littlebighorn
Long Time Member
- Messages
- 5,316
Nine years ago, my son Spence and I drew Wyoming antelope tags in a great unit. As it turned out, I missed a great buck in the Wyoming wind and then misjudged a buck and shot a smaller one. OOPs. However, the next day Spence redeemed us and killed a monster 85" toad.
We had a fantastic time looking over hundreds of bucks before pulling the trigger.
This year we once again drew Wyoming antelope and we decided to see if we could repeat perfection.
This time we dedicated a whole week to looking for an 80" or better buck. (knowing that was maybe the best we could hope for).
We repeated our "Nomad" style of hunting, camping out of our truck and just setting up camp at dark and being loaded and ready to go again at light the next morning. By hunting that way, we were able to look over most of the unit in 4 days. We also had some great advice from some fantastic MM readers allowing us to focus on some specific areas.
On this year's hunt, we again picked over hundreds of bucks and we even passed on a few we thought were close to our 80" standard, but we were still measuring success against "Perfection".
The night of day 4 we found a buck we were pretty sure would meet our goal. He was way out in a flat with his does so we put him to bed and came back in the dark in the morning. At first light we thought we had found him and when the buck stepped away from his does I shot him. Alas, like last time, he was the little brother of the one we were after. OOPs again!
After taking care of my buck, we decided to go back and find our original target. Sure enough, he was out in the flats with his does. By being patient we were able to sneak and crawl several hundred yards closer. We then waited 3 hours for him to make a mistake.
Late in the afternoon he got up to chase off an intruder buck and Spence made a great long range shot to put him down.
It's almost impossible to "repeat perfection" but man was it fun trying. My son and I always have a good time hunting together, but this was another great adventure.
Spence's buck didn't quite measure up to his last buck, but he's the best we saw and met our goal. We even tried to repeat a photo like our "perfect buck" hunt, but after looking at I realize that age is definitely getting me further away from "perfection"!
Happy hunting
We had a fantastic time looking over hundreds of bucks before pulling the trigger.
This time we dedicated a whole week to looking for an 80" or better buck. (knowing that was maybe the best we could hope for).
We repeated our "Nomad" style of hunting, camping out of our truck and just setting up camp at dark and being loaded and ready to go again at light the next morning. By hunting that way, we were able to look over most of the unit in 4 days. We also had some great advice from some fantastic MM readers allowing us to focus on some specific areas.
On this year's hunt, we again picked over hundreds of bucks and we even passed on a few we thought were close to our 80" standard, but we were still measuring success against "Perfection".
The night of day 4 we found a buck we were pretty sure would meet our goal. He was way out in a flat with his does so we put him to bed and came back in the dark in the morning. At first light we thought we had found him and when the buck stepped away from his does I shot him. Alas, like last time, he was the little brother of the one we were after. OOPs again!
After taking care of my buck, we decided to go back and find our original target. Sure enough, he was out in the flats with his does. By being patient we were able to sneak and crawl several hundred yards closer. We then waited 3 hours for him to make a mistake.
Late in the afternoon he got up to chase off an intruder buck and Spence made a great long range shot to put him down.
It's almost impossible to "repeat perfection" but man was it fun trying. My son and I always have a good time hunting together, but this was another great adventure.
Spence's buck didn't quite measure up to his last buck, but he's the best we saw and met our goal. We even tried to repeat a photo like our "perfect buck" hunt, but after looking at I realize that age is definitely getting me further away from "perfection"!
Happy hunting
Last edited:
