First a hunting/shooting update. Normally I would blog about my success. Except I can't. First opening day of elk was 74 degrees outside. I saw no elk, but had a great 4 days of camping.
Second, I took one whole day for antelope. My shooting SUCKED. Attempt on mature buck #1 resulted in a miss at less than 300 yards. One day I will remember about shooting down hill and against a head wind. Notice I said remember, not learn. I already know what to do and have practiced the shot. I just can't seem to remember not to screw it up. I have no idea why I missed shot at doe #1. No idea at all. Not even a good guess. Same thing goes for the 200 yard shot at doe #2. Buck #2 (a baby buck barely 2 years old) was a double shoulder 1 shot kill at 225 yards with a 12mph cross wind and an extreme downhill angle. 168 grain Berger Bullets in a 7-08 Rem at 2600 fps was a new load for me this year (I'm still experimenting) they will more than get the job done. As it turns out I had NO USABLE MEAT on either side of the front quarter of the buck. Doe #3 presented not one, not two but three shoots for me. I missed them all. I have no idea why. I changed guns at this point. I had a sweet set up on a buck at 1,079 yards. I've shot targets in the same exact place and NEVER missed. 1,079 would be a new personal best on a big game animal. So I set up, checked the wind, ranged it again, got a great rest and missed it by TWO FEET! I had no clue why. So I had another go at another lope at 998 yards and missed. Research latter proved that the scope had been bumped and was off. Doe #4 was an easy 375 yrds and I missed. I tried again at 450, and missed. I got closer (about 80 yards) and made a solid hit.
For those of you keeping score that's attempts on 2 bucks and 4 does. With one buck and one doe hanging in my garage. It took me 11 shots to get it done at a little less than 7 hours. Normally I'm done with antelope in less than an hour of hunting to fill two tags. I'm not even keeping the bucks horns. The tenderloins however were delicious tonight for super.
I'm going to make a try for elk again this weekend, even though the heat wave is expected to continue. Deer season opened yesterday in my elk unit so I'll buy a tag.
The election was today. I voted. There were no surprises here. Our congress critter is a republican. She won. Yawn. They seem to be making a big fuss in the news about our having a Democrat Governor and a Republican winning. Its not a big deal. We have term limits. Gov Dave limited out. The Republicans ran a candidate and the Democrats didn't, this isn't a big upset. At least not in my book. In fairness to Gov Dave, he was more conservative than most Repubs, at least outside of Wyoming. He did a decent job when in office and was elected to the maximum number of terms. What would have been big news is if Taylor Haynes would have won as a write in candidate. If that would have happened we would have had a black man as governor, who ran to the right of the Constitution Party. BTW I wrote him in.
In local races I stuck to my policy of either 1.)vote the challenger or 2.)vote for the lessor evil. This year I actually had to vote Dem in a handful of races. Don't hate me. The reason was that the Repub incumbent is/was such a complete and total waste of oxygen that I couldn't vote for her, her and him. That and there were no 3rd party options in those 3 races. I hated to vote dem but face it, at some point even the dems couldn't screw the job up worse than these clowns. We've reached that point. Hopefully we get someone new in those jobs and we get a new cohort of crooks in the county commissioners and other assorted offices that actually can be affected by my vote.
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