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duckhunter175

Wyo is cool!!

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So I gathered up some buddies and we jumped on the Wyoming bandwagon this year!  5 tags between 4 guys-- we filled 4 in 24 hours and then I opted out of filling my doe tag because I wasn't going to be able to get the meat home. Originally I was supposed to drive up from Texas (12+ hours), link up with our Denver dude and then get the NC boys who were flying in.  Unfortunately for me I couldn't break of the 5-6 days I had hoped from work. So I had Fri afternoon to Sunday afternoon and I booked a hasty ticket and as a group we split a rental car (truck- more on that later).

Here's how things went down: Thursday had some things come up at work that resulted in a much later than preferred ride to the airport to fly from Dallas to Denver. Still made the flight, guns arrived with no issues and had plenty of time to go pick up the rental car and drive to my buddy's house in Denver to spend the night before driving up to WY on Friday. Until I got to the Budget rental car center at DIA... 60+ people at 11pm and only 3 folks checking cars out. So when I got to the window at 2am... they no longer had full size trucks... but they did have a 2018 Tacoma TRD so I snagged it, which ended up being a great vehicle on and off road. Get to Dave's at 3am and we drink beers and BS until who knows when. He has to work Friday and I have to get the other two from the airport.

Friday: I pick up our NC boys from the airport and we head north towards the promised land of WY!!  Except it is raining, foggy and generally crap weather, not the 50-60 degrees and sun that were forecast. But we make it into our hunting unit and head towards a chunk of public land to check our zero since we all were now 6,000+ ft above where we confirmed our data. Upon arriving at said chunk of land... there is a chunky pronghorn buck standing off the road about 500 yards and he dips over a rise. I had compared my actual data from Texas (hot, low altitude) to the WY forecasted data (cold, high altitude) and the ballistic calc had told me there wasn't going much difference (less than 1/4 moa out to 600y).  Since this was for sure a shooter buck and I had a short hunt we bailed out and made the stalk. I got up to the rise and over the top, bedded down, was the buck and a group of does. I ranged at 289 yards, my rifle is zero'd at 250. I keep inching up to get my bipod up and rear rest set. The does saw me and they slowly stood and began to walk down and away from me. The buck stood, slightly quartered too and looking at the does that were now trotting. I held just a hair high and into the cross wind. The 7RUM barked and the 145gr LRX buried itself just in front of his shoulder and exited just behind his offside shoulder. He ran maybe 25 yards and expired!! We were on the board having been in the state of Wyoming for about an hour!  

 

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We got him gutted and back to the truck and proceeded to get the other two rifles double checked for zero and then we headed off to some other spots we had google earth'd. At last light Dave texted and said he was headed up from Denver. We checked a last spot and found a nice herd on the border of public/private. We marked them and headed back towards camp... until we saw a really great buck dip into a small draw off the road. We bailed out again and began a several hundred yard stalk up to the draw. As the terrain thinned out we knew he was going to be just beneath us. Boom- horns! There he was- the next man up got settled as we saw the buck turn broadside and trot off. We heard him alarm wheeze or whistle (whatever you want to call it) and we knew the gig was up. He made a brief stop and got flattened by my friend, shooting a family heirloom .270. We admired his buck which, to us uninitiated pronghorn hunters seemed to be a good bit larger than the ones we had seen and definitely bigger than my buck.  Well, he just got scored and before drying he netted 80 6/8"!!!

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Saturday picked up where Friday left off- We got on several bucks early but couldn't get good stalks set up. Finally, I glassed up a super tall buck who was narrow and unmistakeable. After a great (and long stalk) Dave connected on this superb goat. The length on this goat was awesome and he grossed out in the mid 70s!  We were feeling good about ourselves but we knew we needed another buck. We were having a great time but we all wanted the guys who had traveled across country to fill their tags!!  I headed out with my buddy while Dave skinned his buck.

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We found a great wide, forward leaning buck but he spooked across onto private before we could make a play.  Then- as we drove over a crest, tucked behind a hillside, almost invisible from the road was a buck bedded with does. Knowing that this had been a recipe for success so far we stopped. Checked our topo and made a plan. I got to crawl in with my buddy as he navigated to this unseen herd. I expected us to pop up about 300 yards off... but he got to within 80 yards before cresting the hill!! The antelope were now milling around feeding and headed off to our right.  At 156 yards my buddy got the shot profile he was looking for and absolutely stoned the buck. Making us 4/4 in less than 24 hours of hunting!!

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Just an amazing trip overall and something that I think we see ourselves doing again the future!!

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Absolutely Awesome!  I love Wyoming and can't wait to return.  Great job!

How much did it cost you to ship your meat back home?

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Great job!! Nice bucks! Wyoming is on my bucket list in the near future. I have bought 3 points now.

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28 minutes ago, Viper said:

Great job!! Nice bucks! Wyoming is on my bucket list in the near future. I have bought 3 points now.

3 points is plenty for a non resident to get into a unit with plenty of goats!!

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29 minutes ago, Big Browns said:

Absolutely Awesome!  I love Wyoming and can't wait to return.  Great job!

How much did it cost you to ship your meat back home?

For the 3 of us who flew, we boned it out, had a guy in town wrap/freeze it solid and the we carried it on as carry-on baggage. I used a Yeti Hopper 30 and it fit one buck perfectly!!  Zero issues with TSA as long as it is froze solid!

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How much did that Yeti/goat package weigh?

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38 minutes ago, Viper said:

How much did that Yeti/goat package weigh?

It wasn't light! but it easily fit in the overhead luggage compartment and they don't weigh your carry on!!

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Congrats Duck!!  Sounds like a great trip!  My Stepdad went up for a deer hunt a week and half ago and they did well on it, though not as well as your crew!

Wow, that Yeti is small.  any idea how much meat you had or how much those Goats weighed?  Same size, bigger, smaller than a Coues?

 

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On 10/19/2018 at 4:03 PM, lamrith said:

Congrats Duck!!  Sounds like a great trip!  My Stepdad went up for a deer hunt a week and half ago and they did well on it, though not as well as your crew!

Wow, that Yeti is small.  any idea how much meat you had or how much those Goats weighed?  Same size, bigger, smaller than a Coues?

 

Hard to estimate- been too long since I had my hands on a Coues!!  But once you get that antelope deboned that meat doesn't take as much room as you'd expect!  They were all mature goats- the interesting thing- my buck had shorter horns but a much wider head and a much thicker neck and body than the other bucks. Not sure if he was really rutted up or just a real old fella!

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congrats those are some nice bucks

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