I am slowly coming down from an elevated level of bliss…a natural high. I just returned from a 10 day trip that took me through Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming, then back to Idaho, and Oregon (in that order). I’ve been looking forward to this trip ever since I discovered I’d drawn pronghorn tags in both Wyoming and Idaho.
Pronghorn antelope are remarkable animals. They’re not related to any other animal species in North America, or any continent for that matter. They are unique. They are masters of open-country, reliant on their speed and their incredible eyesight. The female antelope appears dainty with her long eye-lashes and graceful locomotion. Walt Disney himself couldn’t have conjured a more feminine caricature. The buck pronghorn is a manly creature with more testosterone than a roomful of NFL linemen. They spend most of their time marking their territory by rubbing their many scent glands on brush, posts, signs, and anything else that is elevated in the desert landscape they inhabit. The males have large, black cheek patches and black horns which are status symbols. The older bucks grow longer, heavier horns and the girls like that.
A few weeks back I received an email from Hunter’s fourth-grade teacher that expressed her appreciation for Hunter’s hard work in class and his willingness to help other students that need extra help. I decided I’d invite Hunter to come along with me on the big trip. The decision to invite my boy wasn’t easy for me. Hunter and I have only been on day hunts together. How many nine-year olds would enjoy driving in a pickup a quarter of the way across the United States only to get to your destination and spend everyday, all day, bouncing around on rough, desert roads in search of antelope? He thought about my question, looked towards his mom sitting on the couch and after some serious contemplation nodded his head with a smile.
We were off to the badlands of Wyoming. The trip was long and we were eager to set-up camp. Jared Zierenberg, a good friend, drove up from Utah to hunt with us for a couple of days. We recently acquired a small pop-up tent trailer from Emily’s parents and we were able to take it along on the trip making camp a little more comfortable than normal. We set camp along the banks of the Green River beneath a canopy of overgrown cottonwoods. The nearby willows were shimmering golden and the air was cool confirming that fall had arrived.
Antelope hunting can be mentally challenging; however, it is one of the easiest hunts as far as physical challenges go. You spend nearly all of your time behind the steering wheel and your eyes behind your binoculars, but don’t try doing both simultaneously. It doesn’t work very well. Once antelope are spotted, you do your best at parking your truck, getting out your optics (which are normally covered in snacks and jackets), and field-judging the size of the buck (down to half-inch increments) while he is running mach 2 through muddled heatwaves and sagebrush a mile away. Rarely will a mature buck give you a second look.
Hunter was a good sport sitting in the front seat in between Jared and I. He caught the hang of antelope hunting quickly and began naming certain bucks according to what their horns looked like. Mr. Skinny, Little Guy, Dink, Mr. Shorty, and Mr. Wide were just a few of the creative names he made up. On the eve of our first day, we spotted a group of antelope in the distance. We were all glued to our binoculars and there was silence. Usually, you can measure how good a buck is by the immediate responses of the onlookers. For example, if an obviously littler buck is spotted, you will hear some noisy exhales. That is the noise of disappointment or “not big enough”. If a larger buck is spotted, you will hear some silence followed by some compliments such as “whoa, nice prongs” or “oooh, I like the mass”… back to the story. There was silence in the air. “Nice prongs” I quickly stated. “He is nice and heavy!” Jared nodded back. The buck, along with a harem of does, disappeared over the rolling hills. He was one of the largest bucks we had seen all day. “I think his name should be Mr. Everything!” Hunter, aka Mr. Know-it-all, jumped into the conversation. Jared and I looked at Hunter, impressed with his imagination.
The old adage “Time flies when you are having fun” was more than accurate on this trip and suddenly it was time for Jared to head home. Hunter and I, as always, enjoyed Jared’s good company. Jared was invaluable help, not only with spotting antelope but keeping Hunter entertained. I think Jared helped Hunter look for cottontails more than he did help me with antelope; however, cottontail hunts deserve a story of their own. With Jared gone, we only had one more day in Wyoming before we were to head to Idaho to meet Grandma and Grandpa Burrell for a little rock-hounding and another antelope hunt. We had hunted hard all-day, everyday. We had passed on hundreds of bucks in search of the two that we were after, Mr. Wide and Mr. Everything.
