There is a bit of humor with this story, as Larry met me in by day job. He and the wife were looking at RV’s, in particular 5th Wheels. I gave him and wife some literature and my card. A couple of days later I get an email from Larry about Antelope-Pronghorn Hunting in Oregon. He has found my website and had put 2 and 2 together. I did send Larry waypoints that he loaded to his Garmin GPS. He is one of Oregon’s finest and knows how to use a GPS. He is 1 of 4 that drew Whitehorse Lope tags in 2013 that made contact with me. I did read that he found some private land to access. The waypoints that I gave him and the others were keys waypoints through-out the unit. Whitehorse Unit has lots of Pronghorns!
This is Larry’s Story as he has written it!
It was late, 11:30pm, when I drove into the hunt area about two hours south of Burns. This hunting trip hadn’t gone well so far. The season started on Saturday and I had training to attend on the following Monday and Tuesday, so wouldn’t get in until late Tuesday night. My hunting partner, Rich, had headed over from the Portland area on Saturday and had set up a base camp. The plan was for him to hunt Sunday, Monday and Tuesday while I would sleep in the front of my truck Tuesday night at the edge of the White Horse Unit and hunt for “speed goats” into base camp, Wednesday morning.
Tuesday morning, the last day of training, I received a text message from Rich letting me know that he was really sick, had pulled camp and was headed home. I knew it had to be bad as it had taken us six years to draw these tags. After training, I met Rich outside of Salem and caught up on the Antelope hunting, where to set up camp and how he was doing. Rich didn’t look good at all, but assured me he could make it home.
11:30pm, Tuesday, I pulled off the highway, opened a ranchers gate and drove back onto BLM land a couple hundred yards back and tried to sleep. Note to self… I’m getting too old to sleep in the front of a pickup truck…
5am Wednesday, my alarm goes off and I awake to a false dawn. It’s still warm, about 73 degrees and I work up a sweat just getting my rifle and hunting gear ready to go. Cold coffee left over from a few hours ago works for breakfast and I fire the truck up. The road is rough although I’m just idling along watching the desert come to life. About two miles back in, I see a herd of twenty antelope about 1500 yards away off to the south. A look through the spotting scope reveals one really nice buck, some smaller ones and the rest does. Driving until I get a hill between the herd and myself, I park, put on some knee pads and gloves, grab my pack and rifle and head up the hill. Nearing the top, I’m in a low crawl until I almost crest out. The herd is gone! I see three antelope does is all and behind them only a few yards away, a muley and yearling. All of them finally feed out of the area, over the ridge top and are gone. Making my way back to the truck, I’m sweating pretty well now; for sure have to stay down wind if I put the sneak on anything.
Heading on down the road, I finally experience for myself why folks call these critters “speed goats” and talk about their acute vision. Easy to spot in the desert, even at a thousand yards, I’d stop my truck to get the spotting scope up and they’d take off like they were shot out of cannon. I spotted half a dozen more small herds and some individuals and every time I’d stop, all I would see was a dust trail.
Seventeen miles back in, I found what was to be base camp. An old corral, offering some wind protection, although dry with no water in sight. After receiving hunt location information from Bwana Bubba-Frank Biggs, I explored the area at home on satellite maps and had the coordinates on several possible waterholes. Checking out several of these I found them to be all dry. Not much snow pack last year I guess. I made my way to what mapped out to be a big one, but found that dry as well. From there, I headed to a ranch I could see in the distance, a spot of green in an otherwise desert landscape.
Driving into the ranch, I made my way to the main house but didn’t find anyone at home. Then I decided to head back and break out my camping gear and set up in that old corral. Just as I was leaving the ranch property, here comes a truck herding a single pissed off cow with some impressive horns. The cow rushes past me and the cowboy gets out of the truck and we meet right there. Sporting a very large drop mustache, I can tell that this man has been up the creek and over the mountain. I introduce myself and we start talking about antelope hunting. Before it’s over, I’m up to date on speed goats and a much better place to camp. Just as I’m getting ready to leave, the ranch owner suggests that I take a different road back, up towards some rim rock where he has recently seen some nice bucks.
It’s now about 10:30am and I head up the road I was directed to. About a half a mile up, I see a buck in front of me about 800 yards out. I stop the truck but he doesn’t seem too interested. A closer look with my binoculars, just as he’s headed down a draw out of my sight and I see what at first appears to be a hell of cutter and I say out loud, “That’s a shooter!”
Grabbing my rifle and shooting sticks, I head out on foot where I last saw him. As I get within shooting distance of the draw, the buck I’d spotted breaks out at warp speed, 150 yards out, from my right to my left. I shoulder my 7mm Mag and follow him, leading just a bit and touch her off. The buck piles up, over on his back, kicks his legs about three times and then all is still. I scope him out and all I see are legs in the air. Watching him for a few minutes, I can tell this boy isn’t going anywhere except in the back of my truck.
I then walked back to get my truck and started a little cross country to get to my buck. About a hundred yards out from where he should be, I see a buck standing, looking at me. Stopping the truck, I open the door, throw my rifle up and take a closer look. I’m thinking, “Is that my buck? Did he get up? He IS standing a little weird and not moving!” Looking closer at his horns, they just don’t look right. I swing the rifle back a bit and see one leg of my down buck sticking in the air. Whew!!!! Glad I didn’t fire one off at that second one…. THAT would have been hard to explain!
Getting up to my buck, I discover that he is a non-typical. What I thought was a hell of a cutter was actually one horn down turned while the other was normal. 14″ on the good one and pretty good base. Not a record by any means, but a beautiful buck that will look great on my wall. The shot? Lucky! Blew the entire bottom half of his heart away.
Guess speed goats just can’t match 3,000 fps 7mm Mag bonded bullets.
Thanks Frank for all the hunt information!!!
