When I got up the next morning I was hurting. On this kind of hunt, it’s very normal to wake up a little sore after a hard day, but this went beyond that. My legs, especially my right ankle and calf, felt weak and unstable. After getting dressed I walked over to where the dogs were chained up. I wasn’t the only one hurting; Buster’s feet were really torn up and he could hardly stand. Booie was in better shape and seemed ready for another day. Jake, who had been on the bench the previous day, was ready to go.

After breakfast, we headed up the Moose Creek trail to check the baits. The dogs didn’t smell anything of interest at the Camp Bait, so we pressed on to the Trout Creek bait. By the time we got to the top of the ridge my legs were just about done. And we hadn’t even started hunting yet.

The bait site was torn up again when we got there with lots of fresh scat. As the dogs started casting around, you could tell by their body language that there was fresh scent. As they cast further out, Michael and I waited to hear that first bawl. Jake struck the track and Booie soon joined him – and it didn’t take a GPS to see that they were headed straight through the re-prod on the west side of the ridge.

Michael tracking the hounds' progess through re-prod on his GPS

We stood at the edge of the bait site and listened to the chase unfold. “They seem to be headed towards the third bait,” Michael said as he watched their progress on the GPS. “Where is it?” I asked. He pointed to the northwest. “That way about a mile and half.”

We waited for another 20 minute or so when Michael said casually, “According to this, they’re treed.”

“Where?” I asked.

“In the middle of all of this re-prod.”

“Well, at least it isn’t uphill,” I said grabbing my pack. “You lead the way.”

Trying to navigate in a specific direction through the stuff is almost impossible. In places, it’s so thick that it truly is impenetrable. We worked our way through it as best we could, often walking on fallen trees like balance beams. After a half an hour we really weren’t much closer to where the GPS said they were treed than when we started. As we took a breather, Michael checked the GPS again. “Are they still treed?” I asked.

“No, they’ve left the tree and now they’re down by the trail again.”

I honestly felt like I’d been punched in the gut.

“OK, so what now?” I asked.

“We need to get out of this stuff. If we head north on this contour, we can follow the next drainage down to the trail and that other bait.”

With that, we started working our way north and eventually came to some more open terrain. I know Michael was frustrated that his dogs weren’t holding the bears in the trees and I was just about spent. As we made our way down to the trail, I had serious doubts if my legs would last for another day. Getting to the main trail raised my spirits a little bit as it meant no more side-hilling for the day.

After finding the dogs, we started back to camp. Along the way, I spotted a large morel mushroom. “They grow all over in here,” Michael said. “You should see it after a fire.” I picked the mushroom and put in an extra lunch bag I had in my pack. As we walked back to camp, we filled two bags full of fresh mushrooms that we found growing on the side of the trail. We hadn’t caught a bear, but at least we’d have a tasty snack for dinner!

Morel mushrooms were a common sight along the main trail

When we got back to camp, we found that Mike had arrived to do some camp maintenance. That night, over a dinner of mountain lion cutlets, they came up with a plan for the next day. Michael would take off first thing in the morning with the hounds and see if he could strike a fresh track. Mike and I would take the horses and refill the baits. If Michael got on a good track, we could then ride as far as possible. It sounded like a good plan to me. At minimum, I hoped it would give my legs a rest.

Mike and I were just leading the horses to the camp bait when we got a call from Michael that they’d treed a bear. “Is it a big one?” Mike asked him. “Yup,” was the reply. “Well, we better get you to the tree!” Mike said as he started leading the horses back down the trail.

We followed the main trail for about three quarters of a mile until we came to the second drainage north of the bait. Mike stopped the horses and listened. Very faintly, I could hear hounds up the ridge. “Just keep walking up and follow your ears,” he said to me. I’m going to keep going and get the baits refilled. I’ll meet you guys on the way back.” With that, he started up the trail with the horses and I started up the ridge to get my bear.

It wasn’t that steep in the beginning, but as I got closer it started getting much steeper. My legs still weren’t recovered and I soon had bad cramps, especially in my right leg. But I could hear the hounds above me. “Just keep putting one foot in front of the other,” I thought to myself.

When I finally reached Michael and the dogs, they had the bear treed in a large fir about 40 feet off the ground. The beautiful chocolate colored bear was lying on a horizontal branch just staring down at the dogs. After taking a few pictures and some video, Michael leashed the dogs so I could shoot. The dogs need to be leashed in case the bear is still alive when comes out of the tree. If dogs jump on a wounded bear, they can get really torn up in a hurry.

With the dogs restrained, I centered the sights of my pistol directly between the bears from legs and squeezed the trigger. The shot landed true and the bear started slowly rolling off the limb. “Hit him again,” Michael said. Having lost a bear before because I didn’t want to put an extra hole in the hide, I didn’t need much encouragement. I put another shot in behind the shoulders, then a couple more for good measure. When the bear fell out of the tree and rolled down the ridge, it was already very dead.

The bear eventually came to a stop when it hit the roots of a fallen tree. When we gathered around it, I think everyone, dogs included, was really happy to finally have some success.

While bears weigh less in the spring, their coats are at their best this time of the year. This bear’s coat was in perfect condition without a single rub mark.

After taking a few pictures, we got to work skinning and quartering up the carcass and packed everything back to camp. That night, we had a couple of toasts, simply to “the bear.”

Michael with the skinned out hide

My flight from Minneapolis to Missoula was a bit rough, but I made with all of my gear intact. The Delta ticketing agent gave me a bit of grief because my bag was a few pounds overweight and because she didn’t know their rules for transporting ammunition. Having a copy of the airlines regulations on firearm and ammunition transportation with you is always a good idea, as ticketing agents are often not familiar with their own regulations.

It was cold, windy and rainy in Missoula. Dark clouds hung over the mountains. It felt a lot more like fall moving into winter than late spring. I had arranged to stay in a bed and breakfast in Corvalis, a few miles from Hamilton, which is where I’d be flying out of the next day. I talked to my pilot that night, and he said to meet him at his hanger at 9:00 and we’d play it by ear – nobody every really knows what the weather will do in 12 hours…

It was still windy but clearing up some when I got to the hanger. They radioed camp, and camp confirmed that the weather there was fine. It seemed as though if we got past the initial pass, we might able to make it. With that, we loaded up the plane with camp supplies, hay cubes, and my gear and were off.

The Selway is unique in that it’s the only Wilderness Area in the United States with a landing strip. All Wilderness areas have prohibitions against engines and wheeled devices, but the ranger station at Moose Creek had been grandfathered in when the area was designated Wilderness. It’s nice because it saves a 20-30 mile ride in on horse.

