Join SPIDERMAN and ACRE5 as we travel to Wyoming to bowhunt the elusive whitetail and pronghorn antelope.
Beginning with the three day road trip from Virginia to Sundance, Wyoming starting Tuesday, September 19th, we will attempt to share our first out west hunt with all our friends.
We booked our hunt with Jeff and Deb Smith of Seven J Outfitters located in Sundance Wyoming. 7J boasts thousands of acres of leases in Wyoming and Montana, and their hunters regularly harvest some really impressive whitetail, muledeer, elk, and antelope.
THE TRIP
Here's a shot of the Cabela's annex located in my back yard. Man, I'd hate to see one bill for this pile I've been collecting!
THE JOURNEY
Two twelve hour days behind the wheel put us within three hours of Sundance, and our first out west hunt.
Around ten minutes out of town, we were greeted with the sight of these feeding pronghorn antelope. The small herd of does and one lone buck grazed around two hundred yards from interstate 90. This really put us in the proper frame of mind and after a quick stop by the truck wash; we headed for Seven J headquarters.
Deb Smith, Jeff's wife and partner met us. After introductions to the other hunters in camp, Deb went through everyone's licenses and paperwork to insure we were all properly licensed.
Everyone then went to dinner and a couple of the other hunters saw two 4x4 mule deer a couple hundred yards behind the motel-things are looking up!!!
DAY ONE
We awoke to a completely different world than the one we went to sleep to. A severe cold front moved through during the night bringing the area some much-needed rain. As we went to breakfast, the rain was beginning to change over to wet snow. Again, things are looking better as we go.
After a quick breakfast, we were introduced to our guides and broken off into groups of two hunters to one guide. Our guide, Ken Morga, is from Virginia, and relocates to Wyoming each July to begin scouting for the up-coming season. Off to the tree stands!!!!!
Acre5 was dropped at his stand first. This stand was located in a transition area between an irrigated alfalfa field and the bedding areas further up the mountain. The terrain consisted of hilly knolls of small oaks and pines. The stand was placed within a finger of pine trees. While he was covered up in whitetails and turkeys, he chose to pass on the bucks he saw this morning in hopes of harvesting a mature deer.
I traveled deeper into the 10,000-acre farm to hunt an area over a man made waterhole in a small creek bed. The amount of large sign around the waterhole was incredible. There were several large bucks reported to be using this draw to travel from the alfalfa to the higher bedding areas, including a large 6x6. A glimpse of that monster would make setting 20 feet off the ground in this freezing sleet and snow worthwhile.
After about an hour in the stand, a small fork horn and a large doe began making their way along a bench just forty five yards above the stand. This bench is well out of my self-imposed thirty-yard range. Maybe a nice buck would be travelling with them!!
As the two deer made their way across the bench, something over my left shoulder caught their attention. I'm now thinking this is it! The forkie started blowing, then the doe joined in. They then turned and bolted up the hill and out of site in a pine stand atop the table.
As I slowly turned to see what had spooked them, I was surprised to see a fairly large bobcat creeping across the small earth dam used to construct the waterhole. The cat paused, giving me a perfect thirty-yard broadside shot. Small problem! In Wyoming, fur-bearing animals have a season, tags are required, and this particular animal isn't in season until November.
While we saw well over 100 deer and several turkeys, none of the nine hunters in camp attempted a shot this morning.
The weather is getting worse. Sleet and snow will be the weather today. We'll break for lunch, and return to hunt evening stands.
Aftre a great lunch prepared by Deb, we all headed to our rooms for some much needed rest. We then met the guides for the trip out to the stands.
I was dropped of at an area that was restricted to vehicle traffic due to the wet ground. In some areas the ranchers don't allow vehicles due to the ease in which erosion occurs. After a long walk through a cut over alfalfa field, I made my way about a quarter mine op the hillside into a pine stand. The stand was chosen near a cattle fence that showed sign of deer crossing during their journey from the beds to the feilds. Our guide, Kenny, had observed a large typical 5x5 entering the fields while glassing from a high rock bluff prior to the season.
This buck had been hunted a couple of times by Team Realtree the first couple weeks of September and had been named MR Clean by Bill Jordan. While they had observed the buck numerous times, no one had been able to get close enough for a shot.
The entire evening I only saw one 115 class 4x4 and a tree popping episode spooked off a couple bucks as they fed towards the stand.
We won't even talk about the herd of cows who decided to visit my stand SEVERAL times throughout the evening!!! These are the perils of hunting western ranches.
