By Mike Handley
-- Imagine that you’re standing motionless within the scratchy embrace of a fallen cottonwood limb. Thirty yards in front of you stands a mature white-tailed buck — an 8-pointer — fixated on the weird man-shape that he doesn’t recall ever being in that spot before you got there. About 160 yards beyond the whitetail, yet framed by his thick beams, a pronghorn buck is bedded up to his chin in tall brown grass, surrounded by eight girlfriends busy mowing the prairie.
Photo: Fat 6 1/2-inch bases and 14 1/2-inch horns bewitched the author, who hunkered down for two hours in order to get a shot at this, his first pronghorn. The buck scores 77 inches, just 3 inches shy of the B&C awards minimum.
Sounds like a real Kodak moment, huh?
Well I don’t have to imagine it. I lived it ... on opening day of South Dakota’s 2001 antelope season. It was my first trip to that part of the country and my maiden hunt for pronghorns. Five hours into my hunt, I was hooked. I was also finished!
I’d been glassing the small group of antelope for two hours — the last hour while the lone buck lay in the grass. They were certainly within shooting range, but I had no shot unless I tried one through his coal-black eye.
Trees are extremely sparse in the state’s northwest corner, but I’d been fortunate to find a few lining a shallow drainage that allowed me to stalk within a comfortable distance of the animals without being seen. Actually, a few whitetails and some mule deer saw me, but the ’lopes didn’t.
They did see the 8-pointer, however, and when he decided that it was time to get out of there, they concurred, which was okay by me.
The harem took off, running single file, with the sultan bringing up the rear. My aching back and legs were happy that the moment had arrived, but I was going to have to attempt a nearly 300-yard, offhanded shot at a loping target. If I’d had more time to think about it, I surely would have missed.
I found the buck in my scope, pulled the crosshairs in front of him, and let him run into them. After my old Remington barked, the group hastened its retreat. But 50 yards farther, they all stopped. I searched their heads for horns, saw none, and then I counted them: eight does and no buck. So I slowly panned the horizon until I saw some white legs below the canopy of the only tree in sight.
The buck was standing, not moving, and then — to his harem’s and my astonishment — he buckled. I could see his labored breathing. The 165-grain bullet had torn through his lungs. Truth be known, I’d probably choke if faced with that kind of shot ever again. But I’d somehow pulled it off, and I was high on the adrenaline rush.
I waited several minutes for him to expire, and then I just had to get a closer look. When I was about halfway to him, he somehow found enough strength to stand. Since he was on a ridge and facing away from me, I worried that he might disappear. Before he could think about it, I put a second bullet in him.
Fifteen minutes later, the big Ford van pulled up beside my prize and me. The side doors opened and the wheelchair lift whirred and folded outward.
My beaming guide, Randy Routier, rolled onto the platform. “That’s a nice buck!” he said. “Becky, I want a closer look at him.”
Fourteen-year-old Marvin Hee-sacher, Randy’s cousin who was along for the ride, was already kneeling beside and admiring the buck.
Becky Holsti, who’d been expertly driving us across miles of open prairie, helped Randy off the lift and made sure the path was clear enough for his wheelchair. Randy is a quadriplegic, whose young career as a bronc buster was abruptly ended in 1997 following a nasty fall that injured his spinal cord.
His unbridled passion for hunting, intimate knowledge of the family’s 50,000-acre ranch and its resident wildlife, and his determination not to be confined within four plaster walls make him the perfect outfitter. His mom, Laurie Goehring, started the outfitting business 11 years ago. Now it belongs to Randy, who only recently celebrated his 21st birthday.
Randy’s eyesight is astounding. Prior to my striking out after the group of antelope containing the buck that made a South Dakota taxidermist about $300 richer, we rode around and looked at close to 100 pronghorns. Even from distances of 400 to 600 yards, his unaided eyes could see what I was looking at through binoculars.
Even though his own sprawling, fifth-generation ranch is teeming with wildlife, Randy leases the hunting rights on a buffalo ranch near Camp Cross, S.D., because the land flanks the Little Missouri River. The river bottoms offer a lot more bedding cover for whitetails, mule deer and Merriam’s turkeys, but the plains also are home to some very large pronghorns, which see very little hunting pressure since most of Randy’s clients are deer hunters.
This makes for some fabulous antelope hunting, even on his own property. In fact, the only other pronghorn hunter there with me (who possessed a buck tag), affixed his hot pink leg band to a 13 1/2-incher on opening day as well, not too far from the main ranch house.
Dan Gulay and his son, Adam, have been making the long drive from Sioux Falls to Randy’s ranch for three years. Adam, who’d drawn a doe tag, could’ve taken his that first day, too. From what I saw, the three-day rifle hunt (which is half the price of a deer hunt there) is about two days too long!
Before driving the 2 1/2 hours from the Rapid City airport to the Goehring-Routier Ranch, I stopped at a store and bought $60 worth of groceries — my week’s rations, since meals are not part of the hunt package. I’d only consumed four slices of bread, four wieners, a banana and a “Nutty Buddy” when I started packing for home.
Clients stay in a simple two-bedroom house. I’ve stayed in much fancier places, but I’ve never been more content, since I value hunting far more than frills or meals. And the hunting was outstanding!
– Mike Handley
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