This month was my first time ever hunting... Ever.

[lancetkenyon]

Great write-up. Congrats. I am making green chile antelope as we speak.

Am I the only one who wants to see the photos?

 

[Frog4aday]

So refreshing to read an honest, well-written hunting report from someone who just read up on how to do it & then got out there and succeeded. It is awkward & messy at times, but the learning curve is steep so you have already banked a lot of knowledge from this first hunt. I hope you keep at it. Eating the meat from an animal you harvested yourself is truly rewarding. Hats off to you. Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[Baker Alvin]

I come from a none hunting family, my cousin did and it was through slideshows of his hunts, I to took it up on my own, this is a great story. Thank You, for taking time to write of your experience. Hopefully, you have many more hunts to come. Everyone is different and we learn from all of them.

 

[wv270wsm]

Great write up of your hunt sir. Everyone of us that have killed game at some point has made a not desirable shot . It happens . It sucks when it does but everything worked out for you . I would suggest not trying head shots but there again it worked out for ya. Keep shooting and get back out there after some more critters.
The meat that you get from animals that you harvest should be greatly appreciated by you and your family . I've never had speed goat but I'd bet with the proper meat handling that you done it should be very good.

 

[rs3579]

Congratulations

 

[meinidaho]

Great story. Thank you for sharing! I am always impressed with people who get themselves into hunting and sounds like you did a good job for your first hunt. Amazing is it not how intense the split second decisions are???

 

[mercerbear]

I grew up in the Los Angeles area and never had a hunting upbringing. I'm 41 now and for the first time ever, went hunting. I went all by myself.

I'm very interested in emergency and survival preparedness, hence my interest now. I wanted to try hunting, at least once for the learning experience it would be.

Got a doe tag for Pronghorn in East-Central Colorado. I had to do the hunter safety course 100% online because the state stopped allowing in-person training and they allowed purely online training. I have a lot of coworkers who hunt and I gleaned a bunch of info off of them, including borrowing a DVD set about how to debone in the field (which was very helpful).

I won a NRA sweepstakes a year and a bit ago, so I sold most of the guns and built a 300 PRC rifle. I wanted a hybrid hunting and long range rifle. I knew this was far more power than was needed for Pronghorn, but I figured I'd have to shoot them from 400 yrds plus, so I figured it'd do. I don't have a lot of money with four little boys and wife wholly depending on my pay check.

I bought a pack from Bass Pro. I also splurged and got the Sig 3000 rangefinding binoculars and an accompanying Garmin Foretrex Applied Ballistics version. After practice and zeroing, I was ready to shoot long range. (This site was invaluable for building that rifle.)

On the first day of my late rifle hunt (1 Dec) I went out on a cold very windy day. I packed too heavy and struggled hiking the 7 or so miles. Never saw a Pronghorn. The worst part was my eyes were shredded by the constant blowing dust.

A few day later, I tried a different spot and immediately spotted a herd. I knew they had good eyesight but I figured I'd be able to get within 400 yards of them. Boy was I wrong! They wanted to maintain 1000 to 1100 yards at all times. I wasn't stupid enough to just keep pushing them (I knew being by myself that would never work) so I tried other strategies. One of my tries I circled about a mile around them down in a ravine they couldn't see. I emerged and had to keep very low to get to a ridge to see them. I hunched-walked without my pack 75 yards and literally crawled another 175 yards (it took forever!)... with my rifle draped across my forearms in a low crawl at times. When I emerged over the ridge, I saw all but one of the herd was bedded down except one doe which was a bit over 600 yards away. I was taking my time however, and very shortly that doe bed down and was out of sight from the low grass there. I could still see a lot of the other herd's heads popped up on alert, though they weren't standing, and farther at 700+ yards. I figured I'd try to shoot one of their heads. But it was a long shot, I didn't know where their brain cavity was, and I was having a hard time with the shadows telling if I was looking at a doe or buck. I was just unexperienced. About 20 minutes into this they all stood up! I looked for a good doe, but I didn't realize I would only have a few seconds to shoot. They all started running off before I was ready.... Lesson learned: when they stand like that I may only have seconds to shoot! Turns out they hadn't seen me, but rather saw another hunter hundreds of yards behind me walking by. That hunter probably had no idea they were even there. So that was discouraging. I hiked and crawled exactly 11 miles that day, according to my GPS. While hiking back to the truck I had passed by a Pronghorn skull and so I inspected it and learned the brain was a bit behind and at the bottom of the eye socket. This knowledge would prove valuable the next time I went out.

