Barnes Bullets

Bad Luck Good Luck

Successful Hunter - #14

Bad Luck Good Luck Prong Horn

By Clair Rees

I’ve never believed in omens, but it was beginning to look like someone didn’t want Troy Mann, Tim Janzen, Randy Brooks and me to go on this pronghorn hunt. We’d been planning the hunt for weeks. Randy, who is president and coowner (with his wife Coni) of Barnes Bullets, had earned his pilot license four years earlier and intended to fly us to New Mexico in his Cessna.

There, we would meet up with Editor Dave Scovill, who was driving in from Prescott. We’d all snagged coveted invitations to participate in the annual three-day hunt Steve McClure holds on his 80,000-acre Red River Ranch. McClure has several pronghorn permits available, but limits the number of hunters to eight.

My participation came into question when my wife, Dixie, learned I’d be flying with Randy in his singleengine plane. “No way!” she said, setting her jaw. “After some of Randy’s truck-driving stunts, I worry about him piloting an airplane. Couldn’t you drive down instead? Maybe take a Trailways bus?”

Randy is justly famous for a few truck- and boat-driving antics he survived in his younger days. For example, one evening he and his brother Bobby, who owned identical pickup trucks, decided to see who could climb the steepest hill. Randy soon high-centered his truck. In an effort to free the truck, the throttle was jammed part-way down with a stick while Randy and his brother started rocking the truck. Without going into further detail, suffice it to say the truck eventually came to rest four miles away, upside down in an irrigation ditch. As they searched for the truck with flashlights, a contingent of DEA agents (who thought the flashlights were being used to signal airborne “mules”) swooped down by helicopter and arrested the pair as suspected drug runners.

While this is how legends are born, Randy is now steadier and more mature. What’s more, he’s not a beginning flyer - he’s fully instrument rated and recently became certified to fly multiengine aircraft and just received his commercial license.

That’s the argument I used on my wife, but she remained skeptical. “I hope you enjoy your hunt, but I’d feel better if you weren’t flying with Randy.”

I thought it best not to mention the fact that Randy had crashed his plane two weeks earlier.

He and three passengers were flying home from a business trip when the engine quit 21,000 feet over the Wyoming desert. That shut off the oxygen, so he dove to 12,000 feet to get to breathable air. Then he coasted nearly all the way to a nearby airfield. Out of gliding room, he put the plane down a few feet short of the runway, clipping a fence post with the landing gear in the process.

While the Cessna was pretty well banged up, thanks to Randy’s cool skill, everyone walked away unhurt.

Randy’s plane was still undergoing repairs the morning we were scheduled to leave for New Mexico. Fortunately, Randy’s son-in-law Mike Patey offered to fly us down in his twin-engine Cessna 421. We took off at 8:00 A . M . to avoid afternoon thunderstorms that had been plaguing the landing area.

As we climbed away from the Spanish Fork, Utah, airport, the port engine began throwing oil. Mike made a fast U-turn to set us back down on the runway. He’d experienced a similar problem earlier and hoped the airport mechanics would be able to fix the leak in short order.

The mechanics unbolted the engine cowling and began examining the innards - then the landing gear’s starboard tire gave a loud “bang!” The valve stem had blown completely off, flattening the tire. Luckily, the valve stem had held until the airplane safely landed and was parked on the runway. Was someone trying to tell us something?

The tire was quickly repaired, but the parts needed to fix the engine had to be flown in from Grand Junction, which would take several hours. In the meantime, Mike’s plane wasn’t going anywhere. Randy promptly got on his cell phone and tried to locate some other pilot who could make the trip. A half-dozen calls brought no results, so we faced the only alternative.

“I guess we’ll have to drive,” Randy said. “It’s a 14-hour trip. If we start now we’ll get there just in time to start hunting.”

First things first. We stopped at a gas station convenience store to load up on goodies for the trip. That’s when we noticed one of the truck’s dual rear tires was flat. Next stop was a tire store, where a replacement was bought and installed.

In high spirits, we started again. Two miles later in the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon, the truck’s engine suddenly died. Another cell phone call brought a mechanic to the rescue. He installed a $110 part, which promptly failed 100 yards later. Was someone telling us something?

