We have taken several trips to Wyoming and South Dakota to do a combination of hunting and animal photography. We have been hunting Pronghorn Antelope on the Durham Buffalo ranch near Gillette, Wyoming for several years. The picture below is of an Antelope that Fred took a few years back on this ranch.
Pronghorn Antelope
The Durham Ranch is a large and wondrous place to roam. The ranch is about 60,000 acres in size. The primary use for all of this land is to raise Buffalo.
Buffalo on the Durham Ranch
As you can see, the ranch is quite picturesque. On a clear day, the sky seems to go on forever.
Wyoming Sky
There are many different animals that call the Durham Ranch home. These include Mule Deer
Mule Deer
Pronghorn Antelope, Badgers and Prairie Dogs.
Prairie Dogs
A hunt such as the ones that we have been doing in Wyoming typically lasts about a week. We stay in a hotel in Gillette and hunt during the day on the ranch. This is pretty cushy as hunting trips go.
Fred has made several trips to the Hill Country of Texas to hunt Exotic Game and Whitetail Deer. This part of Texas tends to provide thick cover and abundant food sources for many animals. Pictured below is an Axis Deer which was taken on a private ranch. The Axis Deer is noted for its large antlers and a very beautiful coat. These deer never lose their spots.
Axis Deer
The next picture shows a Blackbuck Antelope. These animals are fast and very “spooky”. The first sight of a human and they turn and run. Fred was quite fortunate to take this animal at over 200 yards as it started to move away at a fast walk when he entered the area where it was feeding.
Blackbuck Antelope
Texas also provides the opportunity to hunt many types of Rams and Exotic sheep. Fred is shown here with a Corsican Ram that he took with a Thompson Center Contender Pistol chambered in 45-70 Government.
Corsican Ram
One of the most interesting Exotic Animals of Texas is the Sika Deer. This animal looks like a miniature Elk. As you can see, it has a similar horn structure to an Elk and has a call similar to an Elk’s “bugle”.
Sika Deer
Finally, the Hill Country of Texas is a great place to hunt Whitetail Deer. The animal shown below is a 10-point buck which is typical of the Whitetail population in this part of Texas.
Whitetail Deer
The Texas Hill country is a beautiful setting for hunting and sightseeing trips. I hope that you enjoyed these pictures!
Not all hunts are as involved as the trip to Alaska was. Sometimes one can just spend a day or a weekend with friends hunting. A good example of this sort of trip is hunting for hogs which Fred has done several times in Ohio. The picture below was taken after one such hunt. This guy charged Fred and he was forced to shoot it out with him at under 10 yards!
In the Spring of 1995, we were fortunate to be the guests of good friends who live in Anchorage, Alaska. Fred spent a week in Prince William Sound camping and hunting Black Bear. This has to be the most memorable hunting trip Fred has taken. The scenery and wildlife in the Sound were just unbelievable.
Prince William Sound in Alaska
We used a Float Plane service to fly our gear in and out of Prince William Sound. There is a large amount of Float Plane traffic out of Anchorage. In fact, there is more Float Plane traffic around Anchorage than that due to Commercial Airlines.
Float Plane
As you can see, Fred was fortunate to take a nice Black Bear on this trip. We had a rug made from the hide of this bear. He had very thick fur as he had just come out of hibernation. His hide measures about 6 1/2 feet from corner to corner.
Black Bear
To see some additional sights from this trip including some shots from a fishing trip for Halibut, click here.
Anita and I both like to hunt with handguns. This is a little unusual in that most folks don’t think of handguns as tools that are useful for hunting. As you can see from the pictures below, they work just fine. Most of our hunting is done with Thompson Center Contender single-shot pistols or Revolvers. The reason we have decided to make handguns our tool of choice for hunting is that they increase the challenge of the hunt. Handguns are much easier to pack on a hunting trip and can provide important advantages in an unexpected situation with a dangerous animal.
To see pictures from some of our hunting trips, click on the following links. Warning: some of the pictures on the pages associated with the next three links include shots of animals downed during a hunt. If you do not wish to view such images, click here to return to our home page.
We have done quite a bit of traveling over the last several years. We enjoy the Western United States and have explored much there. We’ve done some photography during these excursions as well.
Our 2009 Sport Fishing Trip in Costa Rica
Below are some links to photos of the more memorable trips we’ve taken:
