Visions of the Way it Was, Circa 1961

Visions of the Way it Was, Circa 1961
The First Pronghorn, 1961

By Tom Dorigatti

I was born and raised in the State of Wyoming.  That offered me the privilege of being born with a fishing pole in one hand and a rifle in the other, ha!  Seriously, I grew up hunting and fishing at every opportunity.  Much of it wasn’t for sport, but rather from the stand point of filling the freezer and providing fish to eat in the summers and wild game in the fall and the winter. The picture below was taken in 1951.  I was 4 years old and had just taken my first cottontail rabbit with a gun.  The gun was a .410 bolt action shotgun and the person in the photo was a friend that was with us.  His name was Jim Sprowell.  He helped hold the shotgun up for me while I aimed and fired the gun.  I got lucky and nailed the cottontail with the first shot!  Danged gun kicked like a mule, too, haha.  I couldn’t hold both the gun and the rabbit, so Jim is holding the gun while I am admiring the rabbit that is nearly as long as I am tall!

In the 1950’s and 1960’s, the time frame when I grew up, hunting and fishing in Wyoming was at its apex.  The success rate (for rifle hunting) was 100% for antelope (pronghorn) and mule deer, and 95% for elk.  In the areas we hunted, we normally didn’t have to even ask permission to go into private property to hunt and/or fish.  The only requirement was to leave the place the way you found it and keeping the gate(s) open if they were open, and closed if they were closed.  The ranchers and farmers, of course, appreciated it when you did ask and appreciated it even more if/when you left the Game & Fish Commission tag for land-owner compensation from the State of Wyoming for game harvested upon their land.

How times have changed!  I didn’t go in and do extensive research, but I can tell you that the success rates for rifle hunting, resident or not is no longer 100% for antelope and mule deer, and is way down for elk, too.

My father, now deceased often said that where we used to have to use a 4WD vehicle to get to, a person now drives in with a car.  Where you needed a horse, you now drive a 4WD vehicle, and where you had to hoof it (which is where we normally went), you can easily get to with an ATV.  Back in the 1950’s and ‘60’s of course, ATV’s weren’t around and the trails we used never saw a gasoline powered vehicle due to the Wilderness Area Laws restricting the usage of any gas powered vehicle in a declared “Wilderness Area.”  Obviously, those laws have been relaxed in this day and age!

Antelope Licenses:

Another interesting change is the cost of licenses for residents and the manner in which those licenses are “secured.”  Back in the 1950’s & 1960’s, the resident licenses for antelope were $5.00.  The areas were open on given dates, and a drawing wasn’t required.  To secure a license, the date the licenses went on sale was announced and if you wanted a particular area, you had to be in line early and they were sold on a first-come, first-serve basis!  I remember standing in line waiting for the gun shop to open so that I could try to get the area(s) close to home that my dad and I had been scouting for “big goats.”  We knew where the big goats were lurking, and it was tougher to get the license than it was to get a monster buck.
The State was (and still is) divided up into many hunting areas designated by numbers.  Each area had specific boundaries and specific dates when the antelope season was open. Most of the antelope permits were for either sex, but there were some areas that were buck only or doe only.  One pronghorn per year was the limit, and even today, that holds true unless the permits don’t sell out.  The areas around my hometown are the most difficult to get

This particular article is dealing with my very first Pronghorn (antelope or “goat” as Wyomingites still call them).  The legal age for the taking of big game back then was age 14.  Of course, I had hunted antelope, deer, and elk with my father for many years before turning 14.  In addition, I had purchased my own 30-06 rifle at age 12 and had been taught how to shoot this high powered rifle relatively well by the time I turned the legal age of 14.  I was allowed to purchase an antelope permit when they went on sale even though at the time of sale I wasn’t yet 14.  However, the area that I purchased a license for opened after I turned 14, making me legal to hunt.

The Hunt for that first “legal” Pronghorn.

Antelope season opened 5 days after I turned 14 years old.  We had scouted the area quite a bit right after I secured the license, so we knew there were some big bucks lurking in specific parts of that hunting area South of my hometown.  There was a particularly large buck we sure wanted a chance to harvest!

My father spotted this huge buck with the 7X35 binoculars, but he was in a spot we couldn’t get to for a decent stalk. The buck wasn’t disturbed and was oblivious to our being there since we were well away from other hunters.  He was moving towards a place where we could head him off and surprise him.  My father limited my distance to 100 yards or less even though the rifle was sighted in for 250 yards.  Hey, I was a 14-year old kid, and a 250 yard shot with a high powered rifle was for me or any small kid a “long poke” and too risky!  With that in mind, we got back to the car and drove towards the spot we planed on cutting this monster buck off.

We got a huge surprise!  The buck had moved faster than we anticipated, and we no sooner got to the top of the slope and here stood this monster buck, less than 40 yards away!  He was as shocked as we were and stopped immediately in a quartering towards angle.  I slammed the bolt shut, dropped to the kneeling position, took off the safety, aimed low on his neck and squeezed the trigger.  Shooting animals in the neck had become a habit drilled into me time and time again while hunting rabbits and other game, so it was 2^nd nature to go for the killing neck shot.  The gun went off, and the buck dropped in his tracks! I had my first buck antelope; one shot, one kill.  As you can well see in the photo below, this animal was a “booker.”  Unfortunately, however, we messed up and cracked the pate when we were removing the horns and ruined the entire thing.  All we have is the photo below, and of course the unforgettable memory of the buck that surprised us as much as we surprised him.

Of course, since this was my very first big game animal, my father again “rewarded” my fine shot by showing me how to properly clean the animal!  That would quickly change!

The rifle used was a Montgomery Wards 30-06 sporter with a right handed Mauser 98 bolt action and a 4X Weaver Scope and a standard stock mounted leather rifle sling.  The stock was a standard walnut Monte Carlo stock with the cheek pad on the wrong side for this left-handed shooter.  I never had a rifle with the cheek piece on the correct side for shooting left handed!  I also didn’t like left handed bolts, so we never bothered with that option either.  We also did not use tripods on our guns back then; I had to learn the standing, kneeling, and sitting positions with only the aid of the standard military manner of using the rifle sling to steady the rifle.  It had a 22” barrel on it and for a 120 pound kid, this rifle absolutely kicked like a mule! 

Here are the other specifications for those of you interested in reloading the 30-06 caliber loads.

Bullet: .308 Sierra Semi Point, 150 grains (we used 180 grain bullets for elk).

Powder: IMP 4320, 52 grains, (or 58 grains of IMR 4350 powder). For the above hunt the round was loaded with the 4320 powder.  We kept our loads separate and appropriately marked.

Brass: Military Brass, fire-formed and neck sized only. (Fire-form load: IMR 4320 powder, 49 grains.)

Primer: Winchester C-120, flash hole cleaned before reloading.

Speed: approximately 2950 fps.

Another item you may find interesting is the price of reloading for 100 rounds (excluding brass) was only $11.25!  Yes, you read it right 100 rounds of 30-06 reloaded at a cost of $11.25.

Powder:  Either 4320 or 4350 cost $5.00 a pound.

Bullets:  The 155 grain Sierra bullets were $5.00 per 100 rounds.

Primers:  The Winchester C-120 primers were $1.25 per 100.

Factory Ammo could be purchased for $5.75 per 20 rounds in a box.

In my next blog, I’ll show you a photo of my first “legal” mule deer harvest and relate the story behind this one!  The story is true, and the names have not been changed to protect neither the guilty nor the innocent!  You will enjoy the story behind my first mule deer circa, 1961!