WOW! that’s all I can say about this last week in SE Montana. I hunted the Powder River. The first evening I got there, I jumped in a stand and killed this nice P&Y 9-pointer at 16 yards. I was hunting the cottonwood strip between the river and alfalfa fields. I knew I could likely kill a better buck since I had 6 evenings, but he was beautiful and gave us 30 minutes of great footage within 55 yards. Double lunged him, and he went about 75 yards and piled up. It was a great way to

start the trip.

I then trned my attention to speedgoats. The first day in the blind I had about an 11 -incher come in followed by a better goat. I passed them both and was later to find out the bigger one I passed was likely well over 14 1/2 inches and would be the best one I saw all week. I was stupid, but I had little experience judging pronghorn. The 3rd day I had a good P&Y class buck come in to drink at 28 yards. I drew as he was head on, waiting for a good shot. I held for over 2 minutes, and when he started to leave, I had to switch windows in the blind. I accidentially bumped my release, and let the arrow fly by accident. It wasn’t within 15 feet of him, thank goodness. I figured I had really blown it.

The last day I went to a windmill stand. The pronghorn were really rutting, and I could see plenty of chasing over a mile away. Finally a lone buck showed up on a hill about 1000 yards out. He crossed the fence on to our property, and he hit a well worn trail that led right to my water hole. He came on a trot and ended up drinking at 23 yards. He was again facing me, so I waited. The pond dam was 26 yards, so that is where I figured I would get the shot when he turned to leave. Finally he started away from the water, I drew, and he gave me a 25 yard quartering away shot. Just as I touched off, he took one more step and turned almost dead away. My arrow went in just in front of the left ham, traversed the gut, cut the liver completely in two and clipped the off-side lung before exiting. He went 80 yards and tipped over. He measured right at 14” and will go P&Y easily. We got lots of great footage, and it should make a good show with the deer, the mis-shot arrow pronghorn and the pronghorn kill.

I had 3 other guys with me and they got 3 pronghorn, 1 mulie and 1 whitetail. the guy that didn’t get a deer missed a 135 10-point the last evening at 21 yards! Curt Wells from Bowhunter mag was one of our guys, and he killed a 15 1/2” pronghorn with 8” bases. It was a monster. What a great trip! 7 animals on 8 tags in a week. I can’t wait to go back to the Powder River next Sept…