My favorite hunting moment..... so far!
Nothing to do with Africa, but I thought some of you might find this interesting. Last year four of us drew antelope tags in Wyoming on a public lands hunt. My son was 12 at the time and this was his first real big-game hunt. We planned a long weekend and drove over to stay at my brother-in-law's place.
Early opening morning we came upon this nice little antelope buck. After a few seconds he took off and we figured that was that. We decided to walk over to the ridge to see if we could spot him again. Sure enough, I could see his head but my 4 foot-nothin' son couldn't see him at all. We spent a few frustrating minutes trying to get him in position for what would have been about a 150 yd shot. After a few minutes of this the antelope spooked again and slowly trotted away.
For some unknown reason, like they sometimes do, he decided to cut back and give us one more look. I knew he was out there a bit and got my son in a cross-legged position with a solid rest on the bipod.
The rest you can see on video here.
What a thrill! Had I really known it was 300+ yards I don't think I would have let him shoot. They're a pretty small target even up close. That flat, barren ground in WY can really fool you into thinking things are closer than they are. Needless to say, he impressed me and the rest of the group with a very nice 1 shot kill. He looked up at me later and said "What's so hard about that?"
Spoiled little turkey. Those hours at the range really paid off. He went through several hundred rounds of .22 earlier that summer learning how to shoot. What a great payoff on the investment.
I took a nice buck later that evening and my dad connected with a nice 14" buck the next day. Good times.
.257 WBY in a Vanguard Rifle, 3-9x Leupold, 110gr accubonds. That little dude handles this rifle very, very nicely. I was quite surprised. His control at the range is iimpressive for something with a bit more recoil than almost anyone would recommend for a kid this size. I would have gone with something smaller for his first year, but he also had an elk tag in an Idaho hunt in very wide-open terrain. We looked and didn't find on that hunt, but that's what next year is for.
