Archive for the ‘antlers & horns’ Category

Antelope Hunting in Wyoming with the Kids

Wednesday, October 24th, 2007

We made it back from Wyoming! We didn’t get snowed in but Saturday night sure did get cold. The hunting was a little off but we still managed to get some goats. We had a great time visiting with our friend Ted. He has a beautiful place right on the North Platte river that he lets us hunt on.
We all had a great time. This is one of the few hunts that I am able to take the whole family on because it isn’t as rugged as my deer and elk hunts and I really enjoy it.
We are never too far from the car or the camper so if one of the kids gets cold or
tired of hunting, we can always head back and it doesn’t detract from the rest of the hunt.

Ted was in the process of getting the last cut of his hay sold, so there were still some one ton bails left. Jacob and I went out the first morning and just had a great time sneaking from bail to bail trying to Indian up on some of those Wyoming antelope.
I was shooting my muzzle loader, so getting close was going to be necessary. Unfortunately my sneaking skills are just not as good as they used to be on a cut hay field so later in the day I decided to cheat and switched over to my 25-06. This made things a little easier, but the antelope just were not cooperating! I could have shot buck after buck, but those wiley old does were hanging just across the fence on the neighbors property that we did not have permission to hunt. Finally, on our second morning of the hunt, one made the mistake of jumping across the fence.
With a well placed shot, she was down and then the work (even though cleaning an antelope is fairly easy) started. We were running a little bit short on time so after a packing up camp in record time, we were on our way back home.

Like I have said in previous posts, if you have a chance to hunt antelope … you will never be disappointed.

Posted in antlers & horns, kids, Wyoming | 2 Comments »

Meat Hunter or Trophy Hunter?

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

Phillip over at the Hog Blog currently has a poll asking what
type of hunter are you? Meat Hunter or Trophy Hunter? I am a
little bit of both.   Here in Colorado the Division of
Wildlife implemented a three points or better on buck deer and a four points or
better on bull elk rule during the rifle seasons in the mid 80’s, and I hunt bucks and bull elk during that time.  However, I also purchase doe and cow tags to help fill the freezer. In fact I
am heading out this weekend to hunt doe antelope up in Wyoming.

Wyoming has a neat wildlife management
program. After the initial full price applications have been processed, they
offer reduced price doe/fawn or cow/calf licenses for hunters that would like
to harvest an animal, but don’t want to shell out the exorbitant cost of a license.
In Wyoming’s
case, the tags that I picked up cost $29 a piece. Compare that to the full cost
price of $225 for an out of state buck tag and you can see the attraction to
hunters looking for meat over trophies.   Colorado
has done something similar by reducing the price of cow elk tags for out of
state hunters and is currently considering doing the same for doe deer tags. I
can certainly understand that when an out of state hunter shells out close to
$500 for an Elk tag or $400 for a deer tag, they defiantly want to shoot
something with horns. Anything with horns sometimes! I myself, enjoy eating the
animals that I shoot, so if it is a monster that is great, but a doe is sure
tasty as well. Stop on by The Hog Blog and throw your vote into the hat.

Posted in antlers & horns | 1 Comment »

Dad, shoot the one with the big horns!

Friday, April 13th, 2007

2006 was a good hunting year.  The best part was that I was able to spend some quality time with my six year old, Jacob. I am trying to teach him that hunting isn’t always about the killing or the size of the antlers, but rather the time that you spend out in the field and the people that you spend it with.  I think that’s something we’ll have to keep working on next year!

Our first trip this year was to Wyoming to hunt doe antelope using their reduced price doe tags.  Jacob had been antelope hunting there last year with me and we were able to harvest some nice buck antelope.  So I figured this year would be fun as well.  While I believe he had a good time, I am not sure that it was what he was expecting.

We left early that September morning with my father and my friend Tony and headed west out of Laramie for what was supposed to be a day of fun. For those of you who have been antelope hunting in Wyoming, you know that it is not very difficult to find antelope. Immediately we were upon a herd of over 20 antelope.  Now remember we are using the reduced price doe tags … Jacob starts yelling “Dad, shoot the one with the big horns!” After twenty minutes of explaining that we were only hunting the females and the reasons why you need to shoot the gals as well as the guys, he turns to me with tears in his eyes and said “But I like the horns!”   We talked some more, got things straightened out (or so I thought) and continued on our hunt. Shortly after this, I harvested a nice healthy doe. When my son caught up I said “What do you think?”   His reply?  “Neat, but how come you didn’t shoot the one with the big horns?”

Lesson learned: Teaching a 6 year old that hunting is about more about the hunt than the size of the antlers may need some work. I am sure that most of you out there that hunt have interesting stories similar to this. Either as the one doing the teaching or doing the learning. I happened to be doing both teaching and learning that day and I am looking forward to many more adventures with my son Jacob and my 8 month old son Caleb when he gets old enough. So drop me a few lines and let me hear your adventures.

Posted in antelope, antlers & horns, kids, Wyoming | No Comments »