A Real Go Getter...

My mom's buck

This hunt starts interesting enough in August by a phone call on my cell phone by a gal asking for Ana Maria. It happened to be UDWR, and some hunter in Utah had turned in their antelope tag back to the state (after being on this hunt, I understand why they turned it back in!) and Mom was next in line for the tag!

I knew she just had a couple points so she got really lucky drawing the tag. I called mom and asked what she thought about her luck and potential to hunt pronghorn...she was completely on-board and we got the tag coming! The day after my dad killed his bull elk, My mom, Tyler, and my mom headed down to her antelope unit. Remember, I live in Wyoming...the land of plenty...especially antelope. I made the mistake expecting a real antelope hunt with lots of sightings. The scenery was breathtaking but it really, really lacked in the pronghorn department, to say the least!

But, That's okay. I was in a vehicle with two positive, wonderful people that just enjoyed being part of the hunt. My mom doesn't go on a hunt without being involved in every little part. She watched intently out the window while we were driving, when I stop the vehicle, her binos are glued to her eyes as she scans the landscape. Of course, we stopped and took pictures of bluebirds, prairie dogs, amongst any other photogenic object we drove by.

In classical pronghorn hunting fashion, we drove and drove until we had a small handful...3 bucks (to be exact) to pick from. I had seen another pronghorn hunter and we stopped and chatted. I told him we'd only seen 3 bucks up to that point and we were thinking about going back and refinding one and hunting it.  His eyes got big, "You've seen 3 bucks?" I replied by laughing a little embarrassed at our ability. "That's really good, I haven't seen that many in two days!" I stopped laughing. This guy was serious. 

I mentioned to my mom, maybe we oughta go back and hunt the "king pin" buck that had all the ladies. She agreed with a little laugh. We parked the vehicle and began our stalk. My mom wasn't content with me spying the pronghorn between the cedar trees while closing the distance. She had to find them herself and verify we hadn't screwed up yet and haven't given up our location to the dozens of black, beady eyes that were cautiously scanning for danger all around them.

The wind was blowing around 15 mph so we pushed to get directly downwind from the herd. The last elevation we would have to see the pronghorn for a shot, was on a small juniper-covered hill 450 yards from the herd. Tyler filmed, while my mom and I crawled to the edge of the rise. I laid down the bipod, set-up the scope, and told her whenever she was ready. I was proud, she put the rifle on the right shoulder and used her right eye, haha, I happened to slither into a pile of prickly pear cactus but I wasn't going to let that get in the way until after the shot. 

 "You ready?" Mom asked. "uh yeah sure" I said a bit surprised she was so quick settling in on the buck. I looked back at Tyler "she's gonna shoot!" Tyler looked a bit surprised as well. The sage was tall enough you could only see the upper-half of the buck's body. My mom pressed the trigger and the shot was perfect, taking out both lungs. The buck was dead before it hit the dirt. As always, my mom becomes emotional after harvesting an animal. It's beautiful.  

I'm not sure how many more tags my mom will draw in her lifetime but I hope its dozens. I have cherished every moment we have shared together on these hunts. It gives us a chance to be together, mother and son.
Mom, thank you for making my life, and so many other people's lives so much sweeter....and for helping pull out the hundreds of cacti spines from my legs. Thanks Tyler for always being there on some of our greatest hunts.