attention. Oh yeah this is going to be fun!

Best of luck. Looking forward to hunting out west myself. Long time dream.

 

[Firebird]

Have had good deer hunting so far. Staying in cheap hotels and keeping rain gear on top of my day pack and using it regularly! The spotting scope has been essential tool and I did get in on a big group of does and bucks. Two real shooters but wasn’t able to get close enough before dark. Had to return to work but planning to go back soon. Glad you had a good hunt,
Can’t wait for pix and stories!

 

[Shootist43]

More proof that AH members are virtual friends. This group I'll bet are "virtual" friends no more. Looking forward to stories and pics from both of you.

 

[jduckhunter]

More proof that AH members are virtual friends. This group I'll bet are "virtual" friends no more. Looking forward to stories and pics from both of you.

Your right we went from virtual friends to good hunting friends pretty quickly. I'm not going to try and tell Dale's story, I'll let that up to him to tell it any way he wants to. I'm just going to drop some photos here to get the ball rolling. One thing I will say though is that it was a pleasure to meet and hunt with this young man. He took everything we and Wyoming threw at him in stride. It was cold, hot, dry, wet, windy, cloudy, sunny, we went on long hikes, short hikes, long stalks, short stalks and through it all he never complained, just kept on going. The last photo is Dale and my son, they shot their deer literally seconds apart, it's nice having young strong hunters along, especially when they shoot their deer at the bottom of a steep ravine.

 

[gillettehunter]

Congrats to you guys. Looks like you had a great time. Wish I could of got together with you while you were here. Sometimes life just throws curve balls. More snow here yesterday and more coming...
Bruce

 

[jduckhunter]

Congrats to you guys. Looks like you had a great time. Wish I could of got together with you while you were here. Sometimes life just throws curve balls. More snow here yesterday and more coming...
Bruce

Thanks Bruce, one of these days we're going to get together for sure. Next year planning on coming out and staying for two weeks, that might give us a better chance of getting together. Yeah I saw the weather report, looks like we got out of Dodge at the right time.

 

[dailordasailor]

 

[dailordasailor]

Day 1: Flight from Myrtle Beach to Denver through Atlanta. Airport at 4:30 and on ground in Denver at 10:00a. Got rental truck (dragging two bags and rolling gun case was an experience). Started heading west and a little after Cheyenne JDuckhunter text asking what mile marker I was at. Turns out i was only 15 miles ahead of them so i pulled off the next exit and waited. Got to finally put a face to the voice/text and Jeff road rest of way with my and his son, George, drove his truck behind us. We stopped in Kaycee for ice and last minute snacks then headed to the ranch. Got to camp about time for sun to go down so unloaded rapidly and tidied up the camp before went to sleep.

Day 2 Saturday: Drove around from sunrise to about 11:30a scouting. First time out west and the scenery truly suprised me. I had it in my mind it was just flat country. Saw ALOT of antelope and a handful of good bucks (great bucks to me using east coast whitetail as a gauge). Headed back for lunch and caught the rancher loading 500 sheep on trailer. We "helped" sort of and were offered a buffet of food. Best burrito you could ever hope for in wyoming and unexpected. We headed out before sun set for more scouting and saw a great buck right at last light. Driving into camp, there were 3 or more young bucks eating the sheeps hay 20 yards from the trailer. Backup plan was established, all else fails, theres tag fillers in camp.

Day 3 Sunday: let the animals and roads get a break and headed into Buffalo for some camp items and Lunch. If you get chance to eat at Taco Johns in Buffalo,Wy, drive another mile up road to steak house. Dont recall much else that day other than made sure my rifle was still on after flight and George shot his 45lc with some loads he loaded right before coming out.

Day 4: Up early after sleeping like you normally do before a hunt... Plan was to go after antelope first as we saw a good amount of traffic on the roads through ranch and figured they spook up quickly. Not to long into our scouting we come onto a good antelope buck with few does. George and i get out and after a short stalk i lay down on sage brush and look for the antelope. Around 150yds if i rember correctly but he wasnt having it and i wasnt quick enough so we watched him take his ladies 3 ditches over. We continued on road scouting and got into a valley where there were ~20 antelope with one good buck according to Jeff (i cant judge an antelope to save my life). Jeff and i bail out and drop into a small ditch while george takes the truck up the road to get eyes off of us. Antelope are 250yds accross from us with a good size ditch in the way. Jeff knows I'm a flat lander from SC and wisely thought we should try getting closer. We were able to make our way into the 8' or so deep ditch and out of site and get up to 100yds from the buck without any knowlege of us. Jeff asks if i can shoot off hand, which is no issue as i always do from tree stands at him. I pick up the gun and realize my crosshairs are all over the place. Adrenaline has me in a choke hold. Jeff offers his shoulder for support and i proceed to completely miss the antelope at 100yds standing still. The buck was as appalled as i was and walked slowly 15 feet and stopped to see what happened. I shot 3 more times during walk, clean misses apparently, then rested on jeff again and fired, hitting the buck high and way back. This bullet paralyzes him and he drops. We decide to take long walk around so if he spooked he didnt run deeper into valley. We got to about 50 yards and i finally put a shot where intended. This knocked him onto his side but wasnt as quick as would have wanted. As he was losing life, Jeff went up and put him down quickly with his knife.

