One Heck Of A Ride

73 Pronghorn antelope taken with guide Royce “Pancho” Maples near Claunch, New Mexico, 2011 Other North American Game had built the camp we shared along a willow- choked stream out of the wind in the Red Desert. A hunter in Wyoming’s sage country is seldom out of sight of antelope, and it didn’t take long for us to collect our bucks. My friends and I hunted antelope inWyoming several times after that, and we always returned with bucks. We didn’t shoot the first legal animals we saw, but we also weren’t trophy hunting in those days. As the years passed, I learned that the best antelope heads were found in Arizona and New Mexico, where only a very limited number of hunting permits were issued by drawings. I also knew the odds of my drawing a tag in either state were terrible. If I wanted a trophy antelope, I would have to hunt in NewMexico where ranchers were given a few tags they could sell in exchange for allowing hunters on their private land. These landowner tags usually were snapped up for resale by guides and outfitters, often even before they were issued, which meant I would need to find an outfitter/guide with landowner tags. Theman I foundwas Royce “Pancho”Maples. He had grown up in New Mexico and knew that state and its wildlife as well as anyone. I flew to Santa Fe and rented a car and drove south to meet him in a town called Claunch. His “camp” was a ranch house next to a home where his mother lived. We slept in the ranch house and his mother prepared all our meals in her home. When Pancho stopped at its post office he introduced me to nine people, he later said I’d met everyone in town. He probably meant all of its adults. The latest census put the total population at eighteen. We hunted by driving to high points and glassing on three large ranches where Pancho had permission to take his clients. When a buck with tall and heavy horns was spotted, we would plan the best routes that would conceal us while we tried to get closer on foot to get a better look at its head. I had seen a good buck with horns I estimated would go fifteen inches or so the first morning, but Pancho wanted to check another buck he had seen the day before the season opened. When we finally located his buck the next day, I decided the buck I’d seen had a better head. We spent the rest of that day and much of the next morning without finding “my” buck. Late in the morning, Pancho said he had found it but it would be tough to approach it. “I don’t think we can get closer without spooking him,” Pancho said. “Can you shoot him from here?” I had no idea how far it was, but it was at the extreme end of where I felt confident about shooting. “Maybe,” I said. With Pancho’s urging, I used my backpack as a rest for my rifle, held a bit over the buck’s back, and fired. It was so far I heard the “whack” of the bullet striking meat at what seemed like a second or two after the shot. The buck ran only a short distance before dropping. When we approached it, it was easy to see it wasn’t the buck I’d seen earlier. The horns on this one were wide but thin and only about fourteen inches long. That hunt took place in 2011. I returned the next year and shot a buck with 13 ½-inch horns that were thick and had wide prongs. It was a good buck that easily would have qualified for the SCI record book if I had entered it. For some reason, I never got around to it.