Since this past Winter I had been tentatively planning a Wyoming antelope hunt with my 13 year old son in Wyoming this Fall. He's an experienced whitetail deer hunter but this would be his first western hunt for big game. My schedule didn't allow for a definitive plan before the drawing deadline, though, so it was going to be leftover tags or nothing. In April, he and I took a week long trip out west to scout public land in some Wyoming units that normally have leftovers, and did some turkey hunting in Nebraska on the way home. We found some areas with sufficient numbers of antelope that we felt good about coming back out to hunt. I bought him a .243 this Summer and we went to the range several times to shoot it a lot at ranges from 100-300 yards. I was hoping he and I would shoot to the same point of impact and we could just both use the same gun so we wouldn't have to lug 2 around. We settled on using Hornady SST Superformance 95 gr. ammo because they shot insanely accurate at 300 yards in his Savage Axis, I'm talking 1/2 moa accurate. No other brand we tried came close to that, and we tried half a dozen others.
Fast forward to last Tuesday, 2 days before season opened, we got to Wyoming and had time for a day and a half of scouting. Some of the areas we found back in April still looked good, and some of the areas were now over-run with domestic sheep and no antelope around. We had a plan for Thursday morning that didn't quite work. We found a group of does and a buck and spent most of the morning trying to get in front of them and kept getting busted at the last minute. Twice my son was even setting up for a shot and they busted us. We backed off the group, let them settle for a few hours, then found them again and formulated a plan for a stalk. I felt we only had about a 30% chance of it working, but I guess I was too pessimistic, because it worked almost as planned. He ended up getting a perfect broadside shot at the buck at 310 yards and made a beautiful shot right in the crease of the shoulder, but the buck didn't act as though he was hit, until after about 5 seconds he started wobbling then crashed to the ground. He's no monster but is a nice representative buck, and definitely a trophy for my son's first.
I got my buck 2 days later in the same area. 200 yard shot behind the shoulder, again this buck didn't act like he was hit until about 6-7 seconds after the shot he started wobbling and hit the deck. Not my biggest pronghorn buck, but the meat will taste just as good, and this hunt was more about my son's first western big game hunt experience than horn size.
We camped out and overall both had a great time. Saw lots of prairie dogs and mule deer as well. I'm sure we'll do this again sometime in the next few years, maybe throw mule deer into the mix as well, and elk when he gets just a little bigger.
Fast forward to last Tuesday, 2 days before season opened, we got to Wyoming and had time for a day and a half of scouting. Some of the areas we found back in April still looked good, and some of the areas were now over-run with domestic sheep and no antelope around. We had a plan for Thursday morning that didn't quite work. We found a group of does and a buck and spent most of the morning trying to get in front of them and kept getting busted at the last minute. Twice my son was even setting up for a shot and they busted us. We backed off the group, let them settle for a few hours, then found them again and formulated a plan for a stalk. I felt we only had about a 30% chance of it working, but I guess I was too pessimistic, because it worked almost as planned. He ended up getting a perfect broadside shot at the buck at 310 yards and made a beautiful shot right in the crease of the shoulder, but the buck didn't act as though he was hit, until after about 5 seconds he started wobbling then crashed to the ground. He's no monster but is a nice representative buck, and definitely a trophy for my son's first.
I got my buck 2 days later in the same area. 200 yard shot behind the shoulder, again this buck didn't act like he was hit until about 6-7 seconds after the shot he started wobbling and hit the deck. Not my biggest pronghorn buck, but the meat will taste just as good, and this hunt was more about my son's first western big game hunt experience than horn size.
We camped out and overall both had a great time. Saw lots of prairie dogs and mule deer as well. I'm sure we'll do this again sometime in the next few years, maybe throw mule deer into the mix as well, and elk when he gets just a little bigger.
