It's wild how things take a turn. Some times for the best and some times it feels like a wrong turn.
We made all kinds of turns last Saturday. Fortunately, one turn was the best for "lucky" and the other turn was best for my wife.
Since making the move to WY my wife and I had to "cash" in our preference points. As most know, I burned my elk points with BuzzardBreath and my wife, she cashed in her pronghorn points.
It's a good/great unit. Has the genetics for true trophy class critters but most importantly to her, it had a metric ton of public land with a large percentage of it holding these prairie lobsters.
Coming off the winter kill a couple winters back we knew the population and quality would be down. It's the cards we were dealt but during some scouting trips we found enough animals to hunt, definitely a bonus.
Saturday was our third day hunting. The two hunts prior produced a lot of stalks but one thing or another kept her from pulling the trigger. I'll explain my perspective, which is obviously not hers.
A.) She is a perfectionist. If things aren't
she ain't doing it. Wind to gusty, animal to angled, etc. Not a bad trait but she didn't want to hear that it's ok if it's 90%, lung shots kill em too, you don't just have to shoot the heart!
B.) This perfectionism is great but in hunting, if you are not quick with it, you'll loose most opportunities. She had a solid 80" loper sub 100 yards one day but she kept micro adjusting the tri pod legs. I mentioned that was the one and only "give me" of the hunt, she didn't like the comment so needless to say we went home for the day
Back to Saturday. It was the start of my daughter's mini fall break. All three of us had a nice breakfast, loaded in the pick up and drove out.
She put on about 4-5 good stalks. The bucks in this portion of the unit were still rutting hard so getting under 300 yards and finding one to stand still long enough was next level.
With my daughter in the back asking "did you get your deer" each time we got back (on the ones she didn't go with us on) and forever asking "is it time to leave yet", we decided to head North into some new country.
20+ highway miles later we come to an intersection. I come to a stop and see a dog running across the highway to me. I tell my family to close their eyes, I just knew this pooch was about to get smashed. Luckily, she avoided near death. My wife tells my daughter to open up the door. As she does, this pooch with a chain hanging from her collar hops in.
It's like she belonged there. Barely able to catch a breath she lays down on my daughter's lap and we formulate a plan. We go to two separate ranches and ask about her. First one never seen her, second one claims a sheriff deputy picked her up a couple weeks back and brought her to the pound.
We pretend like we never met and I told the family "looks like we might have a new dog". The thought of this dog running wild in the middle of nowhere with a chain attached to her pissed me off and caught a soft spot in my heart. How well she took to my daughter topped it off. I told them we would take her home and figure it out later. Part of me wanted to keep her but deep down I knew we had to do something.
My daughter with the pooch. This was not much more than a couple hours after finding her. The herding dog wasn't about to leave her new cowgirl.
We made all kinds of turns last Saturday. Fortunately, one turn was the best for "lucky" and the other turn was best for my wife.
Since making the move to WY my wife and I had to "cash" in our preference points. As most know, I burned my elk points with BuzzardBreath and my wife, she cashed in her pronghorn points.
It's a good/great unit. Has the genetics for true trophy class critters but most importantly to her, it had a metric ton of public land with a large percentage of it holding these prairie lobsters.
Coming off the winter kill a couple winters back we knew the population and quality would be down. It's the cards we were dealt but during some scouting trips we found enough animals to hunt, definitely a bonus.
Saturday was our third day hunting. The two hunts prior produced a lot of stalks but one thing or another kept her from pulling the trigger. I'll explain my perspective, which is obviously not hers.
A.) She is a perfectionist. If things aren't
she ain't doing it. Wind to gusty, animal to angled, etc. Not a bad trait but she didn't want to hear that it's ok if it's 90%, lung shots kill em too, you don't just have to shoot the heart! B.) This perfectionism is great but in hunting, if you are not quick with it, you'll loose most opportunities. She had a solid 80" loper sub 100 yards one day but she kept micro adjusting the tri pod legs. I mentioned that was the one and only "give me" of the hunt, she didn't like the comment so needless to say we went home for the day
Back to Saturday. It was the start of my daughter's mini fall break. All three of us had a nice breakfast, loaded in the pick up and drove out.
She put on about 4-5 good stalks. The bucks in this portion of the unit were still rutting hard so getting under 300 yards and finding one to stand still long enough was next level.
With my daughter in the back asking "did you get your deer" each time we got back (on the ones she didn't go with us on) and forever asking "is it time to leave yet", we decided to head North into some new country.
20+ highway miles later we come to an intersection. I come to a stop and see a dog running across the highway to me. I tell my family to close their eyes, I just knew this pooch was about to get smashed. Luckily, she avoided near death. My wife tells my daughter to open up the door. As she does, this pooch with a chain hanging from her collar hops in.
It's like she belonged there. Barely able to catch a breath she lays down on my daughter's lap and we formulate a plan. We go to two separate ranches and ask about her. First one never seen her, second one claims a sheriff deputy picked her up a couple weeks back and brought her to the pound.
We pretend like we never met and I told the family "looks like we might have a new dog". The thought of this dog running wild in the middle of nowhere with a chain attached to her pissed me off and caught a soft spot in my heart. How well she took to my daughter topped it off. I told them we would take her home and figure it out later. Part of me wanted to keep her but deep down I knew we had to do something.
My daughter with the pooch. This was not much more than a couple hours after finding her. The herding dog wasn't about to leave her new cowgirl.
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