I've taken the plunge into the wild world of Electronic Fuel Injection. I took my Y-pipe off to have Hank at Hanksville Hot Rods weld on an O2 bung.

Tomorrow one of my friends is coming over to work on installing the electronics from a GM TBI kit I bought, gee, maybe 10 years ago!? If there's one thing I'm good at, it's procrastination.

Yesterday was the first time I turned a wrench on the Jeep in probably 5 years and this morning I've got enough sore bones and muscles to prove it. Ugh.

Time flies when you have a little Jeeper to take care of. She loves riding in the Jeep and I'm very thankful the truck has obliged and not broken down. So at long last it's back to working on the truck a little.

I hope to have the EFI on in time to go wheeling and camping with little girl later in the summer. Once everything's installed it's time for tuning. Hopefully that'll go well. And I have to take care of a broken exhaust stud too. Rats.

This past weekend was Pronghorn antelope season here in Colorado. John, Toby and I headed out to a ranch we have permission to hunt.

Saturday morning started early with John taking a shot and Toby taking a doe.

After lunch and dropping off Toby's doe at the processor, we headed back out hiked and drove around for hours and hours not finding any does but seeing a few bucks. No mixed herds like the last couple years. We all had doe tags.

Day was almost over and John and I were feeling a bit low wondering where the animals were.

The last area left on the west side was where all the critters were hiding, maybe 20 animals over the next couple ridges.

The ranch is on the Eastern Slope, very flat ground with the smallest of hills and shallowest of ravines. There's hardly anywhere to hide. And since antelopes can see you just fine a mile away with their built in telescopic vision, sneaking up on them is really, really hard.

The strategy that works well out at the range is to slowly walk up hills or up the sides of ravines and glass just over the top of them for antelope heads. If you're careful, you'll see them before they see you, and if the sides of the shallow hill or ravine is a little steeper than most, you can work your way into a shooting position without being seen.

So Toby and I were able to work our way around a small rise putting it between us and them, and we came across a doe at about 200 yards in a shallow gully. I took a couple of shots but missed.

But earlier we'd passed by a couple of does bedded down on the other side of the hill we were walking around. They hadn't seen us and so I worked back up the hill and could just make them out over the top. They'd gotten up and started walking.

I set up with the shooting sticks, sitting position, took a deep breath this time, then let the rifle settle and line up and boom. I lost sight of the target for a second but when I reacquired the doe was down.

It's been a long several years but this newbie hunter finally succeeded! Did I mention it was a 275 yard shot?

Elk and deer season coming up in a few weeks...

It'd be unlike me to sight in any earlier than the day before my big Antelope hunting trip.

The first three shots at 50 yards looked close enough to move to the 100 yard target. The first four I threw downrange were... widely spread. It's been awhile since I've shot the rifle, what can I say.

Three shots went 2" high and 1" right, grouped in a 1.75" circle. One shot was at zero and left 1". Hmmm.

I concentrated really hard on my shooting technique before firing off the next string of three. They landed inside a 1.25" circle at zero elevation and about 1" right of the target. Ok, that's a lot better.


Best group: set of three, center right

I tried to adjust elevation and windage, goofed that up, and by now the barrel was too hot and time had slipped by so the last three were high, but at least close to center.

I"m really pleased with the new trigger. Nice crisp break with no creep or overtravel that I could discern, and the pull is just right. The scope is really nice, too. Bright, clear picture making it easy to see the holes in the target, for once.

Unfortunately I need to repair the front swivel stud. The heavy Versapod + heavy recoil yanked it loose.


Uh oh, the front swivel stud came loose!

I never did fess up about last year's pronghorn hunt.

We met up on private land quite a ways east of Colorado Springs. The land is expansive and is split up into four or so pieces and rented out. Each piece alone is miles across. Lots of gentle rolling hills, mostly wide open.

The antelope can easily see you coming. And so my first hunt was initially spent trying to identify tiny dots on the horizon through 10x binoculars while the pronghorn's telephoto eyes had no trouble seeing me right back. We'd walk up on them, slowly... get to a certain distance, like 1000 yards, and they'd take off.

Actually the first thing that happened on the hunt was I got lost. Accidentally took a wrong turn and was driving around on someone's property (see pic). Sorry whoever you are. It was really foggy and cool and wet that day (see pic) but it all burned off pretty fast and the rest of the hunting was clear sunny skies.

We scoped out the property pretty well. There's a dirt road going through the middle and we followed that and spotted plenty of pronghorns but we were unable to get close. We tried an ambush approach, waiting at the watering hole at the far end of our area. Not much luck.

Next day we got to watch a coyote chase a small group. We'd been walking after this group for a couple hours. The coyote tore off on the far side of them at full run, and cut across to intercept their path. What an amazing event to witness!

We followed this group awhile longer then reached a ravine area... we decided to try to go down into the ravine and we followed it to its end, came up the hill... and there they were, closer than they'd ever been. They hadn't seen us yet. Toby set up and took a shot but must have missed.

More surprising than that, the group ran but didn't go far, running to our right. Three were still within a few hundred yards and we worked our way towards them, staying below the grass, and we set up.

For whatever reason I didn't have confidence in taking the shot (maybe from missing the deer a year before). Toby took a shot on one... success! And the other two stayed within range for an eternity. But I didn't take the shot. I kept thinking they could come closer, but I didn't realize how close they were. So, they got away. Once again I felt like an idiot at the end of the hunt. A relaxed idiot that had a lot of fun, mind you, but an idiot nonetheless.

Starting hunting only a few years ago, I guess I just don't have the experience built up yet. On the upside, I was able to control my 'buck fever' better and I was able to hold aim a lot better than my first time out.

Things got pretty busy with baby girl later on in the year and so I opted to stay home and skip the deer and elk hunting.

Pronghorn season is starting soon... after a trip to the range with the new scope, rings, extended stock and trigger, hopefully my grouping, and confidence, will be better and I'll finally come home with some truly free-range meat for the freezer!