The Weirdest Hunting Story Ever

Most hunting seasons are held in the fall largely because this coincides with mating season for most big game species. Full of hormones and ideas of pitching woo, the animals take risks they would not normally take, and they are more inclined to expose themselves to danger if it means closing the deal. And boy is that true. Let me just say I am pretty sure it is a social faux pas among humans to get your groove on when the object of your affection has just been shot.?.?.?

I arrived just outside of Hartsel, CO on opening day about 45 minutes before sunrise having left at 4am. Even in the twilight, one hunter had positioned himself a few hundred yards from an antelope herd along the highway fenceline, so I decided to Jeep over to the far side of the ranch, and approach from the other side on foot. It is high altitude prairie there which means there are no trees. Antelope rely on eyesight and their speed for their defense.   You are going to see them and they you long before they are within range of a shot.

A livestock water trough sits in the middle of this expanse about a mile from where I parked my jeep. I hiked to a spot within 200 yards of it, and laid prone on the prairie with a streamer tied to the barrel of my gun. This I thought would make me an object of curiousity for the antelope that were by now being stirred up by a pair of hunters scaling the fence from the highway side of the ranch. It worked great as the antelope were being pushed right toward me.

Let me pause here to say parenthetically, given this experience and others I have had hunting, I am not one to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone with that piece of shit gun he had. I am not one who can accurately hit moving shit especially chambering rounds as the Warren commission says he must have done. And anyone who can pull off this amazing feat is a phenom in my book. Even a walking animal presents a bit of a challenge. At 300 yards, the cross hairs are bouncing all over the target. -So I had to wait until a cluster of does paused broadside to me about 300 yards off.

A good shot makes a pop-thwwwwack sound at that distance, which I heard, and I relaxed a little bit thinking my day was going to be a short one. The herd mixed up, and I watched through my binoculars as the herd separated from my doe which is a good sign that I got it, but then an odd thing happened. The buck accompanying the herd of does, approached my doe and mounted her and began doing his thing. ╨And the thought entered my mind, I guess I did not do as well as I thought if this sort of thing is going on. I could not risk hitting the buck, and even if I could shoot the doe out from under him, it just seemed like bad joo-joo to me to mess with that act of nature.

My attention shifted to another buck-doe pair that began to circle me, and dropped into a distance of about 150 yards. They were running and the couple of shots I took missed. -Good thing too, because this gave Romeo time to finish up. When he got off my doe, she just sunk to the ground, which meant either he was an amazing lover, or I got her as I originally thought. I approached my doe and sure enough she was on her way out. She was a big gal, and as soon as I could without causing her to run further, I delivered the coup de grat as I think most hunters prefer to keep this process as short as possible.

By 9am I had her field dressed and was loading her onto my Jeep’s hitch mounted rack concealed in a tarp. All of the dirty work went pretty well, but I sure missed not having Emerson during this part. He usually heckles me pretty good. -Not to mention, Emerson would have had something to say about the twisted way this hunt played out.

I finished the dirty work in my folks’ garage in Castle Rock and took full advantage of their freezer space. Anybody who tells you this is easy has their head up their rear. Even this short hunt left me pretty sore the next day, and I think I pinched a nerve in my back hoisting my doe into the garage rafters. Elk season is two weeks away, and I think if it goes more than two days I’ll have to cut it short just so I can make it back to work in decent shape.

Emerson has a new bow thanks to my friend Uli, and he plans to do archery deer next year in the hills above our house. I can really see him pulling it off too. The kid has patience and an inclination for stealth that makes me think he should be renting his skills to the CIA or something.

Roxgilmartin