First Nevada Pronghorn : Part II Conclusion

Read Part 1 Here!

Day Three – Let the Crazy Begin

Day three of what would become one of my most memorable hunting adventure began in typical Nevada desert fashion (Part 1 Here). A cool morning dawned beautiful and crisp as we soon located bucks from our camp. I prefer to camp in a location that lends itself to rolling out of my sleeping bag and straight to the binoculars and spotting scope without so much as a granola bar to usher me to the glass. My wife and I have become expert at using our beds-in-truck mobile camp to our immediate morning advantage while maximizing hours of sleep!

Quickly we had two nice bucks available for our first morning hunt. As the sun started to peek out, I noticed it was time to collect my brother from our meeting spot at the highway. As I departed camp, Jordan, my dad, and Tammy were sorting out a plan to maybe find the big buck from day one while also watching the bucks at hand. I left with a light heart, feeling that this would be “the day”. I was very optimistic my brother would get to be a part of this, just according to plan!

My Brother Joins

Matt was spot-on time and we quickly got his gear together into my truck. I loaned him a desert camouflage long-sleeve top and we piled into my truck, slurping energy drinks as we bullshitted our way back to the team. It wasn’t too long before I spotted my dad’s truck in the general vicinity of the first-day big guy’s lair and we were able to hook up with Jordan and my dad. Turns out they’d left Tammy on the spotting scope to bed antelope while they threw a hail-Mary to try to find the toad buck.

My nephew is pragmatic, which serves him very well as a hunter. This is a hunter who is normally going to fill his tag. He quickly came to grips with the likelihood that the big buck was going to take days to relocate and he had also decided that he wanted to fill his tag with all of us present if possible. While I love to milk hunts out for days just to enjoy them, I’m super well aware that strategy may not turn up the biggest ram, buck, or bull. I do it because I love to hunt. Jordan was being realistic and set his sights on harvesting the biggest mature buck he could with his dad there to participate.

Boundary Antelope

True to my wife’s well-earned huntress reputation, she had bedded bucks for Jordan to choose from. The obvious choice was a big buck lying next to a sagebrush 1,500 yards away and about 100 yards from the hunting unit border. Jordan and Matt developed a plan to get close enough to the buck for his shot. This plan had them hiking down a difficult talus scree slope, through lava beds, and up to the rim between us and the buck which was lying on the flat above. They executed the plan very well, but I could not help but notice my brother’s beautiful blue blue-jeans stood out in binoculars as much as any hunter orange ever did. Well, he would hold back anyway and it made it easier to keep tabs on the hunters!

As we watched Jordan inching closer to the buck and within solid shooting range, I began to have a very good feeling about the situation. He was clearly making skillful stalks and this buck wouldn’t stand a chance, in my opinion. As I watched Jordan ready his rifle, I waited in anticipation. Boom! The buck stood up! Boom! The buck trotted off a ways. From my vantage point I could see the buck wasn’t hit…he was quite healthy. Boom! I saw dust kick up under his legs and this time he ran off like crazy…in fact, he ran right into the unit next door and out of our lives forever, completely unscathed.

Recalibration

Emotions wrestled with each other in my pea brain…frustration, curiosity, annoyance, mirth…all of these things tumbled around audibly inside of my skull. I had only two explanations: 1) my nephew was victimized by his nerves in a hot mess of buck-fever, or 2) his rifle wasn’t sighted in. My dad left to retrieve the forlorn hunters and I dug out my old 25-06 Remington. I consulted my ballistics program in my phone, set up an empty Monster Energy can (no coffee in our cold camp!) at 35 yards, and took a single shot…confirming my rifle was spot-on.

Jordan arrived with my brother and dad and I tried to keep criticism out of my voice when I asked him “What the hell was that?!” He gave me a sheepish smile and said something to the effect of “I dunno. I missed”. I asked him how he missed three times and he got more serious and quickly informed me he only missed once (the third shot, when I saw the dust). It turns out that hunters in the next door area had been shooting at another antelope or something and I misinterpreted all the gunfire. The first two foreign shots did get the antelope out of his bed and moving, but it was only the third that was from our hunter.

Solutions

With that explanation came a dawning of my own. I asked Jordan to make the same shot with his rifle that I had made with mine on the Monster Energy can. At 35 yards, he hit the can almost precisely 2 inches low (but directly on line left to right)! At the 260 yards he was shooting at that antelope, his point of aim would be around 16 inches low! With the riddle explained, we quickly resighted his brother’s rifle to be good to go inside of 300 yards.

