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

[Gater]

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.

I have hunted for over 40 years you never know everything but what you should always know is your and your equipments limits. I know this is long range hunting and there's a lot of guys that can take game at 1000+yds I won't

 

[Stgraves260]

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.

Well at the top of my list would be a satellite phone. Then just hope you never have to use it. If you remember that movie " 127 HOURS " Aron Ralston played by actor James Franco would have been better off if he had a satellite phone or did not wonder off alone. Aron was a very skilled survivalist. If you haven't watched it I would highly recommend it. It's a true story. I would never suggest hunting alone. To many unforeseen situations. Accidents happen. Besides getting outdoors is about sharing your adventures and being with family and friends.

 

[Pro2A]

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.

Congratulations and thanks for sharing. Very interesting. Much enjoyed sharing your hunt through your own words and thoughts. We've all been through that first hunting experience.......and still are learning with each hunt. Don't let this sampler experience end there. Make friends to make and share the experiences with. Initially the hunt is about the challenges and learning experiences, the meat and trophy search, but soon becomes more about the experiences with good friends. I turned 72 two days ago. My son is a doctor. Due to COVID-19 threat of bringing multiple social groups together in our lodge, he talked me out of our annual deer season on our 3800 acre big boy's playground with 18-20 various aged buddies. He knows how special deer season is and how "sacred" this annual ritual is to me and my buddies of over 45+ years hunting together. Missing this year broke my 62 consecutive deer season run. Four others also decided to sit this season out, opting for hopefully at least several more seasons post-COVID. Yeah, 150-200 acres each would have been sufficient social distancing, but we've long ago passed the "harvesting the game" focus. It's now all about being with treasured long time friends. Your sharing helped fill in the huge hole in this year. Thanks.

Oh, another thought from my experiences. In addition to a good pair of goggles and face covering to protect your one-set-in-a-lifetime personal optics, plan for rifle/scope/optics poncho to handle the blowing grit. Many good rifle covers available to protect from blowing grit and crawling grunge in your action. A prophylactic makes a good rain/grit rifle barrel protector......ala Nam tip......sure you have a bull barrel version lying around. Be aware that quality optics are highly dependent upon the external lens coatings for their performance. Grit can quickly damage the lens. Clear scope covers can be valuable on the binos. I also, use the Sig3000BDX binos. Actually use camera lens neoprene covers (reference OP/TECH Hood Hat........3-1/2 - 4" medium size for Hensoldt 72mm objective) with hole cut in center and lexan disc placed inside cover to protect spotting scope lens on my NF TS-82, Vortex Razor, and Hensoldt Spotter 60 scopes. Yes, the Lexan does minimally degrade the optical image, but only when using the Lexan cover, and not like damaged lens coatings do permanently. Carry extra Lexan discs to change out if it gets scratched/abraded. Cheap way to protect $3000-$4400 spotting scopes in the blowing, sand blasting high prairies.

And, one last tip, I always have a set of leathers (gauntlet gloves, boots, full pants and long sleeve shirt from my earlier Harley riding days) to wear in those areas where prickly vegetation abounds. Makes low stalking much more tolerable. I have non-button front pull over leather shirts or slip pre-buttoned shirt on over my head BACKWARDS so no opening toward prickly ground. Leathers also handle those high prairie winds and grit very well. DON'T FORGET TO ZIP YOUR LEATHER PANTS FLY. And, please don't ask me how I learned that last tid bit. Old too soon; smart too late.

 

[6.5x300 WBY]

Cant really add anything to what has already been said. But congratulations on the beginning of your hunting adventure.

Just one thing after a lot of years hunting is to STOP just looking for animals and enjoy the view and all the nature around you. I live in NJ so its just trees In the woods not some beautiful scenery of being out west in the rockies. But I sit in my tree 22 ' up or in a ground blind just watching the morning break or the night fall asleep and all the critters doing their thing. To me its just magical, peaceful and tranquille. I thank Our GOOD LORD for that opportunity to bear witness to the beauty of HIS creation and all the critters in it.