I would like to say that the hunt this evening was the coldest, wettest, conditions I have ever experienced. Now I know that there are some extreme conditions that other people regularly endure to bowhunt. However, the combination of leaving warm Virginia, the sleet, snow and freezing rain and the rapidly dropping temperatures with gusting wind resulted in me being the coldest I'd ever been.
Acre5 reported that again he saw large amounts of deer but nothing he could get a shot at. It appears that while we all wish for cold fronts to move in and get the deer moving, this particular front may have disturbed the deer's regular pattern of travelling down to the fields in the evening, and back up in the morning.
DAY TWO
It appears today is going to be a repeat of yesterday! It has been blowing and snowing all night with, for some reason, little accumulation. The ground has maybe one inch of snow but the trees are covered with what looks like maybe 2.5 inches of snow. I was dropped off at another location because there is no way to head MR Clean off coming back to the beds in the morning. The only access would send me right through the field he would most likely be feeding in.
I made my way along the trail marked by reflective tacks placed by the guides when the stand was hung. After finding myself in an area with sparse tree cover I began to develope a huge problem. The previous night's wind and snow had iced over the trees with the tacks! After a frantic half hour of scraping what seemed like a hundred trees, the sun began to rise making the prospect of picking up the trail pretty much impossible with the small flashlight I was carrying. Rather than stomp around in the area and ruin the hunting for a couple of days, I chose to go back to the trail head, bundle up in my cold weather gear, and do what hunters do best-SLEEP!!!! The next four hours were spent pleasently curled up in the edge of a cut-over bean field until the guide returned to pick me up.
Up to this point, none of the nine hunters has connected with a mature deer. We know however, that this is definetley not a supply problem, based upon the fact that riding in and out to the farm, we have observed over a thousand deer. I have never seen so many whitetails in one area in my life. It's my understanding that the approach here is not to harvest the does because one bad winter can result in a devastating kill off of the deer. We just happen to be seeing the results of a mild winter last year.
While I was napping in the field, the wind died down to next to nothing, the snow stopped, and the sun came out bring temperatures up and beginning the melt off. Upon our return to town, we made the decision to visit the laundromat, wash our clothes, take showers, and break out the Scent Lok suits. The weather was beautiful, and I had great hopes of seeing MR Clean up in the pine stand this evening.
During the walk in to my stand, I spooked several does and what looked to be a really nice buck feeding in the cut alfalfa field. Was this MR Clean? I didn't even have time to glass him! If this was the big deer I was hunting, this was probably going to be another empty handed set in the stand for me. After reaching my stand, the snow began melting off the pines really hard. The snow was falling in large clumps, and the melt off was causing the trees to drip so much water, it was as if I was hunting in a rain storm. After a while, my clothes were soaked, and I began to feel really dumb for not bringing my rain gear. At around 5 pm, the dripping stopped as if someone had turned off the faucet. Not a good sign! I realized very quickly that this meant a severe drop in temperature, especially with the weather report calling for extremely low temperatures overnight. At this point, I got into my cold weather coveralls and cursed myself for the habit af always hunting in cotton camo jersey gloves, whigh were now soaking wet from the dripping snow.
By 5:45 I was shaking uncontrollably. The temperature was dropping quickly and I was spending my time rotating from left hand in my coverall pocket to right, trying to keep my hands warm and hold onto my bow in case MR Clean shawed up. The trail being used by the buck was twenty four feet from my stand. However, the fence crossing, located to my left,that he would use would not leave me enough time to retrieve my bow from the hanger placed to my right on an overhanging limb.
The next few minutes were the most unbelievabe minutes of my life! A small eight point came running UP the trail from my right and went under the fence crossing. This had me wondering if the deer were possibly allready in the field and something had spooked them off? Then I heard what sounded like a buck grunting at about 11 oclock to my left accross the fence crossing. Next a yearling deer ran out of that area and away to my left on the othe side of the fence. Then it happened! I caught movement at the crossing. A huge buck was coming under the fence with another buck behind him. He had about seven yards to travel till he would be in my lane. At this point, I didn't know if this was the large 5x5 I had been hunting. I attempted to draw my bow as he came through the brush but was so stiff from the cold that I must have made some noise causing the deer to stop short of the shooting lane. I'm thinking at this point that I've made a big mistake, the deer is going to turn and go under the fence, and I'll have a hard time sleeping tonight. Instead, he looks right at me! It's him-It's MR Clean-A beautiful wide racked ten point! He just stood there looking at me through the thick brush, leaving me wondering about whether this is going to be another missed opportunity, or if I'm gonna get the lucky break that it'll take to harvest this deer. The hunt gods must have been smiling on me this time! He turned his head and walked into the shooting lane. I released the arrow and made one of the worst shots of my life!!!! However, the arrow was way back towards the middle of the deer, and when he tried to duck the arrow penetrated the back bone and dropped him right in his tracks.
