The next morning was freezing, but thankfully not windy. We arrived at camp just before dawn, after spending a restless night in the hotel, praying and napping as 5:00 am slowly rolled around. Our hunting guides Mike and Tom were already there waiting for us. The truck was already running and heated. All we needed to do was grab my rifle, pack inside the truck, and go. 

For some reason, while I had accepted that I probably would leave this year's hunting grounds without meat for the freezer, I still felt that I had a chance. It was a very small chance, but the chance was still big enough to get me out of bed this morning, and early at camp dressed in layers of camo. I arrived at camp hungry, but I was too excited to care. 

Mike and Tom decided to take us far south near some hunting grounds just off the main highway. We could hunt on both sides; the east and the west. At first, Tom suggested we try the east towards the highway, but just as he suggested it, he slammed on the brakes and we watched as a large herd of pronghorn doe emerged from the east through the growing fog, and crossed the road. A younger doe got stuck at the fence and trotted around a little bit, but found a spot to slide under just as a buck came charging in after her. Tom didn't even get to stop the truck before me and Mike were outside running after the pronghorn. I handed Mike my rifle, and I quickly threw myself under the fence where the pronghorn had just gone, with enough force to slide right under just like the pronghorn, as he loaded my already-loaded magazine into the chamber. Mike then handed me my rifle, crawled under the fence, and led me towards the ridge the pronghorn had dove under. 

The pronghorn were trotting now, with their white butts towards us. I sighted one broadside doe in at 175 yards, but the buck just had to come in and chased her and the herd out at a canter. I still looked for another shot, but the grass was just too tall. I was on my stomach with the rifle barrel on a backpack. If I wanted to increase my chances, I needed to take a risk and change my position. I could only hope my gun was sighted in for a kneeling or a standing shot, just as it was for a shot laying down. 

We breathlessly walked back to the truck. I unloaded my rifle, gave it to Mike, and slid under the fence. We both climbed back into the truck, shivering with cold and excitement. Tom asked for our excuses as to why we weren't bringing back an animal, and Mike explained that the grass was too tall and the herd was already running off anyway. Tom agreed that I needed another plan, got out of his truck, and came back with a tripod. 

Tom proceeded to take us to the far south lands, which were across the railroad and near a large power plant. We hoped some of the doe scattered and ended up in the southwest field, or that there were more doe there. We slowly drove along a fence line. Mike scanned the land with his binoculars while Tom slowly crept the truck forward. Tom stepped on the brakes as Mike pointed out a small herd of pronghorn right near the railroad tracks a mile and a half away. Because they were peacefully grazing, and at least three of the four animals were does, Tom kicked me and Mike out to walk over there. 

Mike and I could sneak up on the grazing pronghorn relatively easily. The pronghorn were grazing in a bowl, and there were several hills we needed to walk over, which would make us invisible until we were 400 yards away. Because of this, for the first three fourths of a mile, Mike and I ran. We kept our eyes on the pronghorn to make sure they couldn't see us, and we kept our bodies low. We were adrenalized, cold, hungry, and badly wanted to get something today. 

When we reached the final hill before a ridge, we slowed to a stop. Mike checked out the herd again with his binoculars, and was surprised to find that all four pronghorn were does. One of the animals was a yearling, but the rest were large and mature does. They were all broadside to us, and peacefully grazing the grass below the ridge near the train tracks. As long as we were very slow and careful up to the ridge, I would have a good chance to shoot. 

We stalked towards the ridge in a crouched position. One of the mature does suddenly shot her head up towards us, and we didn't even dare to breathe. For 15 seconds or so, we maintained eye contact with the doe, who was about 350 yards away. But she soon lost interest and went back to grazing with the others. Again, we lowered our bodies and stalked some more. I would've been on all fours, but I had my rifle in my hands. There was no way I was gonna throw it over my shoulder to stalk lower. 

Halfway to the ridge, we dropped to our bellies. Our plan to army-crawl the rest of the way was ruined, when both Mike and I silently jumped and winced as soon as we made contact with the ground. Despite the pain, we dared not move as the whole herd was now looking our way. Mike had yelped very quietly, but audibly. We stared back at them for what seemed like hours, but just like last time, the does forgot about us and went back to grazing. We slowly pulled ourselves up to our knees, carefully making sure we didn't get any cactus needles in our clothes. I looked to Mike for guidance, and he motioned me to follow him forward while remaining crouched over my feet. 

We made it to the ridge without spooking the pronghorn, and we slowly placed the rifle on the tripod. I was about to lay down, but Mike tapped me on the shoulder and led my eyes all around the ground. I was surrounded by very small and very spiky cacti. I'd have to take the shot in a sitting kneel. In order to fold my legs under my body, I had to balance myself on my left hand. I winced and bit the inside of my cheek as cactus needles skewered deeply into my hand. I tasted blood. Mike also cringed pretty hard. I was determined to get a shot, so I ignored the pain even though I had a fistful of cactus needles stuck in me pretty deep. I could not use my left hand to hold the barrel stock on my rifle. I just had to trust the tripod would do the work without my help. 

Mike took out his binoculars and started naming positions of each doe. We could see three animals, and the fourth was barely visible since she had found a ditch right below the rail tracks to graze in. I sighted in the middle doe. It would be a long 225-235 yard shot if I took it. To put it into perspective, that is about as long as a city block and a quarter. I knew it was a risk, but it was a risk I was willing to take. It would be the only chance I had that day. As Mike continued to mumble numbers and positions to me, I kept the sights steady on the middle doe and calculated where my round would hit the best I could. 

I flicked off the safety. My ears went deaf, and my vision became completely tunneled through the scope. I let all of the air out of my lungs, carefully began to pull back on the trigger, but just before I could fire, I sucked in a breath to return sound to my ears, and straightened my finger off the trigger. I watched without blinking or breathing, as the small fawn crossed between my sights and the mature doe I was aiming for. My heart was pounding in my ears, and it looked like slow motion as the fawn slowly passed the mature doe. The does suddenly looked up and everything paused. The does stared for a few seconds towards us, but went back to eating, and the doe fawn wandered away.

Again, I began to slowly put pressure on the trigger, my vision tunneled through the scope, and the world went silent. I had my black crosshairs on the doe just behind her shoulder. I counted the tick marks to make sure I would hit right where I wanted to hit. As she grazed just a little more, I felt the stock of my rifle kick back, and I pulled away from the sights. I could barely hear anything over the ringing in my ears, and a major adrenaline flush blinded me almost completely for a second, but as the seconds ticked, I slowly regained my hearing and eyesight. I could hear Mike's voice, but couldn't exactly tell what he was saying for a couple seconds, and all I could see was a black silhouette of my gun and pale yellow everywhere else. When my eyesight returned, I briefly saw two does charging at us from the left before they veered towards the east and disappeared behind a hillside, but the ringing was still deafening. 

"Stumbling... Stumbling... Down!" Mike announced over my ringing ears as he held binoculars to his eyes, "You got her! You got her!"

I let out a long breath as the ringing almost completely went away, relieving my lungs of the air that had made them sore from holding in for so long. I leaned back from the rifle with my hands over my face. 

"Ohhhhhh.... Lord....." was all I could whisper as I inhaled and exhaled again. 

"You did it! You freakin' did it!" Mike mumbled again as he tapped my shoulder. 

"I did? I did?" I shakily whispered as we bumped fists, "You sure? I lost track of her."

"Yes. You got her." Mike confirmed as he looked through his binoculars, "She's down."

I looked back towards the direction we came. We couldn't see the truck, but I knew they could see us. I made several hand-waving motions in that direction, and pretty soon the sound of a diesel engine disrupted the silent plains, and a red truck came up and over a far hill. 

"Chamber another round. We'll wait." Mike instructed. 

"Why?" I asked as I pulled out the bolt to let the empty round out and chambered a live round. 

"Well, while she is down and probably dead, it's always good to have another round handy just in case. Sometimes pronghorn will "play" dead, but our movement will scare them up again. We will approach her very slowly, but you had a good shot. You did good, Maya, you did good." Mike whispered as he gazed at her using his binoculars again.

