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

[Rich Coyle]

Congratulations! I enjoyed reading your story. A very ethical hunt, which more should should try for. I am not of the opinion that anyone and everyone is capable of 1000 yard shots and most are not. I really like this site as a learning tool but I am afraid to many people feel if HE can shoot that far so can I. Here in the open country and the mountains of Wy when we are riding to check and move cows I too often run across wounded and dead animals that I feel were left to dye because people thought they missed at an extremely long distance so they didn't follow up. Sorry for the rant!! Guess I got up on the wrong side of the bed

Here in Western Oregon there are few places to take a long range shot. And yet there are deer wounded every year. Many think if the deer doesn't drop at the shot they missed and they move on.

 

[Slim in Wyo]

Here in Western Oregon there are few places to take a long range shot. And yet there are deer wounded every year. Many think if the deer doesn't drop at the shot they missed and they move on.

 

[Slim in Wyo]

I started to rant!! Thought better of it and deleated it. I've seen some things in 60+ years of hunting that I prefer not to dwell on. I have spent most of my life ranching in Colorado and Wyoming. I graduated from the first hunter safety class in Colorado card # is #13! I just wish more people would try to be more compassionate about what they put out there for the ones who are trying to take our lively hoods away from us to see!!!

 

[Rich Coyle]

I started to rant!! Thought better of it and deleated it. I've seen some things in 60+ years of hunting that I prefer not to dwell on. I have spent most of my life ranching in Colorado and Wyoming. I graduated from the first hunter safety class in Colorado card # is #13! I just wish more people would try to be more compassionate about what they put out there for the ones who are trying to take our lively hoods away from us to see!!!

What do you mean by "more compassionate"? This is a hunting sight where we talk about shooting and killing.

 

[oodmoff]

Congrats!

 

[Mike Matteson]

Here in Western Oregon there are few places to take a long range shot. And yet there are deer wounded every year. Many think if the deer doesn't drop at the shot they missed and they move on.

That a sad state of affairs. Stupid too.

 

[Slim in Wyo]

What do you mean by "more compassionate"? This is a hunting sight where we talk about shooting and killing.

I don't mean on this Site!! When you drive down the road and see someone with their tailgate down on a jacked up pickup and a bloody deer with its tung hanging out in plain sight to me is not helping people under stand hunting!!! I am not talking about ethical hunters and maybe not you but I wonder why you jumped on what I said so hard without thinking. I have said my piece so I am dropping this here. I am trying not to rant.

 

[Rich Coyle]

I am not a hunting evangelist. I don't know any hunting evangelists who try to help "people understand hunting." We hunt for sport. One of my friends is a trophy hunter. He will not kill anything unless it is "better" than his last one. He does not try to help "people understand hunting." He wants few hunters.

 

[GDKinCO]

Congrats and thanks for the write up! I love reading about "first time" hunt stories!
However, one little "oh by the way" comment you slipped in at the beginning that apparently nobody else perked up at ...

%<snip>
I won a NRA sweepstakes a year and a bit ago ...
%<snip>

Made me smile to actually hear from someone who really WON one of those! I paste the stickers and send in my entry every time I get one, but think to myself "nobody REALLY wins these" ...
Greg

 

[Donneric]

I'm a little late to the party but would like to say great story. Hope to read another from you next season. The one thing I thought of that might help you in the future that I did not see posted by anyone else is a call that can stop antelope when they begin to spook. I only hunt elk anymore and can't tell you how many elk I have halted by tooting on an open reed cow call. I have even had them turn direction and come towards me. My last elk came out of black timber from behind me as I was cow calling to a spike I heard in front of me. I use Sceery cow calls. I have never hunted antelope yet so I have no experience with them. But being a herd animal like elk they may respond in a similar way. Maybe some others on here with years of antelope hunting may know. Thanks for posting. I enjoyed the read.

 

[Doozy]

UPDATE: I just found out that I got drawn for a buck pronghorn this year! Everything else I put in for was unsuccessful. This will be my second time ever hunting.

I am currently trying to go together with a coworker, as many of you recommended. I also have a HAM radio license and found there is an emergency channel that operates in the area.

Should be a great time!

 

[Rich Coyle]

Congrats on the limited success. I hope you have a memorable hunt.

 

[JungleShooter]

Thanks for this awesome writeup from last year! Very enjoyable read.

I hope you have a great second hunt!

 

[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!!! Late comer to this post. However, YES, I did enjoy your sharing of your experience. Really proud for you of your journey into hunting. Don't let it be your last. Keep learning and enjoying the journey. Make hunting friends to enjoy the experiences with. It is not all about the kill; it is all about the journey, the constant learning.......including the disappointments/"aw ****$", and experiences. I'm on the other end of the curve at 72yo. At my doctor son's pleading, I broke a 62 year consecutive string of deer seasons due to COVID potential among our large hunting group. Sacrificed one hunt hopefully in return for still many more. Each season is a "spiritual" experience.