Since I knew my rifle well and that it was precisely sighted in, I recommended Jordan borrow it instead, and he readily accepted the offer. I have to pause here to remind each of you to check your rifle, bow, pistol, or muzzleloader when you get to the field, the day of or before your hunt! So very many times we have missed making our kill because of inattention to this critical detail. The scope can be bumped, and it is important to shoot both at the range and in the field before hunting. In this case, it may have even been an interchanging of factory ammo. We won’t ever know.

Heatwaves, Hunters, and Bucks

With the morning more or less spent, we hopped in our air-conditioned trucks and wandered back to see if we could find old Mr. Long-Prong from the day before. I had a hunch we’d never see him again, but you never know until you try. We did not find him, but we found a nice buck with a big herd of does and four hunters in tow. While we watched the hunters attempt to get in on the herd and buck, my wife did her normal eagle-eye thing and found three bucks between us and the circus that seemed to be angling our way. We got our scopes on them, but the heatwaves kept us from knowing for sure…clearly one buck was well above the other two.

Jordan had the decision to make…move on and find other bucks, or sneak in to glassing range and decide whether this was the one. He chose the latter, as I nearly knew he would. I used my OnxMaps on my phone to try to triangulate where the buck was and drop a pin for him for his phone. On the desert flats, it is very easy to get disoriented and miss your point by hundreds of yards. This time I advised him to sneak down the wash between us and the bucks, but to climb up the hill above the wash by moving away from the bucks when it was time. This would eliminate the problem of getting too close and having topography get in the way.

The Stalk

My nephew and brother executed the stalk to perfection, while I set up a sunshade ¾ of a mile away for Dad, Tammy, and I to enjoy some food and beers while we watched! Pretty soon, we saw Jordan and knew he had to be within range of the buck…but as Paul Harvey loved to say…here’s the rest of the story: It appears that Jordan used my pin to great advantage, crawling out of the wash to get his eyes on the buck. Unfortunately, when he saw the buck, it was staring daggers at him. Thinking fast, Jordan flopped onto his back and lay there staring at the sky for 15 minutes hoping the buck would be confused and go on about his day. This trick worked perfectly…

My brother’s perspective wasn’t so admiring of Jordan’s tactics. What he saw was his son tipping over onto his back and lying motionless looking at the sky. Now, put yourself in any Dad’s shoes at this point and I’ll bet anyone’s heart would be racing! Jordan lying motionless on his back was nearly too much for my brother to take…I don’t know how he did it, but he trusted that his son was doing this with purpose. Still, the debate raged in my bro’s head for at least five long minutes before he detected all was well. I can only imagine his relief when Jordan crawled back toward him out of sight of the bucks.

Big Enough?

From our vantage point, this was looking good. My confidence in Jordan’s stalking ability was soaring and I knew he had a gun that was sighted in. Being overconfident, I told Tammy and my Dad I was giving 4:1 odds that this was a dead antelope. We watched as my nephew got into shooting position, and I struggled to remain steady at the scope, periodically holding my breath. After an eternity I was able to see the antelope lie over in its bed just before we heard the report of the rifle. The animal still had some life left in him, so a follow-up shot was sent along to seal the deal.

We broke radio silence once the antelope was down (we don’t hunt by using radios, but when a stalk is over, we use them to regroup and they are on in case of emergency) to congratulate our hunter. As I later approached the downed buck, I was struck by the size of his horns. I knew Jordan had made a great decision to take this buck with his dad participating. It wasn’t quite as big as the big guy, but the green score was 81 inches gross. He later scored an official net of 78 and change, which if numbers mean much to you is a big antelope. Either way, it was entirely Jordan’s antelope. He made all of the decisions that weekend and he executed three successful stalks, finally taking a big buck on his own.

Proud Uncle

In retrospect I was so proud of my nephew on this hunt in every possible way. He was considerate of his hunting party and the animals he hunted. He made good decisions and learned from each mistake, getting better with each passing day. Most of all, he was decisive and worked hard to get his tag filled. This was truly a game-changing hunt for us as a family. My brother hasn’t hunted much in his adult life, but he helped Jordan with this successful day of hunting and was right in the thick of all of it. My dad was able to participate in this three-generation event and play his important role as well.

Tammy and I love helping our family and friends in the hunting field. This was one of the most satisfying hunts of my life as we got to pretty much help with the spotting and really didn’t get called on to give a lot of advice or make decisions. Everyone worked together, played their roles, and supported the hunter who made the most of each day and improved each day. What a great and memorable hunt this was!!