As I was leaving school for the day, I got a call from my dad. He quickly informed me that I had drawn out for an early season muzzleloader tag in New Mexico for antelope. This was very exciting news for me considering that I had a very low percentage of drawing that tag, but the most exciting part about it was that it was one of my first full hunting seasons. At the time, I was playing football at the University of Utah. After deciding to step away from football after playing for over 10 years, this coming fall was going to be my first full hunting season without school or football, so to say I was excited is an understatement.
When the day finally came to leave for the hunt, we left Salt Lake City early in the morning and landed in Phoenix at around 9 a.m. We were supposed to have a short layover and fly right to El Paso, but our flight had been cancelled due to a mechanical issue.
My dad quickly made arrangements to catch the next flight out, and we ended up having about a seven-hour layover in Phoenix. After a long day of waiting, we finally made it to our hotel in El Paso. We met up with our guide, Dave Brown, from Pronghorn Guide Service later that night. He broke the bad news that he had not seen any shooter bucks the last few days, but he was still hopeful that we would find one. Little did we know, the buck-of-a-lifetime awaited us.
We woke up at 4:30 the next morning. Without much small talk, we got loaded up in the truck and drove to the unit from Texas into New Mexico, which was about a one-hour drive. When we arrived, it was still very dark. Other than what we could see in the glow of the headlights, nothing was visible. As the sun began to come up and we headed closer to the intended fence line we wanted to hunt, we spotted our first buck of the day. About 200 yards directly to the right of our truck stood a buck that I would have considered to be a decent antelope, but my guide, Dave, quickly brushed off the buck, saying that it was too small for us to stop and set up the spotting scope. We drove for another 20 minutes without seeing any antelope, but it was just beginning to get light enough to hunt.
We reached the intended fence line and quietly got out of the truck. We all grabbed our packs and I grabbed the muzzleloader, and we began to make our way across the barbed wire fence that separated us from our target hunting area. We put our packs on and were walking slowly when Dave quietly ushered us to stop. My dad and I hadn’t even finished strapping on our packs when we looked up to see cattle scattered randomly on the small hill in front of us, not understanding why we were stopping. Dave quickly set up his spotting scope and told us where to find the buck he was looking at. We could immediately tell that this was a big buck. Dave quickly confirmed this and told me to get down and shoot this buck. We first ranged him at 260 yards. I checked my drop chart and dialed in the correct MOA on the Huskemaw scope. The antelope decided to trot even closer to us as he eyed a doe on the other side of the fence line. He was completely oblivious to us and kept trotting closer. He finally stopped, and Dave ranged him one final time. “200 yards exactly,” Dave whispered to me as I quickly checked the drop chart and made the final adjustment on the turret. Eyeing the buck, I raised the scope as I lay in a prone position, using my pack as my rest. The buck filled the entire scope, and this was when I realized that we were dealing with a very large buck. I quickly lined up the crosshairs at the front of his shoulder because he was quartering toward me. I held my breath and gently pulled the trigger. Through the ringing in my ears, I heard the .50 caliber muzzleloader round make contact with the buck, resulting in a loud “Whack!” He ran about 40 yards and tipped over. We were still in shock at how fast things had happened and exchanged high fives and hugs.
We slowly approached the antelope to make sure he was dead and would not bolt on us. As we got about 50 yards from him, I saw one of his horns sticking out from behind a small bush. I couldn’t believe the size of the horn that was visible. I was in disbelief when we finally got to him and realized how big he really was. All of our jaws dropped as we measured the length of his driver side horn. “He’s over 18 inches long!” Dave said in disbelief. We all sat in silence for a bit when it sank in that we had just taken a world-class antelope. We got the antelope butchered up and caped and began to head back to our hotel. After making such quick work of this amazing hunt, we decided to switch our flight and come home a couple days early.
Hunting with Dave Brown from Pronghorn Guide Service was an amazing experience. They are the best antelope guides in the business. My buck ended up grossing 92 3/8" and netting 91" on the dot. He was the buck of ten lifetimes and will be one of the top five bucks ever taken with a muzzleloader. My season just kept getting better after that.
I had drawn a limited-entry elk tag in Utah for the muzzleloader season and ended up taking a 367" bull on the third day. That was my first elk! It was another amazing hunt. We saw so many giant elk. There is nothing like hunting big bulls during the rut. I also took an awesome mule deer in Alberta, Canada on opening day. This was one of the first deer that we saw on opening morning, and we were able to get on him at first light. Alberta has some amazing mule deer; I would love to go back and hunt there again.
2019 will likely be one of the best years of hunting that I will ever have. I am so grateful that I was able to have such an amazing season thanks to my dad who has been my hunting buddy from day one. I look forward to all the years of hunting together we have to come.
New Mexico Pronghorn Antelope
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