Mustangs Rule’s The Floating Antelope Hunt" full edition dedicated to EKYhunter

[Khunter]

Reposting of the incredible saga in a single thread as a courtesy to @Mustangs Rule

Part One: Buddy Holly energized a sleepy America. His songs and guitar playing went from 0 to 60 in a heartbeat! Gas was 19 cents/gallon and muscle cars were born then. Vrooom Vrooom !

This antelope hunt was going to be a race, with them and hypothermia!

I was driving along the Green River in Wyoming’s Wind River Range, went around the corner on a dirt road, and bang!

In the distance there they were. About a dozen antelope across the river in dedicated wilderness, browsing their way upstream. Soon they would come to a side canyon and could be gone. I knew the country, stopped, backed up and hid behind a hill which offered cover to the river.

 

[Khunter]

The race was on!

No time to unload my canoe to paddle across. Grabbed my model 70/270 and my day pack. Like a hound on a hot trail, I was off and running.

Splash! I forded the river, frigid fall water. Was deeper than I thought, cold wet nuts. What a way to start a late season doe hunt with snow coming!

Below is a link to his huge 1957 hit “Peggy Sue”! Such an explosion of energy. The musicians are in a race. The pounding guitar solo is like the galloping horsepower of the then hot new 283 V8 Chevy motor. I had one in 1967!

Buddy Holly provides this Hunt saga intermission to get primed for Part two of this fight to the death Doe antelope adventure:

 

[Khunter]

Part Two

Except for the surprise deep hole I stepped in, it was an easy crossing, sandy bottom, slow current and wide. I scrambled out, took advantage of some cover and glassed upriver.

They were still, browsing, walking, stopping, heads going up and down.

The cover was minimal. Scattered shrubs, almost like a see through green lace. I hated the thought of it, but walking in the river along the bank, being so much lower, having some shrubs to grasp onto for balance, was the fasted unseen way to them.

I loaded the magazine, nothing in the chamber, slung my rifle over my shoulder and went overboard again into the getting faster cold water.

I was wearing classic heavy Italian hiking boots with a thick Norwegian welt, and Vibram sole. In the water, with them full of water, I felt like Frankenstein wearing a deep sea diver’s lead boots. At least my feet were supported but the hard sole was slick on hard wet rocks. Plus the current was fast and strong enough to push my feet around at each step

The race was really on, they seemed to be walking more and browsing less. Several times I thought I had a shot but the combination was just not right.

 

[Khunter]

I was just fumbling along at my best. Going up stream, the river was getting narrower, deeper and with a faster current. Grabbing the base of the thickest shrubs on the bank was becoming more and more critical to keep from being swept away! The splashing water was up to my hips now. I was losing heat fast from my core and shivering badly.

Finally, there was the right opportunity on the last in line few antelope that could be seen. Except for shivering the shot was easy…..

 

[Khunter]

….and a big doe antelope dropped like a stone.

I do not know what was worse. Being in the fast cold water, or being so wet in a fast cold wind.

Normally I would be gutting her out fast and out of Grizzly country quickly. Dragging her back to the easy crossing I had used and into my truck.

Nothing at all was normal now. I was feeling weak and clumsy, I had been in the river for over a half hour. I stood on the edge the bank and maybe fifty feet across a now deeper, narrower and much faster flowing river, there was a flat place, lower and out of the wind.

 

[Khunter]

Just 50 feet away?

Antelope have hollow hair. Adds to their insulation. I dragged her into the river in stillest place possible. She floated well.

In my head I was trying to do some impossible flotation math as I tied my day pack and rifle on her. Nothing else for me to hang on to if the water got too deep except for her? Would she sink then. Would my gear and gun be lost!

I knew going straight across was impossible in the strong current. I would end up downstream, how far? There was what looked like a good landing place, rock free on the other side. I launched her.

She floated pretty high. When my feet slipped and needed to hang on to her, she sank more but still, was above water.

In a few seconds we were on the other side, I was unharmed except for now being totally soaked to the bone, exhausted, weak, and violently shivering.

 

[Khunter]

Part three: Survival!

I pulled her to a flatter grassy place then rolled over on my back and just faded away. No more shivering. Didn’t feel cold, Just felt dreamy and wanted to sleep and close my eyes. I was losing my race with hypothermia.

Going back to the 1970’s, Eddie Bauer was then selling clothing that were real outdoor and even frontier worthy

One item which I bought then was a matching set of super course wool underwear top and bottom. They were made by and for Norwegian fishermen who might be exposed to hypothermia in so many ways, and were dyed jet black. The wool used to make this underwear was supposed to have been cut from the sheep’s back which is where, by the needs of nature, the most lanolin, wool oil is.

In the product description they advised a buyer that washing, even dry cleaning could compromise the lanolin. This seemed like an odd way saying “don’t wash them”. I guess a little extra odor would not be a big deal to these already smelly fishermen.

We all know that oil and water don’t mix. Outdoor wisdom suggests wearing wool because even when wet it still retains the majority of its heat retention properties. But there is more.

Recent studies have taken this further. When wool gets wet, it actually produces heat. The oil and water are making heat chemically by repelling each other. Polar and non-polar molecules are in a heat/calorie producing fight.

 

[Khunter]

This underwear outlasted two wives.

Both were obsessed with washing these garments, which I never allowed. We had fights over this. My first wife named my underwear “Black Stench”, but twice it saved me from hypothermia. Once after breaking through thin ice and getting totally submerged at 10 below zero while deer hunting back east.

Beyond my underwear I was totally dressed in the best wool.

I woke up with my face feeling this stinging sensation. It was snow falling. A front was coming in. And I was shivering again. A good sign, my body was coming back to to life. Rapid muscular contractions to produce heat. I turned my head, saw the dead antelope with my rifle and pack still tied to her.

I felt my body growl….

 

[Khunter]

My hand reached down for my WW2 U.S.N. pilots' knife that has become such a part of my life. It felt right in my hand. Always has.

I had it with me 53 years ago when I was taken with a notion to cross part of the Canadian Rockies alone with it as my only weapon/tool. I had a brown canvas Boy Scout backpack I named “Brownie”. Used hiking boots I bought in a pawn shop in Tucson. Arizona. No tent, no maps available then, no trail system, just go, me and my knife into the big, lonely country.

I got on my knees, this with this “life partner knife” in my hand, was still shivering but gutted her out about as carefully as a hungry bear or wolf would.

Then I saw what I craved, her steaming hot bloody liver.

I gobbled it down, maybe half drinking it. Felt the juicy warmth on my face, in my mouth, down my throat, dripping down my neck and then into my stomach.

 

[Khunter]

Never had such a savage experience before when eating anything. I wasn’t eating. I was blood thirsty and gorging on heat and energy. My hands were all bloody.

My shivering stopped.

Absolutely never, will I hold this kind of survival “blood lust, meat lust” against any predator fighting to stay alive. I got it, deep and personal!

I finished gutting her out properly. Felt my warmth and energy return. Walked back downstream to my truck and got into warm dry wool clothes. I wasn’t a bit hungry for typical carbohydrate high sugar snacks. They seemed like “toy food” to me then.

I started the truck, soon felt the heater working, saw the snow building up on my windshield and went back for my antelope.

In all these doings it never occurred for me to look in the mirror. When I did, I laughed real loud. Then I washed all the dried blood off my face and neck.

I am now 77, but was in my early 60’s then, getting old or getting better! In 1962 the 283 V8 Chevy motor became the famous 327 V8. Vroom Vroom ! Automotive history was made.

Was this hunt and the risks worth it ? Hell yeah! It felt so good to feel such high performance inside me coming out. To feel so alive !

In a real adventure you should get to look over the edge, with the confidence that you have skills and grit not to fall into the abyss and then come home safe and sound

It was such a great solo hunt, with my red handled USN knife and my old model 70/270 Winchester. My Dear old Carbon Steel Friends.

Oh, here is my favorite Buddy Holly song. “Rave On” Lots of high 427 V8 energy “Vroom Vroom”! I had one on those too, when a dollar bill got you just over 5 gallons of gas.

https://www.bing.com/videos/rivervi...CA8E00FEB6BB7E25AA32CA8E00FEB6BB7&FORM=VAMGZC


Hope Guys enjoyed this ride. “Hunt On” from @Mustangs Rule