Mike's Version of the Facts
First posted October 27, 2009 Last edited October 28, 2009

Fri Oct 9 

The next day we hunted.  The ranch roads were all-weather gravel--we called 'em redrockroads--and looped here and there across the countryside.  My high-tech brothers were stopping every so often--no, no, not to scope out some 'lopes, oh no; they were entering way-points on their GPS's.  (We'll see where THAT got us, later).  I was crammed into the back seat, David was shotgun and Bill was spotting antelope (oh...and driving).  I must say, he DO have the eyes of a hunter.  At any distance you might imagine, he could see 'lopes.  I was so embarrased because I couldn't see half of them that he and David picked up, but I kept quiet.  Its enough to be privately a goofus without going public with it! (Bill: the windows in the back of the Bronco are tinted and dirty, no one could see out of those.) I finally redeemed myself with a bunch that I found first. 

 

Every so often, we would come to an open gate or a bison-guard (a cattle guard on steroids) that showed we were going from one pasture to another--these "pastures" were rarely less than a square mile!  We would also pass small buildings, which were gas pump stations.  Did I mention that the Durham ranch has gas and oil wells on it, as well (pun intended) as grazing meat animals, visiting hunters, a gravel quarry and who-knows-what other sources of income--quite an operation. With such diversification, there is no reason that property can't stay in the family for a long time, and that's good.

 

As Bill stated, we just did not see the quantities of pronghorn that we were expecting...we would drive and drive before we saw some more.  We did see the occasional whitetail and mule deer, two badgers, scads of bison, a rabbit and two coyotes.  Fun.  But we covered most of the ranch that first day (Bill: hardly!), getting a feel for the place and getting cold.  As dusk neared, we headed in.  We dared not stay out late...the terrain seemed so much the same, the lack of landmarks, the vastness, the difficulties of matching the ranch map to the topo map, all of it together could well mean "lost".  (Bill: we could have handled it with our GPS, no problem!) So we left the hinterlands and went to town to warm up and eat without having to work at it in the cold.  Bisonburgers...yum. 

 

After that, we returned to camp, warmed the tent a bit with the heater-buddy, dressed more warmly for sleep than the previous night, had toddies (them two) and rolled up.

Next: Saturday, Oct 10   Mike makes a kill (to be continued)