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

[Hunter84]

Congratulations! Great story for your first hunt.

 

[Lenny Foffa]

Great Story !! Learn and Shoot and Hunt And never Stop learning !!!

 

[Doozy]

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?

Hey @Yeager ,

Here's why I shared my story here (and it will show more of my ignorance coming through). I didn't share it because I wanted more feedback (though I'm very grateful to have received so much). As you can see, I didn't share my story for over three weeks as it is, and I wasn't planning on posting it until yesterday. I guess the reason I did it was (don't laugh) it felt like posting about one's hunting experience is sort of an expectation. I read posts on here of other's experiences, and so I honestly just felt like I should post it even if nobody wanted to read it. I truly didn't think many would.

I'll add that the responses from everyone have been so interesting to me! Scores of you have said that my story was interesting and some of you added that perhaps this was because it was from the perspective of a new hunter that was so entertaining. But I honestly have no idea what I said that was interesting! I wish I did. I honestly couldn't identify what elements were interesting to all you experienced hunters. And to me...I thought my story was written in a pretty flat, factual and uninteresting way. If I was trying to make it entertaining, I would have told more of my thought processes, like how pleased I was to discover that if I crept up on some antelope while I was in-line with a fence post, I seemed to be canceled out by their brain's processing of their prereferral vision (and if that's not correct, it seemed to help as I got within another 600 yards; if it wasn't for those their buddies alerting them, I would have had another chance at a shot). Those were some of the interesting things to me I discovered.

About my shot...I agree that it was way too far off for that kind of distance. I'll tell you my theories (as I've thought a lot about it). I definitely welcome anyone's ideas.

First, I haven't gotten into reloading, so I was wholly dependent upon Hornady's ELD-X 212 grain 300 PRC. I don't believe there is any other factory ammo for 300 PRC, and the 212 gr is the only hunting round. While zeroing this round, I wasn't completely satisfied with the standard deviation of FPS. But even with the largest spread I was able to record, this would only mean the shot would really only go lower by just a tiny bit...and it certainly would not hit higher and not to the right. (Yes, it could hit a little higher, but the amount would be negligible).

My scope is quality and the rings are the best I could find (M10 rings from ARC). However, again while zeroing, I wasn't really pleased with how my PROOF carbon fiber barrel was performing. It was still at about MOA, but I expected better. Besides that, it was clearly walking. This was from a true 100 yard indoor range (so wind wasn't an issue). The oddest thing is that when I would clean it, I could only ever get three of the five lands to produce blue copper streaks. This was and is still odd to me. To PROOF's credit, they asked to have me send in my rifle--all shipping paid for on their dime--and they have it now and are inspecting it. But again, even with my largest fliers, it can't account for how off my shot was.

I do believe that the doe was in a trot and was moving faster than I thought. Let's just say it was... moving at 15mph. According to a ballistics calculator, my bullet would have a time of flight of 0.18 seconds to reach 165 yards. That means that at 15 mph, the animal would still have moved 3.96 feet before impact! (I didn't realize it would be so great until calculating it right now). Well, I didn't lead the shot at all so I was certain to miss the heart lung area. In fact, I may be considered lucky to have even hit it!

But again, this does not account for the vertical displacement. why did I hit high? My two theories are that the antelope was either moving down on terrain (probably wouldn't account for all of the rise), or I badly pulled the shot. What else could account for that great a rise? Maybe my cheek weld was off too...

Anyway, it's inconclusive in my mind, but I'm honestly not too worried. Yes, I know I need to practice hitting moving targets more and shooting from something other than prone, but I feel I'm actually a pretty good shot, and I even feel I remembered to do a lot of the little things, such as breath control before firing. (Forgive the personal testimonial: for example, my icon picture is a tribute to the time I shot that metal target off the top of the 2x4 it had flipped onto. The shot was 609 yards and the target is only 3/8" thick. I hit it on my second try (and you can see the scar of the bullet that grazed the top. I probably got lucky on that too, but my point is I'm not that bad.)