I'm 51 and have long past the need to harvest to have a great hunt. Just enjoy your time out there and most definitely add a hunting partner (friend) it makes it way more enjoyable with friends and or family.

Congrats you did fantastic

 

[john k]

congrats and don't let the grisly sight turn you away from hunting which most of our forefathers had to do and if they did not, they leaned on their friends/family. Often times their natural predators give them a lot more grisly death. If prepared properly, the meat is absolutely pure and delicious. The entire process stirs an instinct in many of us that is inherent. The entire process of hunting is so fulfilling even if your hunt does not produce an animal. Being with close friends and like minded people out in the backcountry is priceless!

 

[falcon6555]

I'm from New Zealand, I hunt as much as I can and I enjoyed reading your story, cheers.

 

[lgwatson]

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.

Good source for medical kits and training: Trauma Medical Kits by Mountain Man Medical

 

[Doozy]

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?

Hey @grouse . Here were the factors that influenced me personally, in order of importance:

1. I happen to live in Colorado with prime hunting close by. If I had to travel far, I wouldn't have done it. Just being honest.
2. I have close friends who are enthusiastic about hunting; it rubs off and you begin to realize, "Hey, I bet I could do this too!" And really, I needed someone to answer my questions.
3. If I had to live off the land, would I be able to provide for my family? (I want the answer to be "yes.")
4. I made a promise with another good friend and coworker (who had also never hunted) that we would both do it this year. I had to keep my promise. (But I admit that I wouldn't have made the promise in the first place if it wasn't already something I decided to do from factors 1-3.)

 

[Yeager]

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.

Interesting story and well written: congratulations. You write that you wished to record your first time hunting adventure: you did that well, but you also shared that story with many others on this website. Why?? Are you looking to learn more from others what you could have done better? If that is the case, more info is needed. First, your shot is quite high for a 165 yards. What is your sight in distance and what is your PBR? What bullet did you to choose to use with that large caliber to hunt antelope with that does a foot of damage to the back bone of the animal?

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.

 

[drpacmn]

Well done Sir!

 

[DJ Fergus]

Great write up. I grew up in a rural area and my Dad farmed but was not interested in hunting at all. I basically had to learn about it on my own. I hunted from about age 12 and didn't kill a deer until I was 18. I can't imagine how fun your hunting endeavor has been for you. It's great that you are in a state that is not so restrictive on hunting and you have plentiful hunting opportunities. I wish you well on your future hunting and the great times you will have when your children get old enough to hunt with you.

 

[Doozy]

Congratulations on your 1st hunt!! I've known lots of friends to hunt their 1st time for an entire season and end up empty handed and even after decades it still happens to the best of us! Best of luck next time you go and maybe no headshot next time so we can get a pic lol!!

Thanks @Jeremy R Snyder . I just wanted to pass along that I did post at least one picture on page 2 of this thread. Now, if you meant you wanted a good picture, well, yea! I can definitely understand that (it's not the greatest picture).

 

[greenejc]

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.

If I'd known about you, I could have taken you on private land and gotten you a shot at a doe easily. If I'm here this Fall, get in touch with me and I'll take you out for either a buck or a doe.

 

[Yeager]

Neat story and well written: congratulations. You write that you wished to record your first time hunting adventure: you did that well, but you also shared that story with many others on this website. Why?? Are you looking to learn more from others what you could have done better? If that is the case, more info is needed. First, your shot is quite high for a 165 yards. What is your sight in distance and what is your PBR? You adjusted 0.1mil and perform a perfect head shot: have I missed something here? What bullet did you to choose to use with that large caliber rifle to hunt a small antelope that causes a foot of damage to the wound site of the animal? I really do hope you learn more from this first experience and that you will enjoy more hunting in your future.