2020 Trip

Yell Co AR Hunter

Very Active Member
Dec 10, 2015
842
672
Yell County Arkansas
Thank God for the chance to visit Wyoming once again. We left out of Central Arkansas about 1:00 pm on October 12th headed Northwest. During the night some where in Western Nebraska one of the tires on the popup trailer blows out. That is ok as we have a spare, but about 180 miles later down the road blow out number 2. Well it is around 3 am so stuck on the side of the road. Guys please pull into the other lane for stranded vehicles. That was a scary couple hours waiting for tire shop to open. Got the tires replaced and back on the road lost a total of about 5 hours. My plan was for me and my buddy to fill our antelope tags fast and head to the mountains and pack in to concentrate on mule deer. It was dark when we set up camp on the 13th, but we still had a day to scout for antelope. I was up with the sun. When I looked over the landscape I was in shock. It looked nothing like the prior trip in 2017. I knew it had been a dry year, but it looked like a war zone. The area prior had several large groups of antelope with 50 to 75 animals. I only spotted a coupe groups with less than 10 and a couple small bucks on their own. We then drove to other areas that held antelope prior only to find none. We knew pretty fast we were in for a tough hunt. Opening morning we head out for high ground to await the sun rise. Not long after shooting hour we make a move on a small group. My buddy makes the shot and the first animal is down. 20201015_083138.jpg
The amount of people on the area was unreal and it was not long till all the antelope had fled for private ground.
We went to another area we could glass from public across private to a remote piece of public. We spotted a small group that had two quality bucks. My buddy left his rifle as it would be a 3 mile hike into them. To navigate to the antelope we had to work our way along a deep draw. We jumped a couple mule deer doe. So we glass the draw and locate three bucks. I had the first shot on mule deer. My buddy said you need to shoot that buck. I told him I would pass on that one hopping for a better one. He said "I will shoot it. Give my your rifle" boom and the second animal was on the ground. We then spent the rest of the day packing out the deer about three miles. 20201016_095236.jpg We tried twice to go back for that group and mule deer kept busting out and ran the antelope off to private. When we got back to camp one day my buddy said there is a buck. It was about 150 yards off the road behind the trailer. As I said earlier have eye problems. I could not find it to make the shot. My buddy said "he is getting jittery better shoot". The it started moving toward the road. When I finally got on him he was stepping on the road so I did not shoot. The other side was private land. a couple days later we found another decent size group that had two nice bucks. It was about 3.5 miles behind camp. They were out on a big flat off a creek line. We got as close as we could and it was still 400 yards. We watched them for over an hour till they got out of their beds and were heading away. I took a shot but was low. He ran a little way and stopped. I took another shoot. Not sure where it went other than not in the buck as I watched him run plum out of the country.
On the last day we could hunt the snow was coming down. We went to an area we had seen a few smaller bucks. We spotted them in the bottom of a draw. There were 9 deer total 4 bucks and 5 doe. We managed to get pretty close and another buck was step for step behind the one I wanted to shoot. My buddy once again said you better shoot. The dropped out of sight. I heard him say he is right there shoot him. I could not find him for the life of me. I finally located him and got the shot off and down he went. He was with in 120 yards.20201022_135552.jpg
 

JimP

Administrator
Mar 28, 2016
7,070
8,346
70
Gypsum, Co
It is always nice when a plan comes together and you get animals on the ground.

On the tire issues, that is one major thing that a lot overlook on their trailers. That and the bearings. I live right on I-70 and would drive 30 miles each day for work. You wouldn't believe the number of trailers that I have seen on the side of the road with blown tires or with just the hub showing and some people sitting on the side of the road away from traffic waiting for the folks that went to get things fixed. And at one time where I live it could of been a very long drive and wait. Friends used to wonder why I would repack my trailer bearings every year before during the summer so that we wouldn't be left stranded along the road when we would head to Arizona for javelina hunting with 4 4 wheelers on the trailer.

But I can relate to having two tires blow out in one trip. When the second one blew on a trailer that my hunting partner was towing for a friend I just told him that we would have to dump the trailer on the next exit and head to Phoenix with 3 bad tires our of 5 that were on the trailer. Two of them were blown and the third had a 16 penny nail in it. This was all at midnight.