At this point I'm feeling like complete crap because i botched an easy 100yd shot and when finally hit the buck it was as close to a miss as could be. Although this was not a "guided" hunt i similar issue on my guided hunt in england but there i shot 5 animals and had time to work out my nerves. I think i let the second person with me mess up my focus (definitely not any fault of theirs) and I end up just shooting at the animal rather than picking a spot on the animal. I've never missed/really messed up a shot from my tree stand or blind even when hunting on semi guided hunts. Seems to be mental thing i put on myself when with others, its on the immediate need fixed list. Especially before Africa.

Still all in my mind, Jeff comes over and shakes my hand and congratulates me. Helps the funk a little and finally get to see an antelope up close. Truly amazing animals and so different from anything else I've hunted. George returns, having heard all the gun fire, and we grab the carrying sticks and my bag with knife. Pictures and gutting pursue and we carry him back to the truck. After a couple hours of Mullie scouting we had back to camp for lunch and to hang my antelope.

We go back out that afternoon and see some "second day" bucks but no first day quality deer. The heightened traffic has certainly pushed the deer back away from the road.

Day 5 to come. Much more eventful

 

[dailordasailor]

Day 5 Tuesday: Up early to be scouting by sunrise. Drove around without much to see. Decided to drop in a drainage with myself and George going south and Jeff going east planning to meet in hour or so. We walked down pretty deep and only saw a lone doe. As always, only uphill on way back and truck looked unreasonably far away. About half way back George stops and sees a Buck laying just under a cliff in the shade around 300yds. We decide to try and head down wind and close in through an adjacent ditch. Having not been able to see how nice of a buck he was, we wanted to get rather close as he was going to fall into a pretty deep ditch if decided to shoot. George and i split up in hopes one of us would get a shot if he spooked. Never laid site on him again but found a spike and saw a deer 400yds out trotting away which we figured was him. We headed back to the road and George realized we actually dropped in one ditch to far away and never were close to the buck who was still laying in his bed. We decide to come to north of the buck which should get us in to 100yds without a problem. Only issue would be that we'd be stepping into open country to get a shot because hes under the over hang of the cliff. We begin the stock and get within 120yds without much concern. Next came trying to crawl out in short sage brush without getting busted. George's turn to shoot so hes leading and is able to get binos on the deer and sees hes a nice 3 point. Second later he says "nice deer, looking right at me" then the buck had enough and left the county. George ranged it and we were under 100yds. Had we been certain of the deers size, was a perfect stalk/set up. We head back to truck (very late for our meet up time) and while walking i regain cell signal and see Jeff said he had shot one and wanted us to meet over there to haul out. I'll spare the details but George and i took the long way around and few miles later met up with Jeff. Never took good photos but he shot good buck with a good story of a long chase to boot. We loaded the truck and headed back for lunch and a nap.

After a short rest George took off to town for gas (big truck driving alot of road glassing) and Jeff and I headed to walk a new area. Beautiful country and we hiked what felt about 3 miles with long break mixed in waiting for shadows to set up right. We peaked the other side of canyon and saw what looked like Georges truck and we were able to get enough signal to ask him to pick us up. He was able to get as close as could and we walked down/up about another mile to the truck where we met up. Was snack/water time and we started driving and glassing. It wasnt 30 minutes and Jeff said he saw a shooter buck in the ditch. George backed the truck up and we climbed out. Short stalk to edge of ditch and George is on his pack looking at broadside 3 point who has a buddy with him eating facing away. George smacks the 3 point who runs about 20 yds and is done. I'm excited looking through my binos at george's deer when Jeff tells me to get set up on the other deer who is still standing there. I fumble around and get set up prone on some sage brush. Ask george distance and he said he aimed for his spine which sure seemed to work out. I settle in, aim at top of back and pull trigger. Deer runs opposite of Georges and stops at edge of cliff quartered away. I settle on him again and send another. This time he falls over and kicks a little then its over. We range after the fact and was right at 250yds. We drive around ditch and hike down to the deer. Georges deer turns out to be real nice 3 point and mine a good fork horn. I couldnt be happier. Upon walking up on my deer, he died with head hanging off of cliff. Couple more kicks and our night was going to get alot worst. Time for pictures and gutting.

We then realize the error of our ways when comes time to get these deer out. The 3 point was nice enough to run towards the truck but was only so helpful. I live in the flat land/swamp area so my "worst" drag out is a few hundred yards at sea level in a little water. This drag was about 100' vertical according to phone and maybe 200-300yds horizontal. The next hour as dark came, was filled with regrets on eating chips ahoy 5 mins prior to shooting the deer and thinking up plans of how to make haul out easier. Once we were able to get them close enough, George had 150' of rope in truck that we tied off to tow hook and with two on antlers and one pulling rope, sped things up a good amount. Once high enough, Jeff would walk backwards with rope through tow hook and we drag forward using his body weight to help pull. It was a hell of an experience to say the least. I managed to avoid retasting my cookies somehow and we had a sense of accomplishment and utter exhaustion as we drove back to get other truck and then to camp. Hung the deer in barn and made a quick dinner before going to bed.

 

[Milehighshooter]

Love that giant forky! Very cool buck

 

[dailordasailor]

Hopefully I’ll be seeing him again next month. Left in Wyoming to have euro done

 

[PARA45]

Great story, and great animals. Congrats on a successful hunt. It is wonderful to see how helpful AH members are, and what a great individual jduckhunter is on taking you under his wing for a wonderful hunt.
Are you going to do a shoulder mount on the speed goat? They are on my bucket list.

 

[dailordasailor]

I got euro of both. May regret it but didn't do any shoulder mounts. Only shoulder mount I have is a Nilgai (still haven't received) otherwise house is euro only on the walls. Planning to only hunt does next year so may be a good while until I get a shoulder antelope.