Sorry this was so long.

 

[Wolf01]

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.

As you Grow as a hunter, the experience will always be special. Every time. If not then dont. Good job on your first of many to come.

 

[longrangebob]

Actually you'll Find Most other Hunters will enjoy your Story!! The Successes & possibly EVEN More the Challenges (I'd say failures/mistakes which are the Learning Experiences) But my experience is that the times things don't go as planned are often if not the Better/More Interesting Tales, IMHO - and listening to your story reminded me of my own first Prairie Goat Hunt (how fast they go when "motoring", long Crawl, dispatching mortally wounded critter & my anxiety about doing it promptly.... thank you for taking the time to go into detail so the experience can be well visualized ....
the Next time out I took the shot @ 750 off a pack & Bipod - no more crawling - hated kneeing prickly pears
thanx again & Happy New Year

 

[bowhunter123456789]

Congrats, you are hooked now.

 

[aaronmcoleman]

Hey @Yeager ,

Here's why I shared my story here (and it will show more of my ignorance coming through). I didn't share it because I wanted more feedback (though I'm very grateful to have received so much). As you can see, I didn't share my story for over three weeks as it is, and I wasn't planning on posting it until yesterday. I guess the reason I did it was (don't laugh) it felt like posting about one's hunting experience is sort of an expectation. I read posts on here of other's experiences, and so I honestly just felt like I should post it even if nobody wanted to read it. I truly didn't think many would.

I'll add that the responses from everyone have been so interesting to me! Scores of you have said that my story was interesting and some of you added that perhaps this was because it was from the perspective of a new hunter that was so entertaining. But I honestly have no idea what I said that was interesting! I wish I did. I honestly couldn't identify what elements were interesting to all you experienced hunters. And to me...I thought my story was written in a pretty flat, factual and uninteresting way. If I was trying to make it entertaining, I would have told more of my thought processes, like how pleased I was to discover that if I crept up on some antelope while I was in-line with a fence post, I seemed to be canceled out by their brain's processing of their prereferral vision (and if that's not correct, it seemed to help as I got within another 600 yards; if it wasn't for those their buddies alerting them, I would have had another chance at a shot). Those were some of the interesting things to me I discovered.

About my shot...I agree that it was way too far off for that kind of distance. I'll tell you my theories (as I've thought a lot about it). I definitely welcome anyone's ideas.

First, I haven't gotten into reloading, so I was wholly dependent upon Hornady's ELD-X 212 grain 300 PRC. I don't believe there is any other factory ammo for 300 PRC, and the 212 gr is the only hunting round. While zeroing this round, I wasn't completely satisfied with the standard deviation of FPS. But even with the largest spread I was able to record, this would only mean the shot would really only go lower by just a tiny bit...and it certainly would not hit higher and not to the right. (Yes, it could hit a little higher, but the amount would be negligible).

My scope is quality and the rings are the best I could find (M10 rings from ARC). However, again while zeroing, I wasn't really pleased with how my PROOF carbon fiber barrel was performing. It was still at about MOA, but I expected better. Besides that, it was clearly walking. This was from a true 100 yard indoor range (so wind wasn't an issue). The oddest thing is that when I would clean it, I could only ever get three of the five lands to produce blue copper streaks. This was and is still odd to me. To PROOF's credit, they asked to have me send in my rifle--all shipping paid for on their dime--and they have it now and are inspecting it. But again, even with my largest fliers, it can't account for how off my shot was.

I do believe that the doe was in a trot and was moving faster than I thought. Let's just say it was... moving at 15mph. According to a ballistics calculator, my bullet would have a time of flight of 0.18 seconds to reach 165 yards. That means that at 15 mph, the animal would still have moved 3.96 feet before impact! (I didn't realize it would be so great until calculating it right now). Well, I didn't lead the shot at all so I was certain to miss the heart lung area. In fact, I may be considered lucky to have even hit it!

