Wyoming Antelope Hunt

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– Jason Ramthun (GMAN).

Well October 14th finally came, truck packed and 3 hunters ready to hit the road for our 11 hour drive to Buffalo Wyoming.

Once we got to Buffalo we knew we had our hands full with a foot of wet snow on the ground, not much time on our hands to get a camp set up and go look for some animals before dark. But it all came together and we found a nice spot and found time to hit one of our best spots.

We all decided that we are going with plan A and that was one of our walk-in ONLY spots. We all love this spot because it really hold the goats and we don’t see many hunters because no one really wants to walk in and hunt them. So with this said we only had to walk in about 2 1/2 miles the first night, find a nice high point so we could just see down into the low land and see the ponds. With good binoculars in hand we could see about 100 or so goats down in the low lands, 20 of them being bucks but only 2 bucks that we would call good shooters.

I’m thinking we kind of looked like 3 kids at a candy store as we walked back to the truck talking about all the goats, hunting these goats in the snow and watching the sun go down as we walked out, what a great first day in Wyoming.

It was time for some food and then plan was to hit the pillow early so we could be on that high point early morning watching these same Antelope again. Woke up in the morning and it was about 31 degrees out, WOW now that is cold goat hunting if you ask me. We headed down to our spot, drove in and no other trucks to be seen. GAME ON MEN, we got it all to ourselves today. With our happy game faces on we hike them 2 1/2 miles that morning like nothing. Get to our high point and as the sun comes up we got goat all over the place and yes we do see one of the big boys down on the lower half of this BLM land. This BLM land is at the base of the Big Horn mountains so we are not in just flat land areas and this makes it a blast for spot and stalk on these animals. We are about 3 more miles from these goats and need to set up a game plan and get after them. At this point we have about 100 or so Antelope on the lower right corner and about 10 on the lower left corner by the big pond. So we split up with me taking the lower left and the other two taking the lower right. Our game plan is to walk down these deep ditches very slow, like I said these goats are at least 3 miles from us and we will not see them for at least the first 2 miles of this stalk. So you need to walk slow, take your time and glass often (they move around a lot). For one you don’t want to jump mule deer or other goats and send them running all over and scare your goats off.

After a good hour, I popped up about a mile from the goats and see the other guys are about ready to pop up and see if the goats have moved on them or not. Well, I told myself I needed to get up to this fence and just sit and wait till I find these goats I was watching from up high. When I got there, I found them about 300 yards off walking right at me but the buck was not the big one. By this time I could see the other 2 guys moving low and fast behind a good size hill about a minute later BANG a shot fired off and 3 more shots followed. No matter what, you need to hold tight after someone shoots these goats will make big circles or push other goats around.

After about 20 minutes of seeing goats way off in the distance, I wanted to get about 50 yards further so I could see the next gully. As I moved up closer, I had 2 doe’s walk out of the gully at about 200 yards in my direction. I got my shooting sticks up and ready with my gun sitting at my side. I caught some movement off to my right, crap it’s a big buck running down into the gully. He must see these doe’s in front of me. So I get everything ready when he suddenly pops out at about 250 yards. He just slowly walked in looking at the doe’s. I was wishing in my head, come on keep coming, keep coming. Luckily, he did just that by walking another 50 yards and stopping at some sagebrush to rub is horns on. He gave me a real good look. I knew he was real tall, had big cutters and great hooks on him, so I better take him. He picked his head up and walked about 2 steps towards the does and I put him in my scope and pulled the trigger. BANG, a 200 yard shot and I had dropped a BIG Wyoming Antelope buck on opening day! Man I was pumped up. I walked out to see him and I was wishing I had someone to give a high-five or something to, but instead I got on my phone to some great buds back home and told them I had a big speed goat down on the Wyoming ground !

We could have shot 5 doe’s and 2 bucks per guy this year but we decided 8 was a good number for all 3 of us so we ended the trip with 3 bucks and 5 doe. Great time and can’t wait for next year!

Jason Ramthun (GMAN)