Days later I went out again, arriving to the parking spot with an hour before sunrise (with hopes I could hike the 2.5 miles or so to get into position where I figured later hunters would push the animals toward me.) The sun had come up about 10 minutes before and I wasn't really on alert while walking to my spot when I suddenly saw heads popped up right in front of me at a VERY close distance...close enough where I knew I didn't need to bother with ranging and dialing in my scope. I smoothly got down and loaded a cartridge. They were now all standing and starting into a quick walk (like they hadn't yet decided they wanted to run). I had read somewhere that often the matriarch leader of a herd will be large and take the lead when there was danger. I set my scope on a lead doe and because of what I read, the fact that she looked very large, and since I figured I only had seconds left to fire, I didn't bother looking at any other animals. She was walking right-to-left and I led my scope and waited for her to walk into it. (It was here that I could see she had a tracking collar on and it crossed my mind that I wasn't 100% sure I could kill a collared animal; I had a dozen arguments go through my head in a second and all seemed to say it would be okay.) I wasn't nervous, just methodically hurrying to shoot.

I shot and immediately looked up from above my rifle. While all others started in a run, my doe had its rump on the ground and was perched up with its front legs. I knew I had hit it, but not in the heart-lung area that I intended. My immediate thought was I needed to shoot it again to stop its suffering. I quickly loaded another round, and this time took five seconds to range its head... 165 yards. The correction is instantly displayed in my binos (it communicates with the Garmin via bloothtooth) and so I made the 0.1mil correction on the scope. I aimed for the brain cavity and about 30 seconds after I had shot the first round, I pulled the trigger again. I looked up and the animal was out of sight; I knew it had fallen. I was pleased I remembered to put my rifle on safe before moving again (Something I figured would be easy to forget and so I really wanted to ensure I got that little detail down.)

Upon inspection, and while cleaning and deboning, I learned that for whatever reason, my first round had hit and destroyed the spine about 2/3 of the way back. It also ripped open a large, 1 foot tear in the hide. It had bled a large pool down its side. Unfortunately, this made a good portion of the backstrap and tenderloins unrecoverable. The second shot was perfectly placed and I felt contented that I was able to swiftly end its life. But the scene was grisly! It still had its snout, but there was no "face" to the animal left. The 300 PRC blew away all brain, eyes and skull. It was just a cavity. Because of this, I'm not sure if I should post pictures or not; it was my best to be humane, but like I said, it is very grisly.

So that was my first time hunting. I learned a lot and reverently harvested the meat...not even a month ago. I don't know if cleaning and beboning it immediately helped, but I was pleased there was no prominent taste to the meat... All very mild. The first thing I did when I got home was to read about collared animals. I learned it is fine to shoot them but Colorado Parks & Wildlife prefers you remove the collar and bring it to them. I didn't have a socket wrench or pliers and didn't know this anyway, so I had left it, marking the exact spot with my GPS. I called them up and fortunately, they were fine with me just telling them the location.

After grinding and processing the meat, I ended up with 29 lbs.

I doubt this post will be of much interest to anyone else, but I just felt I should record my experience... If nothing else, for myself. Currently I am leaning towards hunting again next year.

Congratulations and thanks for a great write up.

I hope you hunt again!

 

[Doozy]

My goodness, you all are very kind; thank you for your encouraging and kind words. As well as your tips for the future.

I should say that my coworkers are actually really close friends and they would definitely hunt with me, but I wasn't begging them and it was a very busy time of year. One who wanted to go with me had to take his boys and a friend out first. I didn't think I needed to wait, so I told him I'd give it a try and if he was available when I still hadn't gotten an animal, I'd be up for his help. They were all very helpful and excited for me to try hunting for the first time.

Thanks for the tips on doing a head shot. I'll look more into possibly shooting the neck next time (if necessary)...as well as being cautious next time if I want to ever take a head shot. I'm glad I didn't attempt the 700+ yard shot after reading your comments. I don't feel bad that I took the shot I did though because I couldn't see the body of the animal, just the head and top of its legs, and I didn't want it to suffer any longer than I could help.

