I had larger ideas of Kaycee, this is where Chris Ledoux called home and its mentioned in a lot of country songs etc. I figured it would be a decent sized town. I was wrong, its about 400 yards long, total. We stayed at the hotel, which was 50 feet from the restaurant/bar. Really good food, the best lemonade I ever had, and some great memories.
In Kaycee there is a small memorial "park" that is actually built on land that Chris Ledoux owned. It is really cool, and I just had to get pictures of it.
I spent all summer practicing getting ready for this hunt. I was told by my buddies to shoot out to 80 yards, because 65 is not at all a uncommon shot out ther.e I took thousands of shots in preparation, and I got very comfortable , but the wind and the jumpy critters are still far from controllable. Its not something I like, but its also how it is on these animals, they are skittish, cautios and there is a TON of real-estate out there. They are not a sturdy animal, thats the tradeoff. Pretty much any shot that draws blood will bring down an antelope pretty quickly, they are built about like a rabbit. Super this skins, bleed like a stuck hog, and not very big. Anyway, I left on september 9th after work. We drove all night telling tales of hunts past, and I was soaking up as much info as I could from my buddy Kyle. We traded off on driving every 400 miles or so, and rolled into Wyoming around 7 AM the next morning. We hauled thru South Dakota in the diesel 3/4 ton, and you make great time at 82 mph.
We dropped our gear off at the motel, and went out to do some truck scouting and show me the area. I drew a tag in zone 21, but the other guys in the group didnt so they bought over the counter tags for a nearby unit, so I had around 10,000 acres all to myself. In Wyoming a lot of the roads, main roads mind you, are gravel. We drove down the road and I spotted this pronghorn around 60 yards from the road.
I immediately wanted him, he is wide. I had already killed 3 bucks prior with a rifle, and 3 does, and I said all summer I would take a good wide one given the chance, even though I know they dont traditionally score well when they go wide, but they look cool.
I told Kyle this was a buck I wanted, and he said well thats convenient, because there is a waterhole not 500 yards or so away from there. We went over and checked it out and set up a blind. We then went back to the motel waiting for the rest of the guys to arrive. We would have 3 guys in the motel, it was kind of a cottage more than anything. The other two were kind of around the corner in a separate room. A lot of people would not like this place, it is far from fancy, and the bedding is old and not modern by any means, and I loved it. It was like stepping back in time to a simpler era, and thats just what I needed.
I also bought a doe tag for zone 22, and some of the guys had buck tags for that zone as well. We met up with the coolest rancher ever, he took us around and talked and just had a great time seeing his ranch.
We finished the tour and came back and by then were ready to go put some more blinds out. We set them up near a huge waterhole, probably 10-15 acres in size. I had pictured these water holes as being a lot smaller, like 20x20 ish. The water hole I was set up on was probably 50 acres and had a long finger coming off the main channel, that is where we set my blind. I figured it was my only chance, there was no way to cover the main channel, and this way I could shoot across the finger if need be.
We went back and then decided it was time to shoot the bows and make sure they were still on. My bow needed a minor adjustment, most likely due to the elevation change, but confidence is everything when you are shooting at the ranges I expected to be shooting. We shot for an hour or two on a small peice of public land that had a driveway that we were able to set our targets up on.
Then it was time for dinner, which was had at the invasion bar, pretty much the only restaurant in town. We ate, and retired to our rooms. I stayed up later sharpening my grim reaper 2" whitetail special broadheads to a razor edge. Anyone that knows me knows I leave nothing to chance.
Dawn came early and I was chomping at the bit to go. I had to walk about a mile to my blind from where I was dropped off at. I walked down an abandoned gravel road and neared my blind. I will never forget the moonlit walks to the blind under the stars and the sun rising in the far east. I was truly at peace. I jumped up two antelope on the way in and the vacated quickly. I couldn't tell what they were, but they were scooting. I also kicked up a jackrabbit, which was a neat experience.
I sat for an hour or two and was not happy with the blind positioning, I had no warning of anything coming in due to the banks of the waterhole, so I moved it further up the hill. It made for a little further shot if I had to shoot across the pond, but I also could see for miles now and prepare and film better. A few hours went by, and by very first antelope came to the water. They are extremely skittish coming in, even the does. They watch it for a long time before they commit.
I captured this photo of the doe and her fawn :
The antelope do not really come into the waterholes until around 11 am in the morning, and they will come until around 3 or so. I figured they would come back multiple times, but they dont. Usually once a day per antelope. I saw several does and fawns, and I passed up this small buck at 10 yards.
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This pretty much wrapped up day one. The next day I went back in and made a huge mistake, I only had 1 bottle of water. I should have taken around 4. I suffered all day wishing I had more water, it was around 80 or 90 outside , over 100 in the blind. I saw more antelope, and thought I might put out a decoy. I put the decoy out, but didnt really have any difference in luck. A few antelope came in throughout the day, including a small buck that caught me off guard and I didn't see him until he was mere feet from my blind. He drank for a bit, and then circled the blind.
At this point I was satisfied with my hunt, I had passed up 2 legal bucks, so I couldn't say I didn't have a chance to fill a tag, but I wanted something bigger. Around noon I saw a nice buck with a doe about a mile away scanning the water hole. He stared at it for about 30 minutes without taking a single step. Finally satisfied, he came in, and he only took about 10 minutes to commit.
He came in and I got ready for a long shot, as he was out the back of the blind 70 yards away. I drew back and shot, and shot low. He didn't hear the bow go off, so he just stood there. I grabbed another arrow and shot again and this time he ducked it and took off. It was the wide buck I wanted from day one. I filmed him as he walked away, not even really scared. I couldn't believe how he let me have a second shot, I did not think they would.
I saw the buck later the afternoon along with 3 or 4 other bucks, and he was very territorial. He did not mind the very small bucks, but anything that was near his size was not welcome.
The next morning I went out hoping for better luck. I had been seeing a smaller buck that was decent, but basically the minimum I wanted to shoot. I moved the blind a little to get closer to where i had been seeing them just in case I decided to shoot him. They were not rutting like i figured they would, so I was starting to question how easy this was going to be. We had a nice stare down several times that day, but he wouldn't come close enough for a shot.
Here my bow sits ready :
The day was very long and frankly boring. i was not seeing much and frankly was pretty peeved at myself for missing the buck I wanted the day prior. I spent a lot of time on facebook, and texting friends, and reading books and magazines trying to pass the time. I was sitting 14 hour days in the blind. All of a sudden I noticed a doe at the waterhole drinking where I missed the buck the day prior. I picked up my binocs and noticed the buck I wanted following behind practically in range. I got ready for a shot, ranged him at 62, and adjusted my slider sight. I drew and settle the pin and squeezed the trigger. The shot looked great until it got about halfway to him, and then it drifted as it went over the water hole finger. I could tell it was going to connect, but not where I wanted. I saw it hit him, in the but. The impact knocked him over, and he struggled to get to his feet. When he did, I saw his entire leg was already soaked with blood.
He slowly hobbled off and went behind the bank of the knoll and out of sight. I immediately went after him because I figured I needed to keep a visual on him, and I wanted him to keep moving so he could bleed out. I got within 70 yards and jumped him and he took off, although clearly hurt bad. I called for help from my buddies, to see if they could see him from the road so we could keep an eye on him and not lose him. I went back and found my arrow and there was an immediate blood trail.
My buddies came and got me and we drove around looking to see if we could spot a belly, or a bedded buck. I got out of the truck and did some walking. I walked for about 15 minutes in the direction I last saw him and came up on this :
Clearly, my 65 lb Hoyt Nitrum 30 and my grim reaper broadheads were too much for him. I motioned for my buddies, and they came out to help follow the blood trail. It was easy to follow from here on out, but several eyes are better than one. About 10 minutes later we found him.
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I came unglued, I was never so happy in my entire life. I had actually killed one of these little fellas with a bow. When you look at the vast prairie, it seems nearly impossible to get close enough to kill one of these.
You might have one question, how was i able to get my buddies to come help me find it when they were hunting? Well, they too encountered some of the same wind that effected my shot, except theres was a different kind of problem. Kyle had a doe coming in that he was going to shoot, until the wind caught his ground blind, and shot it about 100 feet up into the air like a kite. Here is where it landed, about 300 yards away :
We had our blinds staked with 16" rebar spikes.
Here is the view from my blind, where i shot my buck.
And from where the antelope was :
Here is what you get to watch all day when you arent watching antelope, mud ducks that dive, or reading facebook.
They dump 38 tons. With the weight of the tractor and the trailer and the pup trailer, these weigh over 100,000 pounds. The pup trailer is so they can haul as much weight as possible, but keep the weight distributed so it doesn't destroy the roads.
So ends my 2015 wyoming antelope hunt.
We got 2 bucks, and 2 does. We had 11 tags total.