Dejected, we returned to the airport. It was nearly 3:00 P . M . Our transportation prospects were looking pretty dim, but our luck suddenly turned. Floyd Richey, a Good Samaritan who happened to be taxiing by, turned out to be a retired commercial airline pilot. His Cessna 421 was equipped with all the latest weather-avoidance radar and assorted other electronic goodies, making an afternoon flight into stormy weather feasible. He graciously offered to save our bacon, and a little over two hours later we touched down at the strip near Springer, New Mexico.

Our luck was finally turning. After a western-style barbecue dinner at the ranch house, the hunters retired to a huge wall tent erected for the purpose. Early the next morning we wolfed down bacon, eggs and Dutch-oven biscuits, then paired off with our guides.

Randy and Dave would be hunting together, while my hunting companion was Tim Janzen, Barnes’s R&D director. Our guide was Stan Bazant, a retired executive who’d been CEO of some major corporations. With ample time and money on his hands, he’d elected to spend part of his retirement as a now-and-then hunting guide.

“I love the outdoors and hunting,” he said. “I’ve done my share of hunting and now get just as much kick out of helping someone else take a nice trophy as I would shooting it myself.” He didn’t mention an obvious benefit. Because he wasn’t dependent on whatever money he earned as a guide, he could be picky about his clients. I just hoped Tim and I passed muster.

I won the coin toss for first refusal, so I rode shotgun while Tim took a seat in the back of the crew-cab pickup. It’d rained hard the past few days, and the sagebrush desert had begun drying out only the day before. Churned up by the ranch hand’s four-wheel-drive trucks, the dirt road was extremely rough and deeply channeled. We bounced around the Ram Charger’s cab like dice in a croupier’s cup. Our shoulder harnesses were left unbuckled in case a sudden sighting demanded a speedy exit.

I was using Remington’s Model 700 CDL (Classic Deluxe) rifle, which had been introduced earlier in the year. Ammunition was 7mm-08 handloads that started Barnes’s new 120-grain Triple-Shock X-Bullet at 3,140 fps.

Tim had chosen a Barrett autoloader chambered for the new 6.8mm military round. The load he’d developed threw an 85-grain X-Bullet at 2,750 fps. “I’ll have to get close,” he admitted. “This isn’t likely to get the job done at long range.” I kidded him about using a “black rifle” to hunt pronghorn, but he stuck by his guns. [No pun intended? - Ed.]

We spent the first part of the morning driving desert roads and keeping an eye out for any distant goats that might be worth stalking. Because any pronghorn we saw from the road would certainly have seen us first, we didn’t spend all our time in the truck. Instead, we’d drive to within 100 yards or so of a rise, then get out and walk until we could see what was on the other side.

Carrying binoculars and a spotting scope, we’d ease over the crest, keeping as low as possible to avoid being silhouetted against the sky. We saw plenty of pronghorn, including a herd of 30 or so animals we watched cross a ridge single-file. The ridge was a good 800 yards away, but something - maybe us - had spooked them into a hurried retreat.

“I don’t see any buck worth stalking,” Stan said, his eye glued to the spotting scope.

We admired the spectacle of so many graceful antelope flowing across the desert landscape, then moved on.

Twenty minutes later we crept to another ridge top. This time we spotted a small buck and doe barely 200 yards away. Oblivious to us, they strolled sedately through the sagebrush, eventually disappearing over a hidden rise. Another buck and his mate were resting in

the grass at considerably greater distance. Again, the spotting scope rejected him.

I was encouraged. We’d seen a fair number of pronghorn, and the morning was still young. More than once I’ve spent days on end, while seeing far fewer antelope. As we drove toward yet another ridge, Stan suddenly slammed on the brakes. “Look!” he said, pointing. “I think that’s a decent buck.”

The animal was on the driver’s side of the truck, and Stan was blocking my view. Grabbing my rifle and binocular, I bailed out of the passenger side. Tim followed with his Leica LRF 1200 rangefinder. A quick look through the binocular confirmed this was a shootable buck, but now he was on the move. All I could see were his head and black horns bobbing above the sage.

