RE: Just a few more hours till it's GAME ON!
LAST EDITED ON Aug-23-09 AT 00:29AM (MST)[p]Remember the old saying "I'd rather be lucky than good." Well, that was the theme of the day.
Yesterday during our scouting, we met a fellow who was in his 60s, and had drawn his first ever pronghorn tag. He told us he'd be happy to shoot any buck with prongs. "All I want is a buck with prongs," he said.
Well, this morning, we got to where we wanted to glass for the biggest buck we've found, and we got there at 1st light. The first words out of my son's mouth were "Oh crap, someone beat us here." Sure enough, there was a pickup parked a couple hundred yards from our glassing spot. We settled in anyway, and it took my son less than a minute to find a big buck following a doe up the mountain. Only problem was, we also found two hunters headed up the mountain, though they were only a couple hundred yards from the truck.
My son decided to honor their hunt and not head up the mountain too, in an effort to shoot the buck out from under them. We settled in behind the big binoculars in an effort to see where the buck bedded, and where he'd flee to if they didn't kill him. Now, this mountain is pretty big and very rocky, and I told my son there was no way those fellows would go all the way up to where the buck was. We eventually lost sight of the other hunters, but could always see the buck about a mile up the mountain. Those big Swarovski's on the tripod sure make watching game productive, and fun! Anyway, the buck and doe eventually fed out of sight for a few minutes, and when they reappeared they had another doe with them. They then began feeding back down the mountain, so I told Danny to get his butt up that mountain, as the other hunters would never find them if they were even still heading up. He took off at a very fast pace, but the antelope were also picking up their pace as they headed down and eventually, across the face of the mountain.
About ten minutes after Danny started hiking up the mountain, I heard a shot. Figuring it was him, I wasn't surprised to hear only 1 shot; but about a minute later I see the other two hunters, well off to the right of where they'd last been, hustling to the east, as fast as two old guys can go. All of a sudden, the guy with the rifle finds a rest on a tree and fires again, then again and then they got up and slowly walked out of sight. AW, CRAP!
Danny doesn't come back for a long time, and I'm starting to wonder what is going on when I see the other hunters at nearly a mile, dragging their buck. Finally, Danny comes back to tell me that he'd lost his knife and had been looking for it, but no luck finding it. He then told me the guys we'd seen yesterday, the guy who only wanted a buck with cutters, had shot the buck and he was HUGE. He said they were trying to gut the buck with a little pocket knife when he walked up on them and they asked if he had a knife they could borrow. When he reached into his pocket, he said AW, CRAP! (or some more profane version) when he realized he'd lost his knife. He then headed off to try to find his knife, but instead he found a rattlesnake that was buzzing up a storm near his feet! After he'd jumped a few times and said a few more AW, CRAPS; he headed back to check in with me.
I told him to go find his knife and I'd go help those other guys since they'd only dragged the buck a few hundred yards in over a half hour. I walked up the mountain and found them sitting in the sun, looking completely whipped. As I walked up to them, I asked the fellow who'd just shot his first ever pronghorn at 60 something years old if he realized his first ever antelope was a Boone and Crockett caliber buck. He replied that he realized it was a big buck, but didn't really know anything about measuring them. It happened that I'd stuck my tape measure in my pccket before heading up the hill, as I knew this buck was very special, and I wanted to see if he was as big as I suspected. He wasn't....he was bigger!
When I stretched the tape along his horn, I was only mildly surprised to see it go all the way out to 16 1/2"!!! The buck didn't have big prongs, they were 4 1/2", but his mass was great with bases of nearly 7" and he carried the mass well up his horns, with the bottom of the prong over an inch above the tip of his ears. I measured him very quickly and roughly, but was amazed at his symmetry, and I came up with a very quick 84".
As it turned out, it was a total fluke that this guy shot the buck. First, they were on quads the day before when we saw them, but his quad was overheating so they took the pickup that morning, and were running late. Just as they came to the turnoff down a road that runs along the face of the mountain, the buck and his doe ran across the road in front of the truck! It was barely light, but they now knew he was there and which way he was headed. They'd parked and had just headed up and away from the truck when we pulled up. As they hiked up the mountain, they realized they'd never be able to get up to where the buck was, so they headed back to the truck, only to spot another herd of antelope about 1/2 mile to the east, and lower on the mountain, so they headed over to stalk them instead and forgot about the 1st buck. As the big buck came down the mountain following the does, he ran right past these hunters, who didn't even know he was there. The guys told me they suddenly saw a buck running by them at about 75 yards and he started shooting. He killed the buck with his 3rd shot, but had no idea what he'd just shot. They told me that as they walked up to him, they began to realize that he was a big buck, much more than the fellow was hoping to take.
After listening to their story, they told me that the hunter who shot the buck had a heart condition, and the other fellow was recovering from cancer surgery. I replied that I now knew why they were going so slow, and I took his shirt and tied it over my shoulders. When the guy asked what I was doing, I told him that the rate they were dragging the buck, the season was going to close before they got it down to the truck, so I was going to carry it down for them. They couldn't believe their latest good fortune, and quickly accepted my offer. They hoisted the buck up onto my shoulders, across my back and we proceeded to walk to the truck. The walk was mostly uneventful, other than one time when we set the buck down to rest. The fellow who'd shot it was supporting the head, and he let out a little startled yelp, and I saw a 3' rattler slitheriing away from him. He'd stepped rigt next to it without seeing it, only noticing it when it crawled away. I really wished I'd had my camera with me, as it was a beautifully marked rattler, with very vivid and contrasty markings to go with his 7 or 8 rattles. After following him over to a tree where he coiled up, we left him alone and walked out of there in a slightly different direction to avoid further contact with him.
We eventually got back to the truck, thanks to Danny coming up to help us haul him the last few hundred yards, and then I learned that they only had a little point and shoot compact camera, so I took some pictures of him with his buck and promised to email him some good photos after I get back home.
The rest of the day was largely uneventful, as we saw about 60-70 antelope, but no bucks that interested us. Tomorrow we're going out with one of the local guys who've been helping with our scouting, and we're going to search for another big buck he found yesterday. Time will tell if we have success. I hope so, as we'd like to get over to Nevada for the 2nd phase of this 2-state hunt so that Danny can get to San Diego for his fishing job.
Sorry I can't post photos of his fantastic buck tonight. I forgot my usb cord, so can't download the photos onto my computer. You'll just have to wait to see this fabulous pronghorn buck. He truly is the buck of a lifetime, and was nearly Danny's buck, but fate played a big role in today's outcome.
