2007 Take a friend hunting!

Well actually I took a couple of friends hunting for pronghorn two weeks ago.  I would have posted something sooner but I didn't have pictures to go with the story.  Forgot my digital camera when I went hunting so had to use a disposable and took me a while to get the pictures developed.

The first friend I took hunting had just got back from Iraq in April. I gave him a landowner voucher since he didn't apply while in Iraq so he had a doe tag to go along with my buck. This was his first successful big game hunt that he ever had. Prior to going to Iraq he went on a deer hunt and never saw one deer.

The first day was kind of disappointing for him as he missed a couple of easy shots on does both right around 200 yard shots. He was getting really discouraged and saying that his gear wasn't good enough or that he hadn't spent enough time on the range. I just chalked it up to buck fever, plus I was helping a total of 11 hunters on opening day really limited my time to help him.

By the end of opening day most of my guys had filled their tags or had plans and couldn't come out on Sunday to hunt. The rest that hadn't filled their tags that were hunting were experienced enough I just turned them loose and let them fend for themselves so I could devote my time to helping my friend.

Some friend I turned out to be as I found a decent buck with a really wide spread on his horns and I had a buck tag. So I put a stalk on him and had a my tag filled by 7:30 on the second day. My friend was happy that I got my buck but he really wanted to fill his tag. Luckily a cold front had moved in so after field dressing my buck we could continue to hunt for his doe.

My little buck just barely went over 12.5" but had a really wide spread, wasn't the biggest I'd seen but he was unique.  I used a Parker Hale 1200 .270 Win with a Bushnell 3-12X40AO scope.  I'd hand loaded some 130 grain Hornady pushed by 62 grains H4831 which are giving me some great accuracy.

After about 3 hours of searching and one failed stalk we found 2 does grazing an old wheat field. We had to back out of one stalk and try a different angle because we would have been shooting directly at some house about a half a mile away if we had taken an shot at these does. The new stalk we put on had us crossing some pretty open terrain with very little cover to hide us.

We had one small hill between us and the does which we used to full advantage over this stalk. We had drove around to the houses that were in our line of fire and so that we had them to our back the whole time we crept up on these does. We were able to cover about 400 yards before the hill wouldn't hide us anymore, so we had to crawl thought the grass for about another 60. The lead doe had spotted us but got a little curious as to what we were so she started moving towards us with the other one in tow.

They got about 260 yards from us when they decided they were close enough and started moving away from us. I told my friend to set up for the shot and to watch the trail doe as she was presenting the best shot. I told him to aim half way up the rib cage and behind the shoulder and when that doe stopped moving to squeeze the trigger.

When the doe stopped my friend fired and the doe went down hard. I asked where he shot her, he said he was aiming for a high shoulder shot. He also admitted that he didn't have bad gear and his first day blunders were do to buck fever.  When we dressed out his doe she had two broken shoulders and a shattered spine. Plus my friend had the biggest smile on his face and it lasted all day. Sometimes helping someone get their game is more fun than if I had shot it myself.

My friend was using a Parker Hale 1200 model as well in .308 Win with a fixed 4X Bushnell scope.  He was using Hornady factory loads with 180 grain bullets.  Nice young doe that he shot, she was really fat and left a lot of grease on our knives.

This last picture is of another friend that I helped out this year to get his first big game animal in Colorado.  I met him at the range and we hit it off, he is pretty much my range partner from now on.  I did tell him not to shoot the first buck he saw, and I guess he didn't this was the second.  I would have liked to have found him something a little larger but he made the choice to squeeze the trigger.

His buck was taken at 350 yards with a Tikka 7mm Rem Mag, can't tell you the scope he used got a case of CRS.  He used Berger 168 grain VLD bullets, he didn't care for that bullet for hunting as it almost blew the opposite shoulder clean off.  He said next time he would go with a more traditional hunting bullet.

When all was said and done I had 8 out of 11 hunters fill tags.  These were just the only ones I was able to get pictures of.  Sorry for the poor photography, I went of and forgot my digital camear and had to use a disposable.