Camp was located at the junction of Moose Creek and the Selway River in a stand of firs and pines. This comfortable camp consisted of several large wall tents, shelters for the dogs, a shower, corral, and outhouse. The only permanent structures were the corral fence and the outhouse, as everything else needs to be taken down and taken out at least once a year to comply with forest service regulations. When we landed, my guide Michael Richie (Mike’s son) was waiting for us on the runway with Rin, the bear-treeing border collie.

After getting everything stowed away, I joined Michael in the cook tent where I had a ton of questions. Richie Outfitters is unique in that they offer three distinct hunting methods out of the same camp: hound hunts, baited hunts and spot and stalk. In addition, each hunter can take two bears and the tags for them are only $31.50 a piece. For my hound hunt, he explained to me in short order how things should work. He had three active baits out in the field. In the mornings, we’d walk or ride to the baits with the dogs and see if the dogs could strike a bear off of them. If the dogs didn’t smell anything they liked at the baits, we could just continue down the main trail following Moose Creek and hope to strike one that way. We would start first thing in the morning, and try not to release the dogs on a chase any later than 2:30 in the afternoon. When you start at 6:00 in the morning, letting the dogs go late can lead to a very long day, as I was to find out later.

As we were sitting there waiting for the plane to make its return trip with our cook and Michael’s hounds, the radio crackled. On the flight in, there was an issue with the hounds and they had to turn back. We wouldn’t be getting the hounds until the next day, which meant that we wouldn’t be able to hunt with them until the third day of the trip. Michael immediately apologized and said that if I needed some extra days to fill my tags, I could hunt free of charge until I did so. It was only the first day, and I already had a good feeling about this trip!

That afternoon, Michael asked me if I wanted to hunt over bait since we didn’t have the hounds. I told him that while I don’t have an issue hunting over bait, I’d prefer to wait to hunt with the dogs. He said that he needed to go and re-bait each location and asked if I wanted to come with, and that we could either ride or walk, depending on what I wanted to do. I asked him how far it was and he said about seven miles round trip. Seven miles sounded like a good warm up, so I suggested that we walk it instead of riding so I could stretch my legs a little bit. I said this not realizing that each bait was at the top of a ridge. This wasn’t just a leisurely seven mile hike, this would involve climbing some steep ridges.

The three of us (Michael, Rin and myself) left camp and headed to the first bait (“the Camp Bait”). The climb up didn’t look that steep, but within a few minutes my calves were burning and I was breathing a lot harder than normal. By the time we reached the top I was winded. As I stopped to catch my breath, Rin took off and within a few seconds was barking up a storm. A yearling bear had been at the bait when we got there and Rin had him treed. I didn’t know that collies would tree bears, and thought that the ease in which we treed this one was a good sign. “Extra days to hunt? This is going to be a piece of cake. I’ll have my tags filled in two days…,” I thought to myself. Boy was I wrong, especially in thinking that it would be a piece of cake! After getting a few pictures, Michael leashed Rin and we backed off. The young bear scurried down the tree and took off up the ridge behind bait.

Since there was still plenty of oats in the steel bait drum, we didn’t need to add bait. What Michael did do was a burn. Gathering up some small twigs and sticks, we made a small fire. Once it was burning, Michael poured some used restaurant grease on to it and let it get going. Before the grease completely burned, he smothered the fire with some fir boughs. This created huge amounts of smoke which smelled distinctly like french fries. This smoke was carried to the top of the ridge system by the up-slope daytime wind pattern. Since bears tend to travel at the tops of the ridges looking for food, this is a great way to get multiple bears working one bait.

From the Camp Bait, we headed to Trout Creek, where Michael had a bait in the saddle between two ridges. If I thought the climb to the first ridge was bad, I hadn’t seen anything yet. “Why does he have to put them a thousand feet above the !@$%$ trail?” I thought to myself as we hiked up the steep slope. When we finally reached the bait, I learned a new word – re-prod. I think re-prod is short for “reproducing forest.” After a burn the pines and firs spread their seeds in a thick carpet. The young trees come up thicker than spring dandelions. While that sounds innocuous enough, it’s not. Re-prod is pine trees from seedling size up to about ten feet high packed in so tightly that you can barely walk through them. If that’s not bad enough, they’re all growing in and on snagged-up deadfall (which you can’t see because it’s so thick) and near vertical slopes. Re-prod is, to be perfectly frank, really nasty shit. But bears love re-prod.

This bait had been hit pretty hard. It was obvious from looking at the scats that there were multiple bears coming in. It was a great spot. To the south was the top of a low ridge with Moose Creek below. To the east (where the trail came in) there was several hundred yards of fairly open, level terrain with good grass. To the north was a much higher (1400 feet or so) ridge. And to the west….to the west was a near vertical drop of 1000 feet covered in re-prod. We did another grease burn and headed back to camp for some dinner.

In our tent, I noticed that Michael had a scoped rifle. Since we wouldn’t be able to run the hounds the next day, I asked if I could borrow his rifle and we could do some spot and stalk hunting. He said that sounded like a great idea and that he also had a new predator call he wanted to try out. The next morning, I was sore when I woke up. Despite everything I did to try and get into shape for the trip, my ankles and calves just weren’t ready for the shock of side-hilling. After breakfast we headed south, up the Selway River about three miles and set up on top of a high ridge that overlooked fairly open forest on three sides. By the time we got there, my legs were feeling better. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we started picking apart the hillsides with our binoculars.

After glassing for about an hour, Micheal fired up his predator call using a fawn in distress sound. After about a half an hour of on and off calling, Michael pointed across the valley in front of us to the opposite ridge. I couldn’t see anything with my bare eyes, but knew exactly where to look with my binoculars to see what he was pointing at. On the opposite ridge about 800 yards away was a bear. Bears are hard to judge when you’re close. At 800 yards, it’s very difficult. But, from what we could tell, he was roughly shaped like a big bear. We tried to coax him closer for about 20 minutes. He stood there looking in our direction, then finally took off over the ridge in the opposite direction. He didn’t smell us, and he definitely couldn’t see us, so I’m not sure what spooked him. He must have heard something he didn’t like. We stayed and glassed into the afternoon, but didn’t see anything else besides a couple of deer.

When we got back to camp that afternoon, we were greeted by three barking hounds; Jake, Booie, and Buster. With the dogs finally in camp, I had high hopes for the next morning.

We left early the next morning with Buster and Booie. The first place we checked out was the Camp Bait. The dogs milled around casting for scent, but didn’t find anything they liked. As we were headed up the main trail towards Trout Creek, Booie let loose with a bawl and took off towards the river. Buster soon joined him and within a minute, the howls of the hounds were echoing through the valley. Michael has GPS collars on his dogs, which not only show where they are or how fast they’re going, but can also tell you if the dog is treed given the position of its head. They’re pretty amazing. We waited for a minute or two, then took off down the trail to hopefully cut them off. They made it across the trail before we got there and we could hear them heading up a ridge.