I'm a little baffled at my first shot (on the spine). It was likely moving faster than I thought, or perhaps I was slow on the trigger. Perhaps I jerked it (probably, which would explain not only the horizontal displacement, but the vertical). I have to admit, I was pretty relieved I hadn't hit it in the gut though! All its organs were perfect and beautiful. I didn't consider keeping the heart and I don't know why. I should have. Maybe the liver too. I also regret I didn't try a little more at recovering the tenderloins. Again, I just didn't know how close to a round is considered tainted. But I could have gotten it and looked it up later. And another mistake I made--well, maybe I couldn't have avoided it...I don't know--was I had rolled the animal on its back to start gutting it. That got all kinds of dirt on the backstrap/tenderloin area because, like I said, there was no more hide there to protect it. Anyway, I've learned some things about cleaning the animal too.

I was interested to observe I wasn't more flustered or having shakes before shooting. I knew I needed to be aware of this. I did notice however that after I had started cleaning the animal and had made the first incisions, it was then that I noticed I must have had a bit of adrenaline that was wearing off because at that point my hand was a little shaky. This was somewhere around 6-10 minutes later (I tried to get to cleaning it almost immediately; I had never made an incision like that in anything before, except cleaning some fish, so I also wanted to not think about it and quickly do it. Turned out I was fine...again those DVDs put me into the right mental state to cut up an animal.)

Okay, I reviewed my pictures and there's one that's not too graphic (the head area). I'll include it here. By the way, I know YOU all won't mind it... It's that I don't want it to get in the hands of anti-hunting people; there are some sick people out there and a picture like the ones I took have a way of making their rounds on the Internet. I'm just trying to be cautious of that.

Thanks again everyone!

 

[wv270wsm]

It's a learning experience and you'll get the hang of it. It may not hurt to watch the show meat eater . I've hunted since I was big enough to go and Steve opened my eyes to things that could be eaten of a game animal . The butchering process is a learning curve of its own. Keep at it and you'll get better for sure .

 

[Outdrmn]

Congrats and great write up!
What didn't work out the way we planned on our hunts are not a waste. They are the things we learn to improve and better our skills, everything in hunting and life is a teaching moment. Excited for you, brings back great memories of my first hunt!

 

[Josh Potter]

Great story
Thanks for sharing

 

[grouse]

I'm always curious to see how people find Their way to hunting later in life. One of my dreams is to run a non profit that introduces kids and adults to hunting for the first time. What would you say was the most influential thing that made you take the leap?

 

[Arcticnomad]

I grew up in the Los Angeles area and never had a hunting upbringing. I'm 41 now and for the first time ever, went hunting. I went all by myself.

I'm very interested in emergency and survival preparedness, hence my interest now. I wanted to try hunting, at least once for the learning experience it would be.

Got a doe tag for Pronghorn in East-Central Colorado. I had to do the hunter safety course 100% online because the state stopped allowing in-person training and they allowed purely online training. I have a lot of coworkers who hunt and I gleaned a bunch of info off of them, including borrowing a DVD set about how to debone in the field (which was very helpful).

I won a NRA sweepstakes a year and a bit ago, so I sold most of the guns and built a 300 PRC rifle. I wanted a hybrid hunting and long range rifle. I knew this was far more power than was needed for Pronghorn, but I figured I'd have to shoot them from 400 yrds plus, so I figured it'd do. I don't have a lot of money with four little boys and wife wholly depending on my pay check.

I bought a pack from Bass Pro. I also splurged and got the Sig 3000 rangefinding binoculars and an accompanying Garmin Foretrex Applied Ballistics version. After practice and zeroing, I was ready to shoot long range. (This site was invaluable for building that rifle.)

On the first day of my late rifle hunt (1 Dec) I went out on a cold very windy day. I packed too heavy and struggled hiking the 7 or so miles. Never saw a Pronghorn. The worst part was my eyes were shredded by the constant blowing dust.

A few day later, I tried a different spot and immediately spotted a herd. I knew they had good eyesight but I figured I'd be able to get within 400 yards of them. Boy was I wrong! They wanted to maintain 1000 to 1100 yards at all times. I wasn't stupid enough to just keep pushing them (I knew being by myself that would never work) so I tried other strategies. One of my tries I circled about a mile around them down in a ravine they couldn't see. I emerged and had to keep very low to get to a ridge to see them. I hunched-walked without my pack 75 yards and literally crawled another 175 yards (it took forever!)... with my rifle draped across my forearms in a low crawl at times. When I emerged over the ridge, I saw all of the herd was bedded down except one doe which was a bit over 600 yards away. I was taking my time however, and very shortly that doe bed down and was out of sight from the low grass there. I could still see a lot of the other herd's heads popped up on alert, though they weren't standing, and farther at 700+ yards. I figured I'd try to shoot one of their heads. But it was a long shot, I didn't know where their brain cavity was, and I was having a hard time with the shadows telling if I was looking at a doe or buck. I was just unexperienced. About 20 minutes into this they all stood up! I looked for a good doe, but I didn't realize I would only have a few seconds to shoot. They all started running off before I was ready.... Lesson learned: when they stand like that I may only have seconds to shoot! Turns out they hadn't seen me, but rather saw another hunter hundreds of yards behind me walking by. That hunter probably had no idea they were even there. So that was discouraging. I hiked and crawled exactly 11 miles that day, according to my GPS. While hiking back to the truck I had passed by a Pronghorn skull and so I inspected it and learned the brain was a bit behind and at the bottom of the eye socket. This knowledge would prove valuable the next time I went out.

Days later I went out again, arriving to the parking spot with an hour before sunrise (with hopes I could hike the 2.5 miles or so to get into position where I figured later hunters would push the animals toward me.) The sun had come up about 10 minutes before and I wasn't really on alert while walking to my spot when I suddenly saw heads popped up right in front of me at a VERY close distance...close enough where I knew I didn't need to bother with ranging and dialing in my scope. I smoothly got down and loaded a cartridge. They were now all standing and starting into a quick walk (like they hadn't yet decided they wanted to run). I had read somewhere that often the matriarch leader of a herd will be large and take the lead when there was danger. I set my scope on a lead doe and because of what I read, the fact that she looked very large, and since I figured I only had seconds left to fire, I didn't bother looking at any other animals. She was walking right-to-left and I led my scope and waited for her to walk into it. (It was here that I could see she had a tracking collar on and it crossed my mind that I wasn't 100% sure I could kill a collared animal; I had a dozen arguments go through my head in a second and all seemed to say it would be okay.) I wasn't nervous, just methodically hurrying to shoot.

I shot and immediately looked up from above my rifle. While all others started in a run, my doe had its rump on the ground and was perched up with its front legs. I knew I had hit it, but not in the heart-lung area that I intended. My immediate thought was I needed to shoot it again to stop its suffering. I quickly loaded another round, and this time took five seconds to range its head... 165 yards. The correction is instantly displayed in my binos (it communicates with the Garmin via bloothtooth) and so I made the 0.1mil correction on the scope. I aimed for the brain cavity and about 30 seconds after I had shot the first round, I pulled the trigger again. I looked up and the animal was out of sight; I knew it had fallen. I was pleased I remembered to put my rifle on safe before moving again (Something I figured would be easy to forget and so I really wanted to ensure I got that little detail down.)

Upon inspection, and while cleaning and deboning, I learned that for whatever reason, my first round had hit and destroyed the spine about 2/3 of the way back. It also ripped open a large, 1 foot tear in the hide. It had bled a large pool down its side. Unfortunately, this made a good portion of the backstrap and tenderloins unrecoverable. The second shot was perfectly placed and I felt contented that I was able to swiftly end its life. But the scene was grisly! It still had its snout, but there was no "face" to the animal left. The 300 PRC blew away all brain, eyes and skull. It was just a cavity. Because of this, I'm not sure if I should post pictures or not; it was my best to be humane, but like I said, it is very grisly.

So that was my first time hunting. I learned a lot and reverently harvested the meat...not even a month ago. I don't know if cleaning and beboning it immediately helped, but I was pleased there was no prominent taste to the meat... All very mild. The first thing I did when I got home was to read about collared animals. I learned it is fine to shoot them but Colorado Parks & Wildlife prefers you remove the collar and bring it to them. I didn't have a socket wrench or pliers and didn't know this anyway, so I had left it, marking the exact spot with my GPS. I called them up and fortunately, they were fine with me just telling them the location.

After grinding and processing the meat, I ended up with 29 lbs.

I doubt this post will be of much interest to anyone else, but I just felt I should record my experience... If nothing else, for myself. Currently I am leaning towards hunting again next year.

Congrats and welcome to hunting.

 

[Hubby45]

Thanks for the story. Welcome to the hunting side of the population.
I've been lucky enough to to have been hunting since I was 13 ( a longggg time ago now lol) and was mentored by my Dad and Grandfather (and their circle of friends).
I wish you the best in future endeavors