I had the pleasure of taking a friend of mine on his first ever successful big game hunt this past weekend. I worked for this gentleman years ago in the military and after he retired after 30 years of service, he moved back to Wyo where we met up for a few beers and he expressed interest in starting to hunt. Well we sat him down and gave him the lessons he needed and he put in for several tags. Well as luck would have he drew all three of his tags and I told him that'd I'd help him as much as I could. This hunt started out fairly surprising, we were covered up in antelope all morning and literally zero other hunters around in an area that has plenty of public and usually plenty of company. After a few stops we finally found a lone buck on public in an approachable area. After closer examination through the optics it was clear that the buck was a young'un but very approachable due to the terrain. He gave me the thumbs up and wanted to see if we could get in close to him, he was approx. 1/2 mile from the glassing point. We couldn't make a direct approach as we would crest several hills in the process that would be our demise, so we looked around and found a route that followed a low point of the hills without cresting any and stayed invisible until we would have to crawl to the top of one hill that should put us within 200 yards of him. Only problem is that this route would also render the buck invisible until the shooting spot. About halfway there we jumped a coyote that turned on the afterburners in a direct line of where the buck had been, we both said let a sigh out and figured he would spook the buck, but decided to continue. Once we were at the designated hill we crawled to the top and found nothing. He was gone. Figuring the coyote had spooked him we stood up and headed back to the truck to look for more elsewhere. We had gone about a 1/4 mile of walking at a fast pace and chit chatting when I happened to look over and much to my surprise, the buck had ran towards the truck but closer to the road and was grazing unalarmed. We instantly hit the ground, we crawled down to the bottom of the hill where we were able to close the gap from about 500 yards to about 250, but again we had to crawl to the top to avoid creating a silhouette. We got to the top and he was still there, but so was a truck that had stopped on the road. It was obvious that these fellas were interested in the buck and we could see rifles in the truck, the problem was that the buck was directly in-between us and the road. So to avoid being shot at I stood up and waved my hat, they instantly jumped back in the truck and bolted as did the buck. Another sigh and off we went in the direction of the truck when my friend spotted the buck headed directly at us at a jog. We hit the ground and got ready, to my disbelief the buck kept his pace and kept heading directly for us. My friend was ready but wasn't shooting, when the buck got about 60 yards in front of us he spotted us, but he just stopped and looked. No shots were fired, I whispered that he had better shoot the second he gets broadside. The buck turned broadside and still nothing, I looked over and in a excited, laughing voice I asked if he was going to shoot or not? Split second later the shot rang and the buck went down after a short sprint. After several high fives, relentless smiles, cold beer, an Uncle Charlie's jalapeno cream cheese smothered burger and a few pictures, a new hunter is now hooked on public lands!
