Bill:
Thanks for posting those pictures. Heres the story:
One of the supreme challenges of handgun hunting is the taking of a big game animal in open country with a single well-placed shot after stalking as close as possible. I was fortunate enough to partake of such an experience, and I hope that if you are similarly inclined, that you shall be able to do so as well.
The short story is that I arranged the trip through SNS outfitters of Casper, Wyoming. This was a guided hunt out of a bunkhouse. Hunting leases available included land on about four different ranches. There were lots of good animals both pronghorn and mule deer-- on these properties, so we had access to excellent hunting land. The guides are real professionals (and good people to be around, also.) Of the 12 hunters in camp, several had been back several times. There were two father-and-son parties, and one father-and-daughter party. The company was good. All of the hunters took an animal within a day or two.
But the hunting was especially good. Before the hunt, my guide, David Cardinal, and I discussed my preference for a handgun hunt. I showed him that I could shoot well enough with the handgun so long as I could get a rest, such as my daypack, and so long as the vegetation was short enough to shoot over. I also brought a .270 rifle, which I was willing to use if the conditions required it.
Most of pronghorn hunting is in the preparation, at least for an Easterner like me, for whom long-range shooting normally means 100 yards from a good rest. Every weekend for about three months I drove the 160 mile round-trip to an open spot that I could use to practice my shooting out to about 225 yards. Practice was with both the 6.5JDJ Contender and with the .270 rifle, and it became a real chore. I knew I had to be able to make shots reliably at out to 200 yards with the pistol before Id be comfortable in taking a shot at game. Practice became something of a hardship because of the expense of driving and ammo, and also because I lost most of my fishing season because I was out in the middle of the Minnesota hardwoods practicing my shooting while being eaten alive by deer flies and mosquitoes. By the time the hunting season started I was truly sick and tired of this practice, but I also felt well prepared to confidently make my shot with the handgun or the rifle. I had tried shooting sticks with the pistol but rejected them because I could never get good enough with them to prevent the possibility of the occasional bad shot.
Fortunately I live only a couple of states away from Wyoming and was able to drive. The plan was to drive to Kaycee and fly fish for trout in the beautiful rivers near there, and then take a day just driving the back roads spotting antelope with the laser rangefinder that my buddy Grant lent me for the trip. The fishing was great, and so was the game spotting. Using the rangefinder was a very worthwhile exercise because it taught me what pronghorns look like at various ranges in their native habitat.
Arriving in Casper, I went to the local shooting range, the Stuckenhass Shooting Complex, which is five minutes from downtown. This truly is a complex in that theres a 50-bench 300-yard rifle range, a 100 yard smallbore range, a pistol range, an IPSC/Cowboy Action range, and an indoor archery range. The rifle range can be used during winter by shooting from indoors through shooting ports in the wall.
Up to this time I had never shot at anything out to 300 yards. I spent the afternoon getting comfortable with the trajectory of my guns out to 300 yards. I also corrected a 10 inch shift of zero in my rifle, probably due to the change in humidity and altitude. The Contender was not affected by the changes. As it turned out, I am glad I took the time to do this practice because it made a big difference in the outcome of my hunt.
What about the Contender? Its a 1990s model with a 6.5JDJ barrel, 2-7x Burris scope, and Pachmayr grips. The load is a 120 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip using a Federal primer, and Winchester 760 powder. The load came from the Nosler #5 book. Velocity is 2350fps. I found that 5x magnification was about right for pronghorn-size game at 100 to 300 yards. The daypack was a regular daypack with a thermos and raingear in one compartment, and a big terry-cloth towel in the other compartment to loft it up a bit. I found this to be an excellent rest for shooting from the prone position.
I had read that antelope hunts can be short, and this was the case in my hunt. I took it on the first day of hunting on the first stalk we made. Fortunately, David was able to take me to an area where the animals were good and the grass was short. We spotted many pronghorn. All of the bucks we saw looked perfectly good to me, but David said we could do better. I couldnt imagine what better meant, but he turned out to be right. The hunting method was to drive barely perceptible roads on the ranches until animals were spotted. We would then assess whether it was worth a stalk. Considering the large amounts of land to hunt, this is the best way to do it.
After a while we spotted a good buck in some rolling terrain with short grass and sage for foliage. The buck went over a rise and we followed. David had us in perfect relation to the wind and to the rise. We hoped the buck would be in the trough on the other side of the rise.
It was. David ranged the animal as being at 260 yards. I took my position, and fired a shot. The buck died instantly and the bullet struck exactly where I wanted it toright through the lungs. It was a perfect situation where all of the variables were in my favor. Sometimes it just works out that way, and I was very happy about it. Horns are about 14 inchesvery nice indeed.
You can see the value of practice in this story. Had I not done the 300 yard practice, I could not have taken that shot.
By the way, the bullet penetrated completely through and did a lot of damage to the lungs before exiting.
Next day, David and I scouted for mule deer. This was actually more fun than the pronghorn hunting. We looked hard for good bucks from before sunrise until after dark. And boy were we rewarded at the end of the day. We saw one absolute monster buck that looked more like an elk than a deer, and a couple of really big ones, and several good animals. I was not hunting mule deer, but it was just as thrilling as if I were.
An interesting logistical note: there was a trailerable meat locker at the camp for cooling carcasses, and the camp manager would take the animals into town every day for processing at Arrowhead meat processors. They did a great job. By the time I was ready to leave, the meat was all butchered and frozen. The sausage they make is, as they say, to die for. And Scotts taxidermy is right next door to the meat packers. A very slick operation indeed. Scott does excellent work, particularly with pronghorn, elk, mule deer, and bighorn sheep.
Bottom line is that I had a great time, and I would recommend SNS Outfitters to anyone interested in hunting in Wyoming. Theyve got a web page, just search for SNS Outfitters with Google.
Rudy
