Eastern Colorado Pronghorn
My boyfriend Alex and I ventured out to Eastern Colorado to hunt pronghorn. I planned to hunt the last two days of rifle season (Oct 11th and 12th) due to a gator hunt cutting into the first of the season.
On October 11th sunrise was at 7:00am, making 6:30am legal shooting time. It was a balmy 20 degrees and the wind was howling.
Weeks prior, Alex had seen several shooter bucks on a handful of different ranches.
We glassed several different locations, seeing nothing but smaller bucks.
We decided to head to the ranch that Alex had seen a giant a week or two prior.
Unable to locate that particular buck, we started glassing the miles of land that surround the area.
We came up over a hill and located a herd of about 40 pronghorn several miles away.
Given how far away we were, looking through the spotting scope you could tell this buck had some serious mass.
We came up with a plan to get on this herd of pronghorn.
The wind wasn’t working in our favor, but we figured we would take our chances.
We parked the truck, grabbed our gear, and started the 1.5 mile walk.
There was about two pounds of mud on each one of our boots. We were walking through knee high kochia.
You would think that walking on the plains would be a piece of cake. This felt like you were hiking to the summit of a 14er.
We scurried along an irrigation ditch (full of water) for about a mile to remain out of sight.
The herd was located a few hundred yards behind a windmill. While putting on the stalk we were using the windmill as a reference point.
We got to 600 yards and Alex said, “lets get about 300 yards closer.” At this point we were able to get a better look at this speed goat and determined he was definitely a shooter.
This buck had about 40 does with him.
We stayed as low as we could, hoping to remain out of sight.
When we got to about 400 yards, the does didn’t even notice our presence, but the buck did.
Still in rut and curious, the buck left his ladies a hundred yards behind him and started running directly towards us.
Once we were spotted, we sat still waiting to see how close this buck would come.
Alex kept range on him while I set up my shooting sticks and prepared to shoot.
The buck was at 280 yards facing us and slowly taking steps forward.
I kept my crosshairs on him waiting for him to turn broadside (about 2 mins).
Alex ranged him at 273 yards when he finally stepped left and gave me a shot I was more comfortable with.
I slowly squeezed the trigger and BOOM!!!
He ran about 30 yards and fell over.
Once I got my hands on this buck I was blown away! He was easily my biggest buck to date scoring 82-83”. I was truly on cloud nine shooting this beauty!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Randi Clark
Forest Ranger Supervisor, Wellington Lake CO
Archery Instructor
ReelCamo Girl and Pacific Calls Pro Staff
2018 Extreme Huntress Competitor
Hunter, fisher, and outdoor enthusiast!
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