I sat in silence. Slowly but surely, I returned into the world. I noticed the cold wind, the soreness in my left hand, the sound of the approaching truck, the sight of the power plant a few miles to the west, the grass and sagebrush twitching in the wind, and the numbness of my foot below my butt. 

"I better move my legs." I whispered as I watched myself place my right hand on barren ground and unfolded my legs. 

Mike steadied my rifle on the tripod, and looked through his binoculars one final time. 

"Ok... Now we can go." Mike whispered as he stood up. 

Mike helped me to my feet, then handed me my rifle. I then followed Mike down to the valley where I saw a little white something laying on the ground. As we got closer, the sight got clearer. My doe was down and still. She only had enough time to get 20 feet before her life drained out of her body. 

I approached her very slowly, laid myself down next to her back, and slowly picked her up by the back of her head. I carefully stuffed her tongue back into her mouth just as the truck approached. Her white hide had been bloodied, but that was ok. I could clean it. The entrance wound was just perfect, which is what the exit wound hinted at on the other side. I placed the shot right behind the shoulder, despite being 225 yards away. I'd give Chris Kyle a run for his money. I ruined absolutely no meat, and the doe was gone before she knew she was. That's why she was stumbling in an odd way. She was never alive. Her nerves were simply responding to the suddenness of it all. 

My grandparents jumped out of the truck with their phones ready to take pictures. Tom, Mike, and my grandparents all stood at four different angles and spent a solid 5 minutes taking almost constant pictures. Mike and Tom positioned my doe a few times for several different types of pictures, before I finally had a chance to fill out my tag. I helped lift the doe into the back of the truck. Tom and Mike determined how far the doe moved by following a light blood trail she left behind. That's how we determined she stumbled 20 feet before falling over. 

We drove back to camp. The first thing we did when we got there was warm me up in a tent. I could barely close my hands, and I was shivering severely. Tom was concerned I was actually in the beginning stages of hypothermia, but I stopped shivering pretty quickly after I was out of the wind and next to a propane heater.

As soon as I could move my fingers completely, I went to work picking cactus needles out of my hand while it was still numb. They had been pushed in deeper since I initially sunk my hand into that damn cactus. When I was finally warm enough, we went back outside and walked to the skinning station which was 50 yards away from the camp. We met a few guys there, including some other hunters that had a small buck hanging on the skinning rack. My doe was considerably larger than the mature buck the boys had on their skinning rack. 

I requested to keep the hide and the skull, and also asked for all of the meat, so Mike sharpened a knife and went to work, starting at her rear. Before he hung my doe on the rack, Mike had to clean her rear of any and all waste. If any of that stuff gets to the meat, it could spoil it a lot quicker, and because we were at a campsite that would be gone in a few days, we had no access to a hose. 

Once he was done with that, Mike and another man picked up my doe by her legs and hung her upside down on the rack, and then hoisted her up so her whole body hovered a few inches above the ground. Mike continued to skin her starting at her thighs and working downwards. I watched intensely as the men worked on her hide, careful to not disturb or bloody the fur any further. It took 15 minutes to skin her, but once her hide was on the ground and covering her head, the men went to work on the meat. 

They were attempting the gutless method, meaning they'd leave the torso completely intact except for certain meats like the heart and liver. It took the guys another 20 minutes to cut her up enough to remove the torso. They carried the torso towards the dump truck, and Mike mentally and physically prepared himself to reach in for the liver and the heart. 

I'm not squeamish, but I stayed upwind from the torso as Mike reached inside, and I must admit I cringed and coughed a little bit. I just put my bandanna over my face and laughed to mask the discomfort. I'll spare you the details, but the torso was making some interesting noises and emitting some new smells that made Mike gag and everyone else giggle like little girls. The whole time, Mike was shouting every little thing he was experiencing, like he was some sort of video game commentator on youtube. Mike tossed me the heart and the liver, before chucking the rest of the intact torso into the dump truck. I congratulated him as he coughed and gagged some more, but he quickly recovered and went back to work on cutting up the leg meat. 