I ran forward 50 or 60 yards until I had a better view. Tim was close behind me, laser rangefinder at the ready. Quickly dropping to a sitting position, I unlimbered the Stoney Stix bipod. The steady rest gave me confidence as I lined up the crosshairs behind the buck’s shoulder.

Not yet badly spooked, the animal quartered away at a brisk walk. Meanwhile, Tim was reading the range: “291 yards . . . 310 yards . . . 318 . . .”

The rifle was zeroed to have the bullet cross the point of aim at 290 yards, so I held dead-on behind the shoulder and tripped the trigger. Almost every time I’ve “guesstimated” holdover, I’ve shot clean over the animal. My luck was still good, and the buck dropped on the spot. According to Tim’s rangefinder, he was 327 yards away.

I seldom measure horns or antlers, but the buck looked to be somewhere in the 14- to 15-inch class - not a monster wall hanger, but a respectable trophy. I’d killed the buck cleanly with a single shot and was pleased at how the rifle and Triple-Shock bullet performed.

After taking a few photos, we put the animal in the bed of the truck and returned to the ranch house for lunch. I was congratulated on being the first to score and for bringing in a respectable buck.

That afternoon, I rode in the rear seat while Tim sat alongside our guide. A half-hour out of camp, Tim spotted a small band of pronghorn in the distance. It included a buck with large, black horns.

Taking his binocular and rifle, he set off across the desert, heading toward where we’d last seen the tiny herd. Tim is a perfectionist and has a lot more patience than I have. I wasn’t surprised when an hour, then two passed without his return. As the shadows lengthened,

Tim finally appeared on the horizon.

“I just couldn’t get close enough for a decent shot,” he said, back at the truck. “I figure this 6.8 is a 150-maybe 200-yard rifle. Those goats knew I was there and kept their distance.”

“How about using my rifle?” I offered. “I don’t need it any more, and it has a lot more range.”

“Thanks, but I already have a spare back at the tent,” he said. He’d brought a custom rifle he’d built several years ago and carried in Africa last year. He’d also brought the rest of the .280 Remington X-Bullet handloads he had left over from that hunt.

The next morning passed without revealing any shootable bucks, so we returned to camp for lunch. The afternoon brought better prospects. We spotted two different bands of pronghorn moving in opposite directions along the far skyline.

“Get the spotting scope out!” Tim said. “I think I see some good horns in the band on the left.”

The 30x lens confirmed the presence of a shootable buck just before the animals drifted out of sight. Slinging his rifle, Tim grabbed a bottle of water and headed out. Carrying the spotting scope and tripod, Stan followed several yards behind him.

When last seen, the pronghorn were at least a half-mile from the truck and still moving away. Tim had some serious walking to do, but persistence and legwork eventually paid off.

Meanwhile, I lazed in the truck. I spent several minutes watching the other group of antelope after they reappeared and bedded down at a lasered 542 yards. Finally bored with that (there were no big bucks in the bunch), I spotted a badger making his way through the sagebrush not 30 paces away. During a fishing trip several years ago, I’d playfully chucked a rock at another badger that’d been quietly going about its business. The badger didn’t like it and came for me at a determined waddle. Considering the badger’s famous temper, razoredged teeth and steam-shovel claws, I decided to hurry on down the trail to the fishing hole.

This badger seemed unaware of my presence, and I didn’t feel like chucking rocks. Once the low-slung critter disappeared into the sage, I closed my eyes and napped.

Nearly three hours later, Stan appeared in the distance, waving for me to bring the truck. We drove to where Tim was waiting for us with the buck he had downed after our luck had changed.

Back at the ranch house, we admired the fine 15-plus-inch buck Dave had shot that afternoon.

Randy hadn’t hunted, but had come along to keep Scovill company. Yes, things were definitely looking up!

Our luck continued to hold the following morning, when Randy’s son-in-law Mike landed smoothly at the Springer airstrip right on time. The flight home was uneventful, with Mike taxiing up to the hanger just in time to avert another possible accident. I know I’m getting older when 2 1 ⁄ 2 hours in an airplane lacking a bathroom is pushing my limit.

This article first appeared in Successful Hunter Magazine #14, and is used here with permission.