Alyssa's Buffalo Hunt by Alyssa Rae Hands

Alyssa's Buffalo Hunt

As I stood, with blood rushing to my head, my hands started to shake and my vision began to focus on the monstrous beasts. The gun came to my shoulder without hesitation. You know this.

Yes. This was a rifle, but years of shotgun experience created a muscle memory action that served me well. I was shooting a C. Sharps 1874 Lady Boss .45-70 Rifle, which means a big kick, but I was ready for it.

Approaching the hunt, I was anxious. I have been on many hunting expeditions, but this would be the first big game I would shoot. Unless we had blizzard conditions I knew it was nearly guaranteed that I would get a shot at a buffalo. Yet in fact, this would be the first anything I would shoot… kill. I was unsure of the way I would feel. Would I be uneasy? Proud?, Uncaring? Upset? But first I had to get to that moment. I had to focus on the hunt.

As a kid, I saw herds of buffalo on the way to Missoula. We would pull of the side of the road and peer through the barbed wire fence, but it that did not prepare me for the immensity of their stature in Nebraska. When I tipped the crest of the hill, a wave of adrenaline came over me. We moved closer and closer. I didn’t know sixty yards could be so close.

This event presented itself to me ultimately because I grew up in a Montana home. We did all the things that Montanans are famous for: the hikes, camping, etc. I learned how to shoot a rifle when I was seven, and sporting clays at sixteen. In the back of my mind I was shooting to be prepared to go with my dad on a hunting trip. When I was little, all I knew about hunting was that my dad would go into the woods for a few days, and in a few more days we would have delicious jerky and steaks. Little did I know hunting was a long process with only chance, not a guarantee.

I have been hunting with my dad on a couple occasions but was never successful in actually shooting something. In fact, we never saw anything that we were able to shoot for. So before the buffalo hunt, I had never gotten any big game. All my practice and hunting excursions, and nothing to brag about! When my dad mentioned the buffalo hunt, I was more than ready to go.

Beside the actual hunt, I was looking forward to spending a few days with my dad doing something we both enjoy. I knew it would probably be the last father-daughter trip of my youth and I was happy that we could fit it in to my busy senior year. Ten, twenty or fifty years down the road I will still be talking about this trip and the good memories I had with my dad.

My dad is in the gun business, an engraver, and one of his clients wanted buffalo scenes on his rifle. My Dad said he wanted to “run his hands” over one, so he would have a good feel for the job.. The idea of a buffalo hunt seemed crazy and spontaneous to me. Perhaps it shouldn’t have, as my dad and I have talked about an African safari or wild bore hunting in California. But after calculating costs, time, travel, and simple logistics, our ideas focused and circled until the opportunity of a buffalo hunt became apparent.

John Schoffstahl, the owner of C. Sharps Arms Co., suggested the place to go and we investigated. We discovered that the Sandhills Ranch offered private hunts accompanied with a guide. All that was needed next was to contact the ranch and request a time slot.

Planning the trip was undoubtedly the most complicated part. Deciphering my schedule was difficult enough; it was the heart of basketball season, homework would never slow, and cheer camps, work, and SATs filled my weekends. Combining this with my dad’s gun shows and his work schedule was nearly impossible. Finally we found four consecutive days when we could link our schedules. My dad had the Safari Club International trade show in Reno that he was to display at. He would drive to Reno, spend a week there, and then drive to Rapid City, South Dakota, where I would simultaneously fly down and meet him there. He reached the airport just in time to pick me up. Three hours later we would arrive in Gordon, Nebraska by truck. We would spend two days hunting, and on the fourth day I would fly out of Rapid City, wake up the next morning, and take the SATs. The plan was crazy, but carefully thought-out.

I’ve ridden an airplane several times, but not very often by myself. I have to admit I was nervous. I checked my tickets at least twenty times that morning to make sure I had the correct time. I left very early and made sure my iPod was fully charged to get me through the hours of just sitting and waiting.

When I arrived in Rapid City, it was already dark and I couldn’t see the scenery. I later observed that South Dakota and Nebraska were both very desolate with grasslands and barren hills. The open atmosphere was a nice feeling and the constant breeze kept movement in the air.

The first night in our hotel room was good, yet it seemed to take forever to get to the moment when we could relax. We had to unload everything from the truck, and I don’t just mean our suitcases. My dad had engraved guns and equipment in the back of his truck that he had hauled from the Safari Club. We couldn’t just leave the merchandise in the back of the truck in a parking lot, so at night we carried everything inside. This task was not easy! They were in heavy cases and so tightly packed in the truck that it was awkward when we would work the puzzle backward to take them out. After being completely unpacked, we had the luxury of watching cable TV. In my house there are only three channels, four on a good day, so this was pleasing.

“Alyssa, time to wake up…” my dad said the next morning. That was a good way to begin the day, because there was no annoying alarm clock to put me on the wrong side of the bed. We quickly prepared for the day, got dressed in our hunting gear, and packed the guns back into the truck.

This was a farming community, so to our convenience, the restaurant was open bright and early for us to have breakfast on our big day. Everyone there was real friendly, nodding or tipping their hats when you passed. We then left for the Sandhill Ranch. I thought it would be a five minute drive, but Nebraska is really spread out and it took almost forty-five minutes to get there. And it was in the same town!

Before we could start hunting, we had to sign contracts and discuss shot placement. Ray, the guide, had pictures and diagrams to display where the best place to hit would be. Turns out, the spot was 1/3 of the way up on the hair line. This would hit the heart, and/or penetrate the lungs.

The adrenaline didn’t really hit me until we got in the huge truck that the guide had. The hunt had officially begun. First, we had to locate the bison which were somewhere on his 80,000 acre ranch. We drove on a road circling the ranch, and then decided to off-road it and let me tell you, Nebraska may look flat, but that truck ride was like a rollercoaster. There may not have been many big hills, but there were little ones and pot hole-like dips everywhere.

We spotted the bison a few