I helped to pack away the meat, hide, and skull. We managed to fit all the meat into one large game bag, surround it in ice, and close the plastic container. We did the same for the hide and the head, which I was told I'd have to work on myself. I'm just fine with doing that stuff myself. My grandpa offered everyone a mountain dew, including me, and we toasted after a long morning's work. 

We spent another 20 minutes outside talking and drinking our sodas. My grandma eventually emerged out of the heated car, which is where she had been the whole time we were butchering the doe, reading a book. She ushered our conversations to an end. We still had plenty of work to do after a two-hour drive home. So, we hugged and thanked our guides and butchers one last time, promised to return next year, and headed out on our way. 

These last two days were some of my best days of my life. I'm glad I didn't get anything yesterday, and instead spent the day scouting and learning valuable lessons I took into consideration today. I also got to see all of the property, and I'm still amazed by the beauty of it all. Today's weather was nicer than yesterday's weather. Without the strong 30-40 mph wind, everything was warmer and easier to handle. If the wind was blowing as hard today as it was yesterday, I would've had a hard time staying so still when we were tracking the does, and I probably would've suffered frostbite in my fingers.

Hunting isn't for everyone. It's a sport for only those who are willing and able enough to brave the elements. Most of the guys in wheelchairs were missing their shots, which is why we heard so many shots throughout our hunt, but the skinning rack barely saw anything. It takes years of experience and months of preparation for each hunt to be successful. Even then, your chances of success are only so high. 

This year, the season started a week early. This is to ensure the wildlife populations can grow again after a very successful previous season. Also, game wardens just love to annoy hunters sometimes. That's why the pronghorn were so scarce. Most of the does haven't yet come down from the north, and the bucks have already been down here to fight for breeding rights before the does come. 

I'm blessed to have the gifts of hunting I have. Deep down inside, everyone has those hunter instincts, but only so many people these days are willing and able to hunt. I'll be recovering for several days. My eyes are red and scratched from the dust, and my lungs are sore from the dust and from holding my breath so much. My legs are sore from charging across the plains, and my arms are sore from holding up my rifle and dragging my doe to the truck. 

But it's all worth it. It's worth it to me anyway. Hunting is hard. It's survival of the fittest out in the wilderness. But it's amazing and beautiful. I wouldn't trade my God-given ability to hunt for anything. I love to be out in the outdoors. Not just in the outdoors, but in the true wilderness where there are no marked trails or man-made-and-maintained landscaping. I hate hiking, but I love to wander around the untouched wilderness. You never know what you're gonna find or what you're gonna see. 

Next season, I shall return, hopefully with a buck license this time. Though, I must admit, if I get a buck license next year, the land will be overrun with lone does. In the meantime, I have a lot of work to do within the next few days. I have a skull to clean, a hide to stretch, clean, and salt, and lots of meat to cut, wrap, freeze, cook, and eat.

I ate some pronghorn leg meat for dinner tonight, only 9 hours after I killed my pronghorn. As expected, it was the best damn meat I've had in a long time, and the fact that I have 40 pounds of it makes me extremely excited! I won't be making much sausage or burger with it, mostly because I'll have absolutely zero room in my freezer after I somehow pack 40 more pounds of meat in it, on top of the remaining 135 pounds of my pasture-raised, family owned beef. Instead, I'll have plenty of pronghorn stew, which I'm excited to experiment with. 

The hide and the skull will be my first hide and skull I've ever worked with alone. I've cleaned other bones and skulls, but nothing as large or as fresh as the skull I have now. The hide will be an experiment in itself. I will only salt it. I want a wall mount, not a rug or a blanket. Pronghorn fur falls out extremely easily, and moving it around will only make it shed worse. My mom won't let me stuff a pronghorn head in my freezer, even if I have room, so I have to clean the skull and stiffen the hide at my grandparents'. Luckily they agreed to let me boil the skull in the garage, and may even take me to the car-wash to powerwash some of the meat off. Otherwise, I'll have to use tools and take more time cleaning hard-to-clean cavities. 

The skull will make a nice shelf-piece, and I have a perfect spot on my bedroom wall for the hide. Pictures and more stories are coming up!

By the way, here's a picture of Doug I found on the Outdoor Buddies website. Rest in peace, buddy.