Today was the opener for my wife's pronghorn season, she drew a tag for the Crook's Mountain area, west and south of Jeffrey City Wyoming. Area is high desert, some rolling hills with little vegetation other than meager grass and some scruffy sagebrush. Got out there about 0730 and spent an hour or so driving around looking for a likely place to put the sneak on one. We are in our 70's so don't need to be hiking too far.

We finally set up about 400 yards or so above a small reservoir, glassing the few animals that were in the area. After a bit, two single bucks left the draw and climbed to the top of the ridge to our right, about 300 yards from us. She didn't want to take a skyline shot, so we waited until the bucks were out of sight over the ridge, then walked up to the top, peeking over a small hill. Both bucks were there just grazing, about 100 yards apart. She made her way to a small group of sagebrush about 50 yards from me, got down into prone, rested the rifle on a bush and dropped the larger of the two bucks: one shot, one pronghorn. Shot him in the base of the neck, he never stirred out of his tracks. I later ranged the distance, 242 yards. We had him dressed, skinned out and cooling on the tailgate by 10:00 AM.

I was proud of my wife, she has hunted for years and this was one of her longest shots. She shoots a model 722 Remington , a Weaver K6 scope from the same era, 257 Roberts cartridge, with 100 grain Hornadys and 44 grains of H4350. What a great old cartridge, she has seldom had to shoot twice.

Coming through the checking station, the G&F biologist measured the buck at 14 1/4' and said he was about 4 years old.

Was plumb disgusted when I loaded the pix I took, me "autofocus" camera didn't, came out blurry but you get the idea. A perfect day for this geezer and his geezerette.

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Happiness is a cool carcass and a cold Bud.
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