March 2017: The West Virginia Bowhunters Association has an annual awards banquet and bi-annually, give away a hunt. It’s called the 500 club drawing. Any member who scores 500 at one of our shoots is given a certificate. Five of those certificates will give you one chance in the 500 club bi-annual drawing for a hunt. I’ve been hording the darn things for about 30 years and had 30 certificates so that gave me six chances in the drawing.
The hunt this year was a pronghorn hunt on the Robinson Ranch, a.k.a., Pronghorn Ranch, north of Douglas, WY. A lot of WVBA members have hunted this ranch over the past several years and the owner, Jay Butler had graciously donated this hunt to us.
This particular hunt peaked my interest as I’d hunted a ranch that bordered it, the LaBar Ranch, back in 1989, and thought it would be great to go again. This would be a four day and five night hunt with accommodations and assistance from the ranch personnel.
J.W., my oldest son, attended this year’s banquet and at about 8 p.m. my home phone rang; it was J.W. He said, “Dad, you just won a pronghorn hunt in Wyoming.” GOOD FOR ME! Now all I had to do was apply for my license and get there.
It’s been 28 years since I’ve hunted pronghorns. I really enjoyed the few times I’ve hunted them. The country is so different and this eastern hardwoods guy just likes being where pronghorns and mule deer live.
Gee Whiz! Who is that kid.
April 2017: The first call I made was to the contact person and fellow WVBA member, Rusty Reed. He gave me a lot of details about the hunt along with the telephone number for the owner, Jay Butler. I called Jay Butler, of Robinson Ranch (hunting operation known as, Pronghorn Ranch), to confirm dates, units, etc. He said the first two weeks already had too many folks booked and suggested I come the week of September 10 (the third week). He said that week was not full and he had room for other hunters. He gave me leave to invite others so I called Al Smith and Jim Mann; both got on board and the hunt was set.
Friday, Sept. 8, 2017: Al Smith and I pulled out at 7 a.m. to head for Greenfield, IN, to pick up Jim Mann. After picking up Jim, we went on to Davenport, IA and spent the night. We had great weather for the drive.
Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017: Left Davenport early and planned to travel to Ogallala, NE and spend the night. We had another beautiful day to travel. Once we arrived in Ogallala, we checked the weather forecast. We couldn’t have asked for anything better for a waterhole pronghorn hunt—hot and dry with no rain in sight.
Sunday, Sept. 10, 2017: We arrived at the ranch in the early afternoon. Jay Butler took us out to show us some waterholes. We were concerned that his blinds may not be tall enough to accommodate shooting our recurves, so we all took our blinds with us. Sure enough, we decided on which places we’d hunt and changed out his blinds for ours. We saw several bucks in each pasture that would certainly meet our expectations. None of us were trophy hunters; we’d all decided that a good representative animal would be just fine.
Following the brief tour of the ranch, getting our bows ready for the hunt and stowing our gear in camp, which was a modern three bedroom, two bath house, Jay and his wife, Linda treated us to a wonderful dinner after which it was off the bed.
Monday, Sept. 11, 2017: Up at 3:30 a.m. Jay suggested we leave no later than 5 a.m. to make sure we were in our blinds by 5:30 a.m. I had a nice buck coming in at about 8 a.m. on the first morning. When he got to about 50 yards out I began to prepare for a shot. As he came into view thru my left window, I heard this strange, loud noise which turned out to be a Great Blue Heron that flew in, landed on top of my blind and scared the buck off. When the bird set down on my blind he collapsed the top and the metal hub hit me on top of my head--scared the beegeebers out of me. He pitched off the collapsed bind and landed on the dam of the pond. He was feeding on salamanders in the pond. Later, when I popped the ceiling back up, he flew off. I figured the day was ruined, for this buck. I had several more bucks come in but I passed on them as they were all smaller than the one the Heron scared away and I hoped he'd come back in over the next few days.
Well... he did come back in about about 9 a.m. He walked all the way around the blind, keeping close to the pasture fence, then ran off back into the prairie. Several more came in, but again I passed as the bucks were all smaller too.
At about 10 a.m. I looked back to see six does coming in from behind me with "my" buck following them. The does went around to my right, while the buck broke and came in the from the left. He stepped up on the dam of the pond, stopped and was looking across the pond at his harem on the other side offering me a perfect quartering away shot at about 16 yards. I sent the .400 full length Goldtip Traditional Hunter arrow, tipped with a 145 grain Grizzly broadhead his way out of my Hoyt Satori riser and 44# Uukha limbs.
The arrow hit him perfectly; I watched it disappear thru him. He turned and ran toward the prairie and fell about 60 yards from my blind.
I got word in the late afternoon that Big Al had hit a buck and Jim had shot at one.
Turned out that “Big” Al Smith shot a buck in the early afternoon on Monday. He’d hit him a little high and only caught the top of one lung. That evening, Jim Mann and I helped him look for the buck. It didn’t take long to locate him and we watched the buck until dark and went back to camp.
Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2017:
After taking Jim to his stand on Tuesday morning, Al and I went back on top to look for the buck. We found him just after first light and the chase was on. Al dogged him for about an hour and the buck just gave up. Al simply walked up to him and finished the task.
Unfortunately, Jim Mann didn’t connect on a buck. We met some great folks in camp and Jay Butler, his wife ,Linda and his ranchhand, Josh were very accommodating and gracious.
We had perfect weather for this waterhole hunt--hot and dry. This ranch is full of pronghorns the size of the ones we shot.
I’d like to express my appreciation to Jay Butler for donating the hunt, the WVBA for acquiring it, and to “Big” Al Smith and Jim Mann for tagging along and putting up with me.
If any of you guys are ever interested in this hunt, you can reach Jay Butler thru his Facebook page at:https://www.facebook.com/Pronghorn.Ranch.WY/
Topic: 2017 Wyoming Pronghorn (Read 2666 times)