We woke up to the pitter-patter of rain drops on the canvas tent. Large rain clouds covered the sky and some of the roads were a bit slick. I turned down the same old two track we have learned to know intimately. Twelve miles down the road is where Mr. Nothing was spotted three days prior. Although we hadn’t seen him for days, I know he was alive and well. A few miles in, an antelope ran along the side of the road in front of us, it was a doe. Does are not alone this time of the year. With the rut in full-swing, a buck is usually not too far away. I was surprised to see she was alone….so I thought. The doe stopped for a brief moment, and turned her head looking across the valley. There he was. The doe had given up his location. I parked the pickup, grabbed my rifle, and in the wind and rain I anchored Mr. Everything with one solid shot to the heart.
Did this just happen? Did I just kill the buck Hunter, Jared, and I had personally named and spent days pursuing? I stood up from the wet ground brushing the wet soil from my jacket. I looked at Hunter’s face so full of emotions. “Dad, I knew we would find Mr. Everything and kill him!” The rain stopped on cue. I was suddenly overcome by some awe-inspiring feelings. Could it be that my little boy is growing up? The last couple of days I’ve watched him kill several cottontails all by himself; an admirable feat in my eyes. I’m not looking at a little boy anymore, I see a young man that is learning a sense of responsibility. A young man that is shaping his life, and it is outings like this where I see him grow, discover, learn about life more than at any other time. What an amazing moment. We admired his striking colors and heavy horns and quickly butchered him.
It was the same day I killed Mr. Everything that we were off to the desolate Owyhee range of Idaho. The trip was long and, once again, we were eager to set-up camp. This time Hunter and I had the pleasure to share company with my parents as well as a hunting buddy Dax Mangus, from Utah. Dax and I are both mule deer fanatics and put in for Idaho hunts together. We didn’t draw our muley tag but we were fortunate to draw pronghorn tags together. We gassed up our trucks in Jordan Valley, Oregon and headed down a dirt road that is over a hundred miles long. This is some very, very remote country. We crossed a cattle guard with a sign stating that you are financially responsible for all search and rescue operations beyond this point. Now is not the time to start questioning the condition of your spare tire or what that odd sound is under your hood.
The Owyhee Mountains are expansive and teeming with wildlife. Elk, deer, coyotes, sage grouse abound in good numbers throughout the unit. Notice I didn’t say antelope? There is some great antelope habitat but after a day of driving around glassing in prime areas, we were a bit let down by the number of antelope we were seeing. It is hard to be disappointed when you are with great company in some beautiful country so we made the best of our hunt and had a great time. Dax and I were bouncing along an old rocky road on opening morning when the first antelope were spotted. There were six does and a nice buck. I’m sure Hunter would have named him “heart-buck” because of the way his horns turned inward making a beautifully-shaped heart in between his long horns, but Hunter wasn’t with us this morning. He decided to spend the day looking for rocks with his grandparents. We tried to kill that buck but between their keen eyesight and some other antelope hunters our plan was foiled.
As the day went on, we became more and more discouraged with the number of hunters we had seen, so we decided to hunt off-road. We hiked down a nice ridge and set-up our optics. Quickly, Dax spotted a couple of does near a spring. As we sat there spotting a large valley, we began spotting all sorts of great wildlife including 6 different coyotes and a couple small pronghorn bucks. A couple of does and a buck in tow appeared from around the spring and started heading towards where the other two antelope bucks were bedded. I told Dax that if I could get within 500 yards from the largest buck I would take the shot.
I began the sneak from our position. I finally reached a small outcropping and measured the distance at 508 yards with my rangefinder. I laid down my bipod from my rifle and settled in like a rock, like I had practiced so many times this past summer. I watched as the larger buck would run a smaller buck off from the two does only to turn around and have to chase the other rut-crazed buck from the hot does. The does peacefully grazed the wheat-grass as if they were oblivious to the male-bickering going on around them. The largest buck stopped for a moment heaving with exhaustion. I was ready and pulled the trigger. The recoil of the rifle made me lose sight of the buck. I quickly found him once again in my scope. He appeared uninjured but alert and ready to bolt. I shot once again and he went down quickly.
The buck is an average-sized buck with average-sized horn length, average-sized prongs, and little mass; however, I felt very fortunate to harvest a decent buck on this hunt. I mentioned earlier that antelope hunting is normally not physically challenging, well this was the exception. I quartered the carcass, and packed this buck uphill well over a mile back to the pickup. When Hunter arrived that night from his successful rock-hounding trip, he assessed my Idaho buck up and down quietly. “I think I’ll call this buck Mr. Nothing!” he declared loudly so everyone could hear. We celebrated that night with Grandma’s fixings and great discussion around a sagebrush fire under the Owyhee stars. Thanks to everyone for your company and your help with this trip, especially you Emily who waited for me to come home so patiently.
Pronghorn antelope are remarkable animals. They’re not related to any other animal species in North America, or any continent for that matter. They are unique. They are masters of open-country, reliant on their speed and their incredible eyesight. The female antelope appears dainty with her long eye-lashes and graceful locomotion. Walt Disney himself couldn’t have conjured a more feminine caricature. The buck pronghorn is a manly creature with more testosterone than a roomful of NFL linemen. They spend most of their time marking their territory by rubbing their many scent glands on brush, posts, signs, and anything else that is elevated in the desert landscape they inhabit. The males have large, black cheek patches and black horns which are status symbols. The older bucks grow longer, heavier horns and the girls like that.
A few weeks back I received an email from Hunter’s fourth-grade teacher that expressed her appreciation for Hunter’s hard work in class and his willingness to help other students that need extra help. I decided I’d invite Hunter to come along with me on the big trip. The decision to invite my boy wasn’t easy for me. Hunter and I have only been on day hunts together. How many nine-year olds would enjoy driving in a pickup a quarter of the way across the United States only to get to your destination and spend everyday, all day, bouncing around on rough, desert roads in search of antelope? He thought about my question, looked towards his mom sitting on the couch and after some serious contemplation nodded his head with a smile.
We were off to the badlands of Wyoming. The trip was long and we were eager to set-up camp. Jared Zierenberg, a good friend, drove up from Utah to hunt with us for a couple of days. We recently acquired a small pop-up tent trailer from Emily’s parents and we were able to take it along on the trip making camp a little more comfortable than normal. We set camp along the banks of the Green River beneath a canopy of overgrown cottonwoods. The nearby willows were shimmering golden and the air was cool confirming that fall had arrived.
Antelope hunting can be mentally challenging; however, it is one of the easiest hunts as far as physical challenges go. You spend nearly all of your time behind the steering wheel and your eyes behind your binoculars, but don’t try doing both simultaneously. It doesn’t work very well. Once antelope are spotted, you do your best at parking your truck, getting out your optics (which are normally covered in snacks and jackets), and field-judging the size of the buck (down to half-inch increments) while he is running mach 2 through muddled heatwaves and sagebrush a mile away. Rarely will a mature buck give you a second look.
Hunter was a good sport sitting in the front seat in between Jared and I. He caught the hang of antelope hunting quickly and began naming certain bucks according to what their horns looked like. Mr. Skinny, Little Guy, Dink, Mr. Shorty, and Mr. Wide were just a few of the creative names he made up. On the eve of our first day, we spotted a group of antelope in the distance. We were all glued to our binoculars and there was silence. Usually, you can measure how good a buck is by the immediate responses of the onlookers. For example, if an obviously littler buck is spotted, you will hear some noisy exhales. That is the noise of disappointment or “not big enough”. If a larger buck is spotted, you will hear some silence followed by some compliments such as “whoa, nice prongs” or “oooh, I like the mass”… back to the story. There was silence in the air. “Nice prongs” I quickly stated. “He is nice and heavy!” Jared nodded back. The buck, along with a harem of does, disappeared over the rolling hills. He was one of the largest bucks we had seen all day. “I think his name should be Mr. Everything!” Hunter, aka Mr. Know-it-all, jumped into the conversation. Jared and I looked at Hunter, impressed with his imagination.
The old adage “Time flies when you are having fun” was more than accurate on this trip and suddenly it was time for Jared to head home. Hunter and I, as always, enjoyed Jared’s good company. Jared was invaluable help, not only with spotting antelope but keeping Hunter entertained. I think Jared helped Hunter look for cottontails more than he did help me with antelope; however, cottontail hunts deserve a story of their own. With Jared gone, we only had one more day in Wyoming before we were to head to Idaho to meet Grandma and Grandpa Burrell for a little rock-hounding and another antelope hunt. We had hunted hard all-day, everyday. We had passed on hundreds of bucks in search of the two that we were after, Mr. Wide and Mr. Everything.
We woke up to the pitter-patter of rain drops on the canvas tent. Large rain clouds covered the sky and some of the roads were a bit slick. I turned down the same old two track we have learned to know intimately. Twelve miles down the road is where Mr. Nothing was spotted three days prior. Although we hadn’t seen him for days, I know he was alive and well. A few miles in, an antelope ran along the side of the road in front of us, it was a doe. Does are not alone this time of the year. With the rut in full-swing, a buck is usually not too far away. I was surprised to see she was alone….so I thought. The doe stopped for a brief moment, and turned her head looking across the valley. There he was. The doe had given up his location. I parked the pickup, grabbed my rifle, and in the wind and rain I anchored Mr. Everything with one solid shot to the heart.
Did this just happen? Did I just kill the buck Hunter, Jared, and I had personally named and spent days pursuing? I stood up from the wet ground brushing the wet soil from my jacket. I looked at Hunter’s face so full of emotions. “Dad, I knew we would find Mr. Everything and kill him!” The rain stopped on cue. I was suddenly overcome by some awe-inspiring feelings. Could it be that my little boy is growing up? The last couple of days I’ve watched him kill several cottontails all by himself; an admirable feat in my eyes. I’m not looking at a little boy anymore, I see a young man that is learning a sense of responsibility. A young man that is shaping his life, and it is outings like this where I see him grow, discover, learn about life more than at any other time. What an amazing moment. We admired his striking colors and heavy horns and quickly butchered him.
It was the same day I killed Mr. Everything that we were off to the desolate Owyhee range of Idaho. The trip was long and, once again, we were eager to set-up camp. This time Hunter and I had the pleasure to share company with my parents as well as a hunting buddy Dax Mangus, from Utah. Dax and I are both mule deer fanatics and put in for Idaho hunts together. We didn’t draw our muley tag but we were fortunate to draw pronghorn tags together. We gassed up our trucks in Jordan Valley, Oregon and headed down a dirt road that is over a hundred miles long. This is some very, very remote country. We crossed a cattle guard with a sign stating that you are financially responsible for all search and rescue operations beyond this point. Now is not the time to start questioning the condition of your spare tire or what that odd sound is under your hood.
The Owyhee Mountains are expansive and teeming with wildlife. Elk, deer, coyotes, sage grouse abound in good numbers throughout the unit. Notice I didn’t say antelope? There is some great antelope habitat but after a day of driving around glassing in prime areas, we were a bit let down by the number of antelope we were seeing. It is hard to be disappointed when you are with great company in some beautiful country so we made the best of our hunt and had a great time. Dax and I were bouncing along an old rocky road on opening morning when the first antelope were spotted. There were six does and a nice buck. I’m sure Hunter would have named him “heart-buck” because of the way his horns turned inward making a beautifully-shaped heart in between his long horns, but Hunter wasn’t with us this morning. He decided to spend the day looking for rocks with his grandparents. We tried to kill that buck but between their keen eyesight and some other antelope hunters our plan was foiled.
As the day went on, we became more and more discouraged with the number of hunters we had seen, so we decided to hunt off-road. We hiked down a nice ridge and set-up our optics. Quickly, Dax spotted a couple of does near a spring. As we sat there spotting a large valley, we began spotting all sorts of great wildlife including 6 different coyotes and a couple small pronghorn bucks. A couple of does and a buck in tow appeared from around the spring and started heading towards where the other two antelope bucks were bedded. I told Dax that if I could get within 500 yards from the largest buck I would take the shot.
I began the sneak from our position. I finally reached a small outcropping and measured the distance at 508 yards with my rangefinder. I laid down my bipod from my rifle and settled in like a rock, like I had practiced so many times this past summer. I watched as the larger buck would run a smaller buck off from the two does only to turn around and have to chase the other rut-crazed buck from the hot does. The does peacefully grazed the wheat-grass as if they were oblivious to the male-bickering going on around them. The largest buck stopped for a moment heaving with exhaustion. I was ready and pulled the trigger. The recoil of the rifle made me lose sight of the buck. I quickly found him once again in my scope. He appeared uninjured but alert and ready to bolt. I shot once again and he went down quickly.
The buck is an average-sized buck with average-sized horn length, average-sized prongs, and little mass; however, I felt very fortunate to harvest a decent buck on this hunt. I mentioned earlier that antelope hunting is normally not physically challenging, well this was the exception. I quartered the carcass, and packed this buck uphill well over a mile back to the pickup. When Hunter arrived that night from his successful rock-hounding trip, he assessed my Idaho buck up and down quietly. “I think I’ll call this buck Mr. Nothing!” he declared loudly so everyone could hear. We celebrated that night with Grandma’s fixings and great discussion around a sagebrush fire under the Owyhee stars. Thanks to everyone for your company and your help with this trip, especially you Emily who waited for me to come home so patiently.
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