Won On the Spot
WON Reporter Hits Daily Double on Wyoming Combo Hunt
By Mike Dickerson
It's not that unusual to shoot a nice, if somewhat less than record-book-qualifying mule deer in Northeast Wyoming. Nor is it unheard of for a hunter to harvest a very nice pronghorn antelope in a state where speed goats are said to outnumber people.It's an entirely different matter to do both in the same day -- and even more surprising to do so on the first day of the season.
That's exactly what happened when this reporter ventured to northeast Wyoming, near the edge of the Black Hills, on a recent six-day combo hunt with Rocky Outfitters (http://www.montanawyomingdeerhunts.com, 406-480-1165). My guide for the trip was Rocky Niles, owner of the outfit and a licensed, 20-year veteran of guided big game hunts in Wyoming, Montana and Kansas.
In addition to Wyoming, much of Niles' focus these days is on Montana, where clients shoot some massive mule deer and whitetail deer on either/or hunts. I didn't expect to find any record-book heads in the part of Wyoming we hunted, but you will see animals there that the vast majority of hunters would be proud to hang on the wall.
A good pronghorn from the region will sprout horns topping out at about 15 inches, while a mule deer with an antler spread of 28 inches is considered a monster. More common are mule deer with 20- to 24-inch antler spread, with anything over 22 inches (roughly ear tip to ear tip, in a normal alert position) considered a definite shooter.
The real attraction of hunting the area with an outfitter like Rocky is the chance to take advantage of can't-miss odds of drawing tags and the opportunity to harvest two very respectable, representative animals, while hunting on vast tracts of private land.
This is not to say that it's easy. Make no mistake about it. This is big, open country hunting, where the terrain is characterized by miles and miles of rolling sagebrush hills and flats, broken in places by pine ridges and rugged canyons. This terrain demands patient stalks, high-quality optics, flat-shooting rifles, long-range shooting skill - and the judgment to back off when conditions aren't right.
That was the case at first light on opening morning, when the bachelor herd of mule deer bucks we were glassing was spooked by a rancher blasting down a nearby dirt road in his pickup. We had a good idea where the bucks, including the one I ultimately tagged, were holed up, but the wind was wrong and there was no direction to approach from without being detected. We decided it was better to back off and try again later to avoid spooking the deer out of the area.
"Let's go antelope hunting," said Niles.
By noon, we were stalking a tremendous antelope sporting a solid 15 inches of horn. We had, in our haste, left the rangefinders in the truck. At the moment of truth, I thought the buck was about 250 yards away. Niles guessed 300. We were both wrong. My pet Weatherby .257 Wby. Mag., sighted to hit dead-on at 300 yards, missed just low, indicating the buck was, much to our chagrin, somewhat farther away than 300 yards.
The importance of using rangefinders in such open country, where range can be difficult to judge, can't be understated. With seven other hunters in camp for the week - a good-natured bunch from Georgia -- there were at least two other instances where hunters missed opportunities or shots because they didn't use their rangefinders. In one case, hunters passed on a shot at a massive mule deer with an estimated 28-inch spread because they thought he was too far away. After the stalk failed, they returned to the original spot and ranged the distance at about 260 yards, downhill. To say they were harsh on themselves afterwards is putting it mildly.
We eventually caught up with the band of antelope. The big buck was nowhere to be seen, but I spotted another nice goat and dropped the hammer at a rangefinder-measured 304 yards with a single 120-grain Nosler Partition bullet from my .257. The buck dropped in his tracks with barely a twitch, supporting my belief that ultra flat-shooting, medium-caliber rounds like the .257 Wby. Mag. are ideal antelope medicine.
Caliber matters little in such country, however, if you can't consistently hit your target at long range. In my humble opinion, the average hunter has no business shooting at animals much beyond 200 yards, and you'd better be putting in a lot of practice if you expect to connect consistently, under hunting conditions, at 300 yards. That's where I personally draw the line in shooting at game, regardless of whether I can make a longer shot. Moreover, I'll take such shots only if I have a solid rest.
As Niles puts it, it doesn't matter how big the bullet is if you can shoot the gun accurately. "The flatter-shooting the better," he says, "but the most important thing is that hunters are good with what they shoot."
Another requirement of open-country hunting is quality optics. For this hunt I used both Leupold and Burris riflescopes, along with a Nikon rangefinder and binoculars. Whatever you use, make it the best you can afford. After a day or two of near-continuous glassing, your eyeballs will feel as though they've just rolled across the length of the Mojave Desert.
All that glassing pays off, however, as it eventually did for me when we spotted the big mule deer buck I'd had my eye on that morning. When we had stalked to within 250 yards of the deer and could get no closer, I proned out and took a rest atop a pack with the other rifle I'd taken on the hunt - a Weatherby sub-MOA stainless model chambered for the potent .300 Win. Short Mag.
The gun was made all the more potent by the fact that I was shooting Winchester's new 150-grain XP3 bullet. The 180-grain bullet is a proven winner, so I was anxious to see how the 150-grain bullet performed. The choice was no coincidence. The 150-grain .300 WSM bullet has a nearly identically flat trajectory as the 120-grain .257 Wby. Mag. With identical Timney triggers installed in each rifle, the guns feel and handle as one.
Familiarity helps, as it did in the standoff I found myself in. With less than 25 minutes of legal shooting light left, three mule deer bucks had us pegged at 250 yards and no one was moving. The big, typical 4x4 buck I wanted, with an antler spread pushing 25 inches, stood rooted to the ground, eyeballs glued on us -- but he was directly behind and parallel to a slightly smaller 4x4 standing in front of him. I had no shot, for what seemed an eternity, until the smaller buck lost his nerve and took a tentative step forward.
My trigger finger knew what to do, zipping the 150-grain bullet past the smaller buck's rear end and into the big buck's vitals. He ran 10 yards and dropped. A check with the local taxidermist several days afterward confirmed that he was the best buck checked in from the area to that point in the season.
As for the good-natured boys from Georgia, they all tagged out by the fifth day of the hunt on both mule deer and pronghorn, chalking up a 100 percent success rate for both species. For my money, that's as good as it gets.
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