Here’s where it gets difficult. These ridges are steep and the soil is loose. Except for a few game trails, you pretty much have to bushwhack your way through the tangles and blow-downs. Up the ridge we went, and within a couple of minutes my calves and lungs were burning and the sweat was pouring into my eyes. Michael made it to the top a lot faster than I did. When I finally made up, he was looking down the backside of the ridge with his hat behind his ear trying to get a feel for where the dogs were.

“Did they catch him?” I asked as dropped my pack. “Nope. They’re on their way back.” he replied.

A lot of people think that hunting with hounds is a sure thing. That’s not even remotely the case. A bear can flat out-run a hound, and in the mountains they can out-climb them and go through rough country that dogs can’t get through. We were to experience this repeatedly over the next few days. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

It was about 10:00 when we got the dogs back and got back on the trail to Trout Creek. After climbing two ridges already, my legs were feeling it. After another couple of miles of walking, we got to Trout Creek and stopped for a quick drink before doing the long climb up the ridge to the bait. There’s a well-maintained, switch-backed trail that goes up the Trout Creek drainage. Compared to what we had been on so far that morning, it was relatively easy walking; we weren’t taking a step forward, then sliding one back, climbing over deadfalls, etc. But it’s still a steep climb of 1000 feet of elevation. When we finally made it to the bait, the dogs immediately struck a track and took off. They took off to the north, through a patch of re-prod and then up the highest ridge, another 1400 feet above the bait.

After waiting a few minutes, we started following the dogs. As we came through the re-prod at the bottom of the high ridge, Michael checked his GPS. “They’re treed,” he said. “How far?” I asked. “About 500 yards.” Normally, it wouldn’t take more than a few minutes to cover 500 yards…except when the first 200 yards forward includes climbing 466. We were about halfway up when Michael checked the GPS and then told me that the dogs were on the move again. The bear must have jumped the tree.

“Which way are they heading now?” I asked. “East, towards the creek.”

“OK, so does that mean we don’t have to keep going up this !$%*# hill?”

“Right. We can just follow this contour around the other side of the ridge.”

With that, I got to give my quads and calves a rest from climbing and start torturing my ankles with side-hilling!

We followed the contour another mile or so up into the Trout Creek drainage and then stopped for lunch. From looking at the GPS, we could see that the dogs had chased the bear quite a ways up the drainage, but from the way they were moving now, it seemed as though they’d lost the trail. We were hoping that while we were eating, they’d eventually come back and find us.

That didn’t really work out, so Michael suggested that I stay put and give my legs a rest while he rounded up the dogs. He showed up about an hour later with two very footsore and tired hounds. With the dogs gathered up, we started the five mile trek back to camp.

It was about 4:00 when we were walking past the trail leading to the Camp Bait. “I want to check and see if anything has hit it since this morning,” Michael said. With that, he leashed the hounds (Rin was still loose) and we headed up the trail. Earlier, Michael had told me that he really doesn’t like to let the dogs on a track much after 2:30. These chases can take hours, followed by more hours of trying to find the dogs. If you let the dogs go in the afternoon, it can make for a really long day.

As we were approaching the bait site, Rin took off like a bullet right past the bait. Both hounds were suddenly whining and straining at their leads in the same direction. Within a minute, Rin was barking furiously. “He may have him up a tree. He only barks when he can see the bear,” Michael said. “Let them go!” I said, suddenly re-energized. With that, he turned the two hounds loose and they took off like a shot.

It was soon apparent that Rin didn’t have the bear treed. We could hear the hounds barking as they chased it down into a creek drainage, then up the drainage, then finally up to the top of the ridge behind us. As I stood there looking up at the top of the ridge, I suddenly realized how tired I was and how shot my legs were. But, you don’t kill bears by not following the dogs. We started up the ridge, which alternated between patches of deadfall and steep patches of loose dirt and gravel. “Go on ahead. I find you when I get to the top,” I told Michael. I was moving, but not very fast. As I got to a particularly steep slope, I dug my feet in and took a breather. As I laid there, I could faintly here one of the hounds. But not on the ridge above me, on the next ridge over.

“Michael, I can hear one of the dogs,” I said into the radio. “Yeah, that must be Buster. I have Booie up here with me.”

“It sounds like he’s on the opposite ridge.”

“Roger. We’re probably not going to catch this one. You can head back to the trail. If you see Buster, grab him.”

Hearing that, I relaxed and just slid down the side of the mountain a piece.

I was just above the bait when I spotted movement. It wasn’t a bear, it was Buster. He was about a 100 feet above me standing in a deadfall.

“Come on boy!” I called to him. “Buster, come!” No response. “Come on Buster, don’t make me come up there. Good boy!” Still no response. Then, he actually looked like he might go the other way.

“God $%#^$, get your $&$!*! down here you stupid #$&#! dog before I *!$%!% shoot you!”

That didn’t work either. I’ve always said, if you start to think you’re an important person, try telling someone else’s dog what to do. With that, I started climbing back up the hill, swearing like a sailor the whole way.

I made it back to camp with Buster about a half an hour later. We’d been on our feet for about 14 hours. A cold beer never tasted so good!

Bears fascinate me. They always have. And while I’m usually a very lucky hunter, when it comes to hunting bears I’ve had just about everything the can go wrong go wrong at one point or another. I’ve hunted bears by spotting and stalking them in Montana and on Prince of Wales Island numerous times. I’ve also hunted them over bait in Minnesota and Canada. But what I had never tried was hunting them with hounds. So this past winter, while suffering from an extreme case of cabin fever, I contacted Mike Richie of Richie Outfitters in Salmon Idaho. Mike outfits in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area and is a dedicated houndsman. After talking him a couple of times, I sent in my deposit for a May hunt.

While I had never hunted the Selway before, I have hunted the Bob Marshall several times. I figured that one wouldn’t be too much different than the other and that they’d both offer the same sort of challenges – steep ridges choked with blow-downs and brush. For a flatlander like me, getting in shape was going to be really important. Chasing hounds is very strenuous and I wanted to be able to enjoy my upcoming hunt, not have a heart attack on the side of a mountain!

The other thing that I decided was that I wanted to do the hunt with an open-sighted handgun. Since the shooting should be fairly short range, the portability of a handgun sounded very appealing. I had killed a couple of bears and a deer with my S&W 629 over the years, but had sold it a couple of years ago because I never used it anymore. Time to buy a new toy…

Since I hadn’t really been paying too much attention to the current trends in handgun hunting, I started doing some research. I had just about decided on trying to find a first generation TC Contender in either 30-30 or 7-30 Waters when I discovered John Linebaugh’s website and read what he had to say about Ruger single-action revolvers, the .45 Colt, and hard-cast lead bullets. Everything he had to say made a lot of sense to me, so I now had another option I was interested in – the Ruger Bisley Blackhawk.

I walked into GunStop, bypassed the reloading supplies (where I usually spend most of my time) and went straight to the gun counter. They had one Contender with a .221 Fireball barrel, but that was it. Moving to the next case, something caught my eye. On the bottom shelf was a slightly used Ruger Bisley .45 Colt with a 5.5 inch barrel. The price was about $200 less than what I was expecting to pay, so within a half an hour I was on my way with a new gun and the dies, brass, powder and bullets to go with it.

To get a feel for the gun, the first loads I started with were standard .45 Colt loads, not the heavy ones recommended for hunting. 7.5 grains of Unique and a 200 grain cast bullet proved to be a very cheap, accurate and comfortable load to practice with. After getting comfortable with it, I decided to make a few changes to see if I couldn’t improve both the performance and looks of the revolver. I made the following modifications:

- Replaced the factory grips with elk antler grips from Patrick Grashorn.
- Replaced the stock base pin with a Belt Mountain #5 base pin.
- Had the cylinder throats reamed to a consistent .4525 inches by Cylindersmith.com.
- Replaced the rear sight blade with a One Ragged Hole aperture sight.

With these changes made, I was ready to start working on full power loads. I order two different cast bullets from Beartooth Bullets, a 260 grain WFN (wide flat nosed) and a 300 grain LFN (long flat nosed). Both of these bullets were based on LBT mould designs and cast to a hardness of approximately 21 BHN. Using full charges of H110, I was able to get velocities up to 1450 fps with the 260 grain bullet and 1333 fps with the 300 grain bullet along with more than sufficient accuracy for shooting bears at 30 yards. Many experienced handgun hunters believe that cast bullets perform the best, and by perform the best I mean create the largest permanent wound channel, when their impact velocity is between 1000 and 1200 fps. That being the case, I settled on a load of 22 grains of H110 and the 300 grain LFN for my hunting load. This load was accurate, easy to control, and gave me approximately 1150 fps.

With everything working well I started practicing in earnest. In late March I noticed that the cylinder seemed to have quite a bit of end-play. Using a feeler gauge, I checked and realized that the end-play was much more than I had realized. I called Ruger and they sent me a prepaid UPS label to return it for repair. The repairs took a few weeks, and when I received it back, I found that they had not only corrected the end-play and tightened the cylinder gap, but had also replaced the barrel and rear sight. All of this for free. Ruger really does have excellent customer service!

To get in shape for the trip, I loaded up a small pack with about 40 pounds of cast bullets and canned goods and carried it with me on five mile loop around my house 3-4 times a week. Unfortunately, a new pair boots I was asked to test inflamed some nerves in my left ankle, causing me to have to take a break for a few weeks in April. With only couple of weeks to go before leaving, I switched to running to try and boost my cardio strength.

Originally pubished in Safari, Volume 35, Number 2

“We’ll meet you back here at dark,” I said to the driver as I unloaded my gear out of back of the truck. My guide Alex had already shouldered his pack and was adjusting the straps. With a smile and silent nod Alex, I shouldered my own pack and rifle, and we began the long walk up the ranch road toward the small mountain.

Alex and I had been hunting hard for the last three days. The camp, run by Kirk Kelso of Pusch Ridge Outfitters, was located on a ranch just across the Mexican border southeast of Sasabe. With seven hunters in camp, three hunters had already tagged out, with two of the deer grossing over 110 inches. This was my first time hunting Coues deer. The hunters in camp who regularly hunted these diminutive whitetails told me that I was hunting with the best outfitter there is for finding big Coues deer.

The first morning of the hunt, I was amazed by my guide’s ability to spot game. I’ve been hunting since I was big enough to hold up a rifle and have always prided myself on my ability to spot game. The first morning, Alex was spotting deer all around us as we glassed from the top of a ridge. He would spot deer with his bare eyes that I could barely make out with my binoculars. I was working on getting my spotting scope set up when Alex suddenly got very interested in a deer he saw moving down a draw about 800 yards across from us on the opposite ridge.

“Muy Grande!” he whispered quietly. After looking at the deer (which I still hadn’t spotted) a few seconds longer he asked to use my spotting scope. The deer had moved out of the draw and was now moving across the side of the ridge. “Look,” he said gesturing to the scope. I immediately picked out the deer and cranked up the magnification. His wide 4X4 rack went past his ears and had good length. “I think he is 110, maybe 115,” Alex said, still examining the deer with his binoculars. “What do you think?” I was barely an hour into my first Coues hunt and was being asked if a Gold Medal deer would be adequate for me. “Let’s go,” I said as I picked up my rifle.

We headed straight down a very steep slope on a faint cattle track with Alex confidently leading the way. When we reached the bottom, we jogged several hundred yards across the flats separating us from the opposite ridge before reaching a dry creek bed. Alex stopped and began studying the slope in front of us, the glassing difficult as the sun was just coming over the top of the ridge. “There he is!” Alex exclaimed. I quickly extended the legs on my bipod and moved up behind him. “Where,” I asked, desperately trying to pick out the deer in the thick brush. “By the ocotillo,” he replied. I couldn’t help a sarcastic smile as I looked at the slope in front of me, covered by hundreds of ocotillo stalks. “Show me,” I said as I moved closer behind him. “There, by the ocotillo,” he said again, pointing about half way up the side of the ridge.

Looking through my binoculars, I suddenly spotted the deer moving parallel to us. I quickly ranged him at 345 yards. Knowing that the shots could be long, I had my 7mm Remington was sighted in dead-on at 300 yards. Moving ahead a few yards, I was able to use the creek bank to position my rifle correctly to shoot up the 45-degree angle to the deer.

Taking a couple of deep breaths, I tried to steady my breathing and pulse. As the deer suddenly stopped, I held the crosshairs about four inches below his back and squeezed the trigger. “You missed!” Alex exclaimed. “Where is he?” I asked, panicking, as I tried to find him again in the scope. “At the top,” Alex said as I began scanning the skyline with my scope. Thinking I would never see him again, I was relieved to see him at the top of the ridge looking down at us. I was just about to squeeze the trigger a second time when he turned and disappeared over the mountaintop.