The next few minutes were even crazier than the last few! I threw all my gear twenty feet out of the tree, climbed down, placed a finishing shot, and watched the deer of a lifetime breathe his last breaths of life. I could not help but stand there and silently say thanks to all the people involved in making this truly awesome experience possible for me.
Upon our return we were informed that this deer was not MR Clean. It seems that Bill named this deer based upon the fact that he was a clean 5x5 with no stickers. My deer has one small sticker on the right G2. Nevertheless, I'm extremely happy to have taken this deer, and look forward to Acre5 harvesting his buck. Now I'll set out for a day or two, take some photos of the awesome countryside and the unbelievable numbers of animals here and share them here. As soon as the weather dries up a bit--It's off to hunt pronghorn antelope!!! So keep checking back to see how we do.
Acre5 spent the rest of the week hunting hard. Up at 3 am each morning and to bed each night around 10 pm. This hunt just wasn't meant to produce a kill for him. after a close encounter with two 125 class eight points resulting in a mis-calculation of yardage, and several watching the big boys go by at 50 to 200 yards, he vowed to return next year to even the score. The last evening of the hunt, our guide, Ken Morga,and I went out to assist Acre5 in placing a ladder stand in the same area where I took my buck on Saturday evening. Kenny had spent the evenings glassing the 70 acre field and realized that MR Clean had changed his pattern and was now making his way to the field by coming down the right side if the knoll. As you can see in the photo below, I took my buck about 50 yards up into the center of the pine knoll. The bucks are now entering the field via the clearing to the right of the photo. This may have been the result of all the YAHHOOOOing going on up there last Saturday!!!!
Acre5 reports that around 6 pm three bucks showed up at the fence line moving towards the field. A small 4x4 taking the lead, followed by a larger 4x4 and MR Clean. As luck would have it, the bucks were travelling the one trail that was out of range from Acre5's stand. The last evening of the hunt, and he has to watch three shootable bucks browsing at 55 yards.
ANTELOPE HUNT
The area where I was supposed to hunt for Pronghorn Antelope was around 100 miles to the west of camp, just south of Gilette, Wyoming in an area of wide open plains, flat buttes, and oil rigs. This area, just as the rest of Wyoming, had been in a severe drought all summer. The much needed snow that arrived this past Friday, had melted in the 65 degree heat all this week leaving numerous areas of standing water. This would make setting in a blind at a waterhole very unproductive.
After doing just that for twelve hours on Wednesday, I had seen about all of the pronghorn rutting activity a guy could take. During the first day in the blind, I must have glassed at least 200 or more antelope, including one good sized buck in a field with five does who will, from this point on, answer to the name of THE MACHINE! Man that buck must have mated at least twenty times throughout the day. Anyways, after setting there near this waterhole that was not visited once the entire day, I decided to change tactics.
I had a long conversation with the rancher who owned the property I was hunting. Seems the summer's drought had an impact on horn growth of this herd and the larger bucks were averaging around 60 inches gross. Since I had taken a book whitetail, I explained that I was more or less just looking for a mature buck and something in the 60 inch range would be just fine. The rancher then mentioned that he had glassed a nice buck earlier that day that exhibited the rough coat symptoms of early blue tongue disease and was interested in removing him from the herd before he became sick and expired. The approach of harvesting a nice mature pronghorn and helping out at the same time appealed to me and we agreed to attempt a stalk if he could locate the animal the next morning.
I arrived at the ranch around 8 am and we laoded up in the rancher's pickup and began riding around the ranch with binos and a spotting scope and within about an hour and a half had located the buck. He had a decent set of horns, appeared to be doing just fine, but upon further glassing, we could see the tell-tale rough coat accross his back that the rancher believed indicated he was in the early stages of the sickness that had done immence damage to the pronghorn herds in this area two years ago. We were able to get within about four hundred yards of the buck, another buck, and the doe they were chasing. I began my stalk. As I came up over a small rise, moving parrallel with the three animals, the other buck made a charge at the buck I was after. He ran an intersecting line with me, all the while watching the other buck and the doe. When he got to within 44 yards, he saw me paused, and began to turn and go after the doe. I drew and released. The arrow entered a little far back, but as he was quartering away, must have hit some vitals, because he ran around thirty yards, stopped, and piled up. Yeehhaa!!! I just took my first pronghorn antelope, and finished off the best week of bowhunting a man could ask for.
