Shaky start..... finish with a thump!

[wolfpup]

I am lucky enough to have land in the family in pronghorn country in Eastern Colorado and even luckier to have ranching friends still out there. Needless to say this was a tougher hunt than my usual antelope hunts. The bucks were rutting harder than in the past and I had a buck run a doe back and forth in front of me for quite a while until they stopped at 400 yards. This was also my first hunt with a rangefinder so that was a huge help. Well I could barely hold still enough to get a range let alone pull the trigger. The cloud of dust and white rumps confirmed a clean miss. Okay I got that out of the way early, but they goats were few and far between most of the day. I went to a buddy's pasture along a creek and saw several. I found the route I needed and off I went. I was down in the bottom and peeked over the ledge every once in a while to confirm I was on the right track. Along the way I spooked 3 out of the creek bottom that that were in the tamarack that I did not see. I figured I was toast but the group I was stalking did not blow out of there but they did know something was up. The wind was good but they were fully aware something was there. I tried the white hankerchief in the air trick. Settled them down for some reason and the lead doe went about feeding towards me and took a lethal step into 268 yards.
New products that saved my tail this hunt was my cabela's shooting sticks, nikon rangefinder, and ruger american .243. The last pic is my 3 year old that stayed with Grammy while so I could go hunt. She said she was so proud of me and wanted to see my "cantelope" again she is 3 yo and loves playing with my hunting stuff. I have another girl on the way so I am choosing wisely the memories that will be instilled in her. I can't wait to find out if she will be joining me in 9 more years.

This area was not accessible to a vehicle and I did not want burn any bridges so it was 1 mile pack out. Not a big feat but it definately opened my eyes on the limitations of my current backpack. After the hunt planned purchases will be a better day pack and a rangefinder case / bino case combo.

 

[Gr8bawana]

Congrats on a successful meat hunt. That is going to be some great eating. It won't be long until she is begging to tag along with daddy on a hunt. You're raising here up right.

 

[duckhunt]

Congrats

 

[fishing4sanity]

Congrats! That's some good looking and rather open looking terrain. Don't blink, that little girl is going to grow up too fast, I remember taking my daughter fishing at that age, now 6 1/2 grandkids and wondering where all the time went.

 

[Werfavrd]

Nice job, and always great to see the little ones getting exhited.