I looked over at Alex, who while still smiling was obviously disappointed. Every hunter wants to impress his guide with his hunting and shooting skills, and I was suddenly feeling like I had a lot to prove. Not being used to shooting up and down mountains, I hadn’t accounted for the steep, upward angle of the shot and shot over the deer’s back.

We hunted hard for the next three days, seeing a lot of deer, but nothing like the one from that first morning. The nights were cold and the rut was heating up. Everyone was seeing a lot of deer. As Alex and I got to know each other better, I felt more comfortable speaking my poor rendition of Spanish. This allowed us to communicate a lot better and I was starting to feel like we were a team.

On the third night as we were gathered around the fire waiting for dinner, I noticed Alex talking with the ranch cowboy. Later that night, he told me that the cowboy had suggested we try a specific mountain that had oaks on top of it.

As we walked toward the kidney-shaped mountain, I realized that while the lower parts were covered with ocotillo, mesquite and cholla, there were oaks stretching for several miles across the top.

We slowly worked our way up the road, stopping frequently to glass. In between the brush at the bottom and oaks at the top, thick grass covered the sides the mountain. Surprisingly, we had only spotted a couple of does and a javelina when we came to the end of the road. Finding a cattle trail, we continued to gain elevation. After hiking for another hour, we finally reached the oak-covered top.

I was surprised to find that top of the mountain was actually fairly flat. After pausing for a few minutes to glass the area we had just come through, we decided that we would work our way around the edge, making a big circle that would bring us back to where we were supposed to meet the truck.

For the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon, we slowly edged around the mountain, stopping to glass any place where we had a good view of the slopes below. It was early afternoon as we crossed a small saddle leading to the point of the mountain farthest from where we had been dropped off. In the shade of the oaks, we noticed a small spring had created an area of lush, green grass. In that grass was a scrape. As we looked at the scrape, I saw what to me looked like a fawn track. Alex saw it at the same time that I did and got very excited. “Muy Grande!” he whispered. “I think this buck is very close.” Looking at the small track, I honestly thought he was kidding. I grew up hunting deer in Minnesota, where a mature buck will usually be over 200 pounds. This track looked like a small fawn’s to me.

“Be very quiet,” Alex said as he began moving out of the oaks to a small finger of rock that looked out over a long draw. Slowly, he moved out further and further out, gaining a better view of the draw as I followed close behind. When we reached the end, I realized that we were at the edge of a small cliff that dropped about 75 feet below us. I was scanning the far reaches of the draw through my binoculars, when Alex suddenly grabbed my arm and urgently whispered, “My grande! Shoot!” Right as he said that I caught the flash of a deer at the far end of the draw. Thinking that was the buck, I dropped into a prone position and tried to find the deer in my scope.

This didn’t seem to make Alex any happier, as he was trying to yank me to my feet. “Muy grande, you must shoot now!” he said even more urgently. Still thinking that the deer was at the far end of the draw, I tried to get back into a prone position. Finally realizing that I was looking at the wrong deer, Alex pointed to the huge buck walking into the brush below us about 30 yards from the base of the cliff.

I stood, hoping to get an offhand shot at him, but he was completely concealed in the bushes. “Muy, muy grande!” Alex again told me. “Very big deer! Very, very big deer!” Seeing him that excited told me that this deer was something special. I could have shot him at bow range if I had been paying attention, and now he was lost somewhere in a brushy draw. I couldn’t help but feel that I’d blown it for a second time.

For the next few minutes, we intensely glassed the draw below us. A flash at the far end caught both of our attentions at the same time. The flash was the buck’s antlers in the sun. I dropped prone again, and found him in the scope just as he moved into a small clump of bushes about 400 yards down the draw.

We had a clear view of any exits from the clump of bushes with the exception of the east side. If the buck decided to leave the clump of trees and head east, it would take him over the spine of the ridge, put him in the next draw and we would have no way to see it. We waited for another 45 minutes for the deer to come back out. Alex assured me that the deer was still there and was bedded down in the brush. However, as the sun began to set, the wind would change direction, putting our current position directly upwind. He suggested that we change our position and wait for the buck to come back out into the open. We gathered our gear and began working our way to the west, hoping that the winds would stay in our favor.

On the next ridge to the west, the best vantage point was covered with sharp stones and cactus. I got my rifle and spotting scope set up and we began the long wait for the deer to make his appearance. After lying on the uncomfortable ground for another two hours, I asked Alex if he thought the deer was still there. “Si,” he said. “I think he will come out when the sun goes down.” He then reiterated that this was a very big deer and I should make sure that I didn’t miss him when he came out. Talk about icing the kicker!

The sun was just dropping below the horizon, when Alex spotted the deer. Looking through my scope, I saw him standing exactly where he gone into the small clump of bushes. He was now standing broadside and nibbling on some leaves. Trying not to look at his rack, I centered the crosshairs just behind his shoulder and squeezed the trigger. “You missed!” Alex exclaimed. Cycling the bolt, a feeling of panic was joined by a racing heart. The deer hadn’t moved at the shot. Finding him in the scope again, I held for the same spot and fired another round. “You missed again!” Alex said, the panic and frustration also very clear in his voice. My stomach tightened into knots as I cycled the last shell into the chamber. I had completely lost my sight picture and was trying to find the deer in the failing light when Alex nonchalantly said, “Oh, you got him. He just fell down. He’s dead.” I have never heard sweeter words.

By the time we worked our way to the deer, we only had about 15 minutes of light left. My hands shook as I slowly closed my fingers around his antlers, which had five points on one side and four on the other, plus eye guards. “He is very big!” Alex exclaimed. “Yes he is!” I replied as I gave him a big hug. Looking at the deer, I found two holes about an inch apart just behind his shoulder. How a 90 pound deer takes two shots through the chest from a 7mm Remington and doesn’t show any signs of being hit amazes me.

By the time we had a picture of the deer and had him gutted out, it was completely dark. “Do you have a flashlight?” Alex asked me. “No, I left it in the tent,” I replied. “Do you have one?” I asked him. “No,” he said as he shook his head. After briefly discussing the situation, we decided that instead of taking the curving five-mile route we had taken to get to our current location we would take a short cut, hopefully cutting the distance down to about two miles.

Using a small piece of string to tie the deer’s legs together, Alex slung the deer over his shoulder like a purse and took off down the side of the mountain. Carrying both of our packs and my rifle, I did my best to try and keep up as we bushwhacked our way through the cactus and mesquite. After about forty-five minutes of battling our way through brush we were tired, sweating, scratched and bleeding. Stopping to take a breather and pick some of the cactus spines out of our flesh, we began discussing whether or not we were going in the right direction. The moon was not yet up, so the only light we had was from a few stars above. After discussing the issue for a few minutes and not coming to an agreement on which way we needed to go, I decided to trust my guide’s judgment even though he wanted to start going uphill.

Picking up our loads, we walked about twenty yards up the next hill and were rewarded with finding ourselves on a ranch road! We were a long way from where we were supposed to be, but decided that eventually someone would find us. Alex laid the deer down in the road, then reclined back, using the deer for a pillow. Joining him, I lamented the fact that we were out of both food and water.

Smiling, Alex asked me to hand him his pack. Rummaging around inside of it, he produced a single can of Budweiser. “I save this for celebrating,” he told me as he opened the 100-degree beer and handed it to me. Taking a swig and looking up at the stars, I couldn’t help but think that it was the most satisfying beer I’d ever had.

After trying both the 140 grain Sierra and the 130 grain TSX, I decided that I needed something in the middle. Ideally, a bullet that would hold together better than the Sierra, but that was soft enough to expand at the lower impact velocity of a longer range shot. With that in mind, I decided to try the 130 grain Nosler Accubond. I also bought a bag of Norma .270 WSM brass which replaced the Winchester brass I had been using and switched to a Federal 210 primer. My hope was that going with a standard rifle primer versus a magnum might give me a little less pressure while still giving consistent ignition and velocity. It turns out, I was right! Using Retumbo and loading the cartridges to an OAL of 3.132 inches, I got the following results:

62 gr – 3284, 3267, 3228 – group size 1.2 inches
63 gr – 3292, 3286, 3280 – group size .7 inches
64 gr – 3300, 3315, 3300 – group size 1 inch
65 gr – 3308, 3325, 3325 – group size 1.1 inches

None of these loads showed signs of excessive pressure. While I don’t claim to be an expert, I think that going from a magnum to a standard rifle primer made a lot of difference. I decided to go with the 63 grain load, now it was time to try it on game and see how the bullet performed.

The first animal I took with it was a whitetail buck. He was broadside at 350 yards. The bullet passed completely through, taking out the top of the heart. At the shot, the deer reared up on his hind legs and fell over backwards. Since it was a pass-through, I have no idea how much weight the bullet retained, but the exit wound was about the size of a dime.

The next day, I wanted to shoot a doe for some extra meat. I spotted a nice one at the edge of the woods at 250 yards. She was quartering away at about 45 degrees, so I held for the offside shoulder and squeezed. She ran about 25 yards and piled up. When I got up to her, there was no exit wound, but she did have a bump under her skin on her offside shoulder. After making a small cut, the bullet popped out.

It was a nice day and I had plenty of time, so I did a little digging in the gut pile after I dressed her out. The bullet entered her flank, went though her stomach, tore out a big piece of liver and went through most of the front shoulder, but didn’t hit the main joint.

The recovered bullet weighed 81.6 grains, which is 62.7% of the original weight. The total penetration was somewhere between 1.5 and 2 feet.

Years ago I was dating a young, very pretty, very girly, city-girl named Jordan. We had been seeing each other for about four or five months, when one night she told me that she was interested in trying hunting. She only said it in passing, but my mind immediately started planning out how to introduce her to my favorite pastime.

With our six month anniversary coming up, I had to act fast. I was in a local sporting goods store looking for a rifle for her and noticed that they had a Remington Model 7 Youth Model in .260 Remington on the clearance rack. I bought the rifle along with a 3-9 Leupold and gave it to her as a gift to celebrate our six-month anniversary. (I also gave her diamond necklace to make sure that I didn’t end up sleeping on the couch for a few weeks.)

Over the next couple of months, I started teaching her how to shoot with my old Daisy BB gun. While she wasn’t Annie Oakley, she did OK with it. After she got comfortable shooting the BB gun, we moved up to a .22 rimfire, which gave her a chance to start using a scope. I developed a nice mild load for her .260 using a 120 ballistic tip. After thinking about it, I decided not to have her practice with the .260. Her form with the .22 looked great, and I didn’t want her to develop a flinch. I just told her that the .260 worked exactly like the .22 and she didn’t need to bother practicing with it.

Where I hunt in Minnesota, the deer are very plentiful. This is where I fill my freezers with venison every fall. Most years, I have all of my tags filled in the first half hour of the season. I had a stand that overlooked a small clearing that I hunt on opening morning every year. Unfortunately, this stand wasn’t big enough for two people, so two weeks before the season I drove up north with $300 worth of lumber and built a stand for the two of us to use, complete with walls, a roof and a nice bench.

Jordan worked as a bar maid in a German bar in Minneapolis and had to work until close the night before opener. To get to our hunting property from where I lived was about a three hour drive, so I picked her up from work at 2AM and drove through the night to get us there by first light. As we drove through the snow, I was both excited and apprehensive. I really wanted to make sure that she had a positive experience. I hoped she wouldn’t get bored, cold or feel bad about shooting a deer. While this was just another weekend adventure to her, it meant a lot more to me.

She was sound asleep when we arrived at our hunting shack. I gently shook her awake and told her that we needed to go. When I opened the door of my truck, I was hit by a blast of very cold air. It had stopped snowing and cleared up, but the temperature was dropping. She didn’t say much as we got our gear together. I don’t know if she was just tired or nervous.

I love sitting in my deer stand waiting for the sun to come up. This was actually the first time I’d ever shared a stand with another person. As we sat there in the moonlight, we could hear deer moving around in the woods; the leaves crunching beneath their feet as they fed on acorns. The deer kept on getting closer and closer. While I couldn’t see them, I knew that they were within a couple hundred yards of us.

Crunch
Crunch
Crunch

Something changed. Instead of the sound of deer meandering around, it sounded like they were all moving on one direction. Checking my watch, it was three minutes before legal shooting light.

“Get ready,” I whispered. “They’re coming.” Jordan picked up her rifle, rested in on the wall of the stand for support and peered through her scope.

“I don’t see any,” she said. “Just wait, they’re coming.”

Then I saw the first deer, a doe. She was walking down the trail about thirty yards in front of us. “I see one!” she whispered. “Don’t shoot, it’s a doe.” I whispered back. Behind that doe came another , and another, another. In all, ten deer walked right in front of us in a single line. None of them had horns. As they passed by, I thought I could hear one more following them.

“Just wait, I think they’re might be a buck following them,” I whispered to her. As I peered into the woods, I saw another deer. It was big bodied and following the same trail the does had been on with its nose to the ground.

“That’s the buck. Shoot him when he’s right in front of us.”

As the deer got closer and closer, I strained to see its antlers. When it was finally right in front of us, I realized that it wasn’t a buck, just a very big doe.

“Wait!” I hissed right as she squeezed the trigger. At the shot, the deer dropped in its tracks.

“Shit, that wasn’t a buck.” I said to her. “It’s ok though, I have a doe permit we can use on her. Good shot honey!”

“Is it dead?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s dead. You center-punched it.”

“That’s good. I was afraid it might suffer.”

“Nope, you killed her dead on the spot.”

As we were talking about how dead the deer was, I saw its leg twitch.

“It’s moving,” she said.

“Yeah, sometimes they twitch a little after they’re dead. It’s no big deal.”

No sooner had I said this when the doe raised its head. A second later she hauled herself up with her front legs, her back legs dragging as she started pulling herself away from us. Grabbing the rifle out of Jordan’s hands, I centered the crosshairs on the doe’s neck and squeezed the trigger. At the shot, she went down again.

“Is it dead now?” she asked me.

“Yup. Now she’s dead.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah. Your first shot was a little high. You hit her through the spine. She’s dead now though.”

As I sat there hoping that Jordan wasn’t too traumatized at my having to shoot her deer again, I saw it’s leg twitch.

“Oh, shit.” I thought to myself. “Please be dead.”

It wasn’t.

And it proved that it wasn’t as it started bleating. Very few things sound worse than a dying deer. It almost sounds like a baby crying.

Jacking a fresh shell into the rifle, I realized that the only shot that I had would be right through the head. My mind started racing. “OK, first the deer gets up and I shoot it again. No problem. Now is laying there bleating, and if I shoot it in the head, its head is going to explode. She’s going to be so traumatized that she’s never going to want to go hunting again.”

Time to make a plan.

As fast I could, I climbed down out of the stand and ran over to the downed deer. I had my .44 in a shoulder holster, which I quickly drew and fired a round into the deer’s heart from about three feet away. The bleating stopped.

As I got back into the stand, I just about wanted to cry. I felt horrible for the way we’d killed that deer. Granted, it was a better death than Mother Nature ever gives a deer, but it was still not very pleasant.

“Is it dead now?” Jordan asked, looking straight into my eyes.

“Unequivocally, yes,” I said looking right back at her.

“That’s good,” she said. With that, she leaned her rifle in the corner, leaned her head against my shoulder and went to sleep.

“Huh, that’s interesting,” I thought to myself. “She should be crying her eyes out right now.”

A couple of hours later my dad showed up to see how we did.

“You guys sure did a lot of shooting this morning,” he said as he walked up. “Did you get anything?” Without a word I pointed in front of us.

We got out of the stand and walked up to where it was laying. As the three of us looked at the dead deer, the first words out of Jordan’s mouth were “Wow, they have really pretty eyes.”
I thought about the look in those eyes as I had fired the last round into it from point blank range. “Don’t tell me how pretty their eyes are,” I replied rather crossly. “Let’s get her dressed out.”

My dad is a doctor and always used to give my brothers and I anatomy lessons when we’d clean game. Since this was Jordan’s first deer, he did the same with her. She seemed fascinated by all of the different parts of the gut pile, and even got some blood under her manicured nails as she helped me with field dressing.

As we were driving home that night, I had to ask her. “So what did you think of deer hunting?”

“Well, deer hunting kind of sucks. It’s really cold, kind of boring and you have to get up early. But shooting deer is fun!”

“I thought that you’d probably cry when we killed the deer,” I said. “I cried when I shot my first deer.”

“Why?” she asked, truly puzzled.

I should have taken it as a sign right there. In the end, she ended up showing me even less compassion than that deer!

The next bullet I tried was the Berger VLD. All loads used Winchester cases, Federal 215 primers and RL25. All cartridges were loaded to a C.O.L of 2.955 inches. Starting at 60 grains of powder, I had the following results:

60 gr – 3058, 3086, 3065. Group size was 1.2 inches
61 gr – 3072, 3108, 3100. Group size was 1.6 inches
61.5 gr – 3115, 3100, 3100. Group size was .7 inches
62 gr – 3137, 3167, 3182. Group size was 2 inches
62.5 gr – 3205, 3197, 3159. Group size was 1 inch
63 gr – 3220, 3236, 3220. Group size was 2 inches

At 63 gr, pressure once again became an issue, so I stopped there.

With the Berger not delivering the accuracy or velocity I was looking for, I tried the 140 gr Sierra Gameking with the same components.

61 gr – 3145, 3167, 3155. Group size 1 inch.
62 gr – 3267, 3292, 3308. Group size .8 inches.
63 gr – 3300, 3333, 3333. Group size 1.5 inches.

At 63 grains, the last round blew primer.

With a coues deer hunt scheduled in Mexico, I loaded up a batch of the 140 gr Gamekings with 62 grains of powder and headed south.

On the fourth day of the trip, I found a nice 3X3. After missing him at 315 yards, I finally sealed the deal, hitting him not once, not twice, but three times at 435 yards. How that little deer took all those shots is beyond me. Even at that range, the damage done by that soft of a bullet was significant. All three bullets passed through with large exit wounds. There wasn’t much left of the cape…

Most of us learn how to hunt and fish from our fathers. As children, our fathers are bigger than life. When I was little, I knew my dad was the best outdoorsman in the world. He knew everything there was to know about guns, tree stands, calling ducks, catching walleyes and gutting deer.

In one of my earliest memories, my dad and I are walking by the National Guard tent at the county fair on a crisp August night. To get people to stop, they have an airgun range with moving targets set up. “Hey Doc, let’s see how you can shoot!” one of the soldiers calls out as we walk by. “I’m not joining the Guard,” my dad responds. “I’m too old.” This resulted in laughs all around. I have no idea who these men in camouflage uniforms are, but it’s obvious my dad does. Soon they’re needling him for free medical advice, information on where the walleyes are biting and what his plans are for deer season. As I listen to the conversations of men, I finally can’t contain myself. “Dad, shoot the gun!” I whisper as I tug on his hand.

One of the soldiers hands my dad the air rifle and says with a smile, “This is the end the bullet comes out of.” This gets a round of laughs from everyone around. As the target moves down the track, he shoulders the rifle and there is a light pop as he squeezes the trigger. When the target is returned, there is a small hole through the bullseye. “Lucky shot,” the soldier says putting the target back on the track. “Let’s see you do that again.” Three more times the target goes back and forth in front of us. Each time, there is a small pop as the gun goes off. When the target is returned, all of the shots are in a tight cluster in the center. “That’s the best shooting we’ve seen all night,” the soldier comments as my dad hands him the rifle. Of course it is, I think to myself. My dad is the best shot in the world!

