Mudranger1
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2010
- Messages
- 2,851
My wife and I left Saturday around noon for our first wyoming adventure. We were in a second choice unit with very limited access but we a permit for a HMA that I figured would at least give us a chance at one. Saturday afternoon was basically a drive around the area of the HMA looking for some animals. The closest we were found were a good 5 miles away. Sunday morning found us walking and glassing and walking and glassing. Around noon we decided it was time for a change of scenery. We headed to Chugwater to visit the oldest soda fountain or something of the sorts lol. Part of my wife's sight seeing tour. After some lunch we headed out to find new ground. With a little over 1/4 tank of gas. After a couple small patches of blm with nothing we headed on. When the gas light came on and the little dinger made the familiar sound the wife became a little bit agitated to say the least. I'm say were fine as I'm thinking we are in the middle of no where and this could be the cause of a REALLY long night. Be bull headed I press on as the steam starts to roll from the seat next to me. We finally cruise into Laramie around 7. 24 gallons? Psshhhh we could have went anothe 18 miles! She found that to be not so amusing. Camp it up at the KOA and try to make some kind of plan as we have seen no lopes with any distance of public land. We sleep in get some breakfast and head out on Monday. As we are cruising there are antelope everywhere. All on private property but at least we are seeing numbers like I've always read about. We are driving along looking and I happen to glance at the GPS and I tell my wife I think that last group was on a small piece of state trust land. After a couple minutes of convincing her we head back and sure enough they were. We park and start to move when I noticed two of them had made they way to a skyline and they take off running back toward the herd down in the valley. 5 ft from the tuck and Aggravated I tell her we should just walk over the ridge just to make sure they didn't blow out We head on over when I catch a glimpse of one down in the valley so we circled around above them and army crawled to get to the rim above. Now everything went fine and dandy we had one group to our left about 250 yards out and one straight out in front 330 yards away and a few stragglers to our right. I tell he to pick out a doe and get ready and I would get settled on one of the two bucks in the group. I told her I would shoot after her if I had the chance. Well she says she can't get steady and wants me to go ahead and shoot. I had just been glassing with the bunks trying to decide which buck was bigger. The closer one was so I thought great. I had to move the gun over and the fun began The bipods got caught on a bush we caused enough commotion to spook the closer ones which I figured would send the all running for the hills. The gun was still pointed in the direction of the further ones so I looked thru the scope only to find them still feeding. I took aim and try to decide if I need to hold for the wind (blowing at least 20mph. I have no idea I've never shot anything in these conditions). I hold over and squeeze off a shot. The buck drops like he has been hit in the spine towards the rear. With he constant movement I can't get another shot off so I decide to get up and just go end over where he is at. About that time he gets up and starts up the hill. WTF!!! A couple Hail Marys shots just make he move a little faster. We followed him up and over the ridge thinking I gut shot him and he might lay down. We finally find him walking looking like he is going to tip over at any point barely able to stand but he is closing in on the property line so I make a decision to hurry around to see if I can get one more in him. He spooks acting like nothing is wrong running. Under the fence he goes. We watch him go over the hill and decide to call the DOW to see what their thoughts were. Well the warden says he would try to get a hold of the land owner but he wasn't very optimistic. Calls us back about thirty minutes later saying he had no luck but would keep trying. Well I was sick. We hung out there just waiting for about 3 hours when out of the blue he calls back and says we had permission to go after the buck. I head over the last place we saw him to find him laying in this open field just looking around. With a herd on his left I figure that option is out so I made a big circle around the other side only to find another herd over. Spooked! He gets up and runs with them over the next hill. I hurry up and over to find them running and I see what I think is the limping buck going with them. I turn to head around another way when I see the true hobbled buck come from behind the ridge around 200 yards away. Put the crosshairs on him and drop him in his tracks. Not happy with the situation but happy with the out come. One Tuesday we got up and snuck in one a group of five does for my wife. At 300 yards she missed and was really not into it after that but we chased the around for the next two days before she was ready to move on to the rest of our sight seeing tour. Maybe we can get back for the late doe season. We shall see