But again, this does not account for the vertical displacement. why did I hit high? My two theories are that the antelope was either moving down on terrain (probably wouldn't account for all of the rise), or I badly pulled the shot. What else could account for that great a rise? Maybe my cheek weld was off too...

Anyway, it's inconclusive in my mind, but I'm honestly not too worried. Yes, I know I need to practice hitting moving targets more and shooting from something other than prone, but I feel I'm actually a pretty good shot, and I even feel I remembered to do a lot of the little things, such as breath control before firing. (Forgive the personal testimonial: for example, my icon picture is a tribute to the time I shot that metal target off the top of the 2x4 it had flipped onto. The shot was 609 yards and the target is only 3/8" thick. I hit it on my second try (and you can see the scar of the bullet that grazed the top. I probably got lucky on that too, but my point is I'm not that bad.)

Sorry this was so long.

My theory is that the field is a different beast from a range. Last year I MISSED antelope completely from 150y (twice!). I shoot fine at the range, moa to 500y easily. I had a probe supported position with bipod both times. No issue at all. 100% user error. Oh and I was using hand load that I've really refined and know well. And I was using a rifle I d had for 15+ years. So the field ghosts

Same year, I then got a doe and buck from 400y or so each. Perfect lung and heart shots. I got a bull elk offhand at 200y and a cow off hand at 175y.

so moral of the story, think as long and hard as you want, the field is the proving grounds . All we can do is practice more and work on calming those excited nerves!

 

[orifdoc]

It was moving when you shot at it?????

That's a whole different thing. You were lucky to hit it. I've taken plenty of shots on moving animals through the years and they're often low percentage deals. Mostly varmints & predators. Mostly at close range. If possible, always wait for them to stop and always wait for them to turn broadside.

 

[Johnny blade]

Great job! Don't even think about it do it again this year. I hunt alone a lot with just my horses. but sometimes a partner would be good. But hunting alone also gives you the opportunity hunt the way you want too.

 

[HappyGVM]

Doozy, glad to hear of the success of a fellow COS hunter, especially on public land. Thanks a lot for sharing! All the best in 2021.

 

[Boman]

Congratulations to you! Thats a heck of a feat to accomplish a first time solo big game hunt. You clearly learned alot ahead of time and during your hunt. I'd like to reccomend a couple of things to consider for your future hunts. As someone mentioned get a Personal locator Beacon, they can save your bacon if things go very wrong. Also something like Quick Clot, to stop major bleeding. Lastly you might look into videos showing the Gutless method of field dressing. In your case you could have dealt with the backstraps and tenderloin first and not have deal with gutting at all. This method is priceless when you have long packaouts plus it starts cooling meat faster which is vital to good table fare. Not sure if you used them but for meat care I highly recommend meat bags, something like Caribou bags. Keeps meat clean and flies off. Good luck to you and keep at it. Great job again

 

[Yeager]

Thank you for your time spent in answering my questions: being a " long range hunting" and shooting forum just could not turn down the want to ask several questions. Don't be sorry about the length of your answer; it was informative. I guess I would like to suggest that you might want to establish an appropriate PBR for that rifle; giving you the ability to point & shoot accurately to approximately 280 yards. Your story suggest you did not range your first shot and having the ability to simply aim and shoot at ranges less than 300 yard can be an advantage. I shoot the very same bullet out of my 300 and it requires a site-in zero at approximately 235 yards in which the bullet never travels outside of a 4 inch circle(2"high & 2"low) in 280 yards. By the way; a very big round for such a small animal. You might want to think about something like a .264 cal for that kind of hunting in your future. Thanks again for your time and interest in good hunting. Good luck

 

[richhymas]

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.

Thank you for taking the time to share. Well earned.

 

[Lymey]

Thanks for shareing, never too old to learn! Your honest report gives hope to the future even if it means one less tag available.