Even on a relatively short shot with a high-speed cartridge, lacking the ability or the time to read the wind properly can cost you big-time.

On opening day, pronghorns are often relatively trusting and easy to approach. The next day, well, that can be a different story. I was hunting two weeks past opening day, in an area that receives just enough pressure for every buck to have figured out exactly what was going on, and almost as exactly how much distance was required to stay out of trouble. Worse, a west wind was gusting well past 30 miles an hour.

Rex Morgan, an old high school classmate, had settled in Rawlins, Wyoming, and had acquired an outfitter’s license (Antelope/Deer Hunts Outfitter, 307-321-1076). I hadn’t seen him in years, so I put in and drew.

We knew the area held lots of pronghorn, but the area wasn’t “first choice,” (or second), meaning it was unlikely to hold any monsters. That was just fine with me. What I wanted was to see the country, glass some antelope and make a good stalk. Of course, since I hadn’t seen Rex in an awful long time, what I didn’t want was to mess up in front of him.

The area was quite open and the pronghorns fairly spooky, so a couple of stalks didn’t work out. Then we glassed a herd bedded below a distant ridge on the edge of a green winter wheat field. There was one buck, and he looked just fine--heavy and plenty tall.

I was relieved, because it looked like we could come in totally unseen to less than 200 yards, and in the horrible wind there would be no long shooting: If we caught a full crosswind, even 300 yards would be pushing it. We marked the spot, made a huge circle and started over the sagebrush ridge.

The slope was gentler than it had looked, and it rolled so that we were actually a bit too close when the first pronghorn came into view. It was a doe, and she was already up, looking at us. The whole group spooked long before we could pick out the buck, but they ran just 100 yards to the edge of the field and stopped.

When we started over the ridge I realized the wind had shifted and was now out of the south, a straight headwind. As soon as the pronghorns came into view I looked for a stout, slightly higher sagebrush that might give me a rest. I found one, flopped down and was reasonably ready when they stopped as I’d hoped they might.

The wind was still straight into my face, negative value. The range was something a bit over 250 yards, but there was no time for precise ranging because we had another problem: Now there were two bucks. Where did the other one come from? No clue, but there were two dozen nervous pronghorns, so a decision was essential.

While I puzzled out the shot, Rex judged the horns and told me to shoot the one on the left. With a negative wind and a range of less than 250 yards--shooting a .270 WSM--I held right where I wanted to hit and squeezed the trigger.

The buck, a very nice one, dropped like a rock. Except, as we approached, he tried to get up and I had to shoot him again. During the approach, as we came off the ridge, the headwind switched to gale force wind right to left, straight out of the west again. As we admired him my partner asked, “So, where did your first shot hit?”