As I got older, I started accompanying my dad and older brothers on hunting trips. We hunted waterfowl in North Dakota and Manitoba, Pheasants in South Dakota and deer in our home state of Minnesota. He taught me everything he knew about calling ducks, driving a slough for pheasants, training dogs and finding the best place to put a deer stand. As I got older, my hunting interests started expanding beyond my father’s. We always subscribed to Outdoor Life, Minnesota Sportsman and Field and Stream. I read each of these magazines from cover to cover soaking up every bit of information I could.

For the past twenty years, my family has made an annual trip to northern Minnesota for the opener of the firearms deer season. While we’ve never had much luck finding trophy animals on the land we hunt, the deer are plentiful. In the years when I was starting out my professional career and my brothers were in medical school or residency, deer opener was one of the few “guy weekends” we spent together.

As my brothers started their own families and I found myself more and more focused on my career, I realized that the time we spent hunting together was some of the best family time we had and we needed to start doing more of it. Five years ago, I met a rancher in SE Montana who has some prime hunting land on the Little Powder River. We soon developed a friendship and an annual trip or two to hunt deer and antelope have become part of my normal hunting season. Three years ago, I asked him if he would mind if I brought my dad with me to hunt. He didn’t have any objections, so the following year my dad and I put in for antelope licenses.

To get ready for the trip, I bought him a new bolt-action rifle and binoculars. I carefully developed loads for the rifle and sighted it in at 250 yards. After all these years, this was going to be my chance to teach my father a new way to hunt, as he had never hunted big game outside of the Minnesota woods and always from a stand.

October found us with a twelve-hour drive in front of us and gave us a good chance to get caught up. Over the past few years, we haven’t had a lot of one on one time with each other. While Dad’s in his seventies, he’s always been young for his age. He’s in great health and very active, but listening to him talk about life and the world, it was clear that his perspective on things had changed. In some ways he was more opinionated, in others more reflective. His pride in “his boys” and what they had accomplished was very clear, but there was also a twinge of his own mortality in his words. For the first time, I realized that the number of days I have to hunt with my dad is fixed, and one day I’ll use the last one.

On our first day of hunting we slept in, still a little tired from the long drive the day before. We grabbed an ample breakfast of eggs, pancakes, bacon and thick, black coffee at the local truck stop then drove out to the ranch. Within minutes, we spotted our first herd of antelope. “Do you see one you like?” I asked as we glassed the herd of about twenty animals. A lone buck looked back at us from the group of does. My dad said that he thought the buck looked good, but after looking at him some more, I thought we could do better. Besides, it was a warm, sunny fall day and I wasn’t ready for his hunt to be over so soon.

As we drove the ranch roads, we stopped and glassed several more herds. All of the herds had one or two bucks in them and all of them were about the same size. My dad has never been much of a trophy hunter, so he was getting a little frustrated with me for not letting him shoot one of them. “I think we should go back and shoot that first buck,” he said as we sat on the tailgate of my truck eating our lunch.

When we returned to the spot where we had seen the first buck, we found that the herd had moved further back into a series of draws. “That’s good,” I said. “It’ll be easier to sneak up on them.” Using the contours of the land for cover, we were soon within about 200 yards of the herd. “We can’t get any closer. You’re going to have to shoot from here,” I told him as I pulled out my rangefinder. “They’re smaller than deer and a lot closer than they look. Hold dead-on for his heart.”

As I watched through my binoculars, he squeezed off the first shot. The buck’s head snapped to attention and he stared right at us as in ones and twos, the does started running up the draw. Another shot rang out. This time I saw dust fly on the hillside far behind the buck. At the shot, he took off with the rest of the herd for parts unknown.

“I think you shot over him. I know you didn’t hit him,” I said as I watched the antelope go over the crest of the hill. “No biggie, there are a lot more.”

As we walked back to the truck, we discussed the shot. In all the years we’ve hunted together, I can only think of a one or two times where my dad had missed a deer. We both decided that it was just because he wasn’t used to shooting at antelope and wasn’t used to shooting his new rifle yet.

Over the next few hours, the scene replayed itself several times. Each time, I would get us into place within what I had thought was easy shooting distance, which would be followed by one or two misses. The sun was starting to set when we pulled into the last section of the ranch we hadn’t hunted yet. As we came over the crest of a hill, we spotted a lone antelope on top of the next ridge. A quick glance through the binoculars showed that he was a mature buck. Normally, I would have just set up for the shot from where we were stopped. But given the difficulties we’d had earlier in the day, I wanted get us as close as possible.

The plan was simple. This was the opening day of the season and this antelope probably hadn’t been shot at yet. Trucks are a common sight to the animals and at this point in the year, I didn’t think that he would see the truck as a threat. “Dad, I’m going to drive right up to that antelope. When I get about a hundred yards from him, I’m going to turn the truck broadside to him and stop. Then, you get out and shoot him.”

The plan worked like a charm. I drove straight at him until we were a hundred yards away, then turned the truck broadside and cut the engine. Dad got out, leaned over the hood and squeezed off a round at the curious antelope. At the shot, he turned and walked over the crest of the hill.

It took a couple of seconds for me to realize that he had missed again. Filled with a combination of frustration and disbelief, I jumped out of the truck and motioned for him to follow me as I started jogging up the side of the hill.

Reaching the top of the hill, we quickly spotted the buck in a small wash at the bottom of the hill. “That’s him,” I said pointing. Dad extended the legs on the bipod on his rifle and took aim. The rifle went off, shattering the silence of the evening. At the shot, the antelope looked up at us, but didn’t move. Another shot, and still the antelope stood staring up at us.

“That’s it,” I thought to myself. “We’ve spooked every antelope on the ranch and still haven’t killed anything. I’m going to go back to the truck, get my rifle, and shot the S.O.B. myself.” As I turned to start back to the truck, I saw the antelope slowly walking away from us. I was about half way back when another shot rang out, this one followed by a loud slap of a bullet hitting meat. “Finally,” I yelled out and looked up to the sky for a quick moment of thanks.

When I got back over to my dad, I saw the antelope laying dead a long way from the wash. “You got him,” I said with a big smile on my face. “Yeah, I finally just aimed right for his heart and it dropped him.” “Where had you been aiming before?” I asked, puzzled. “Well, they looked like they were so far away so I’ve been holding over the top of them. I guess they’re really not that far away.”

Pulling out my rangefinder, I did a quick check on the distance. “That antelope is 315 yards from this spot. Now do you believe me that you can hold dead-on out to 300 yards?”

We walked down the hill in the fading light, the sun painting the landscape in pastel hues of orange and pink. As we admired the fallen antelope, the smell of sage and goat filled our nostrils. “He’s a good one?” dad asks, as he runs his hands over his horns. “Yeah, he’s a good one,” I reply with a smile. “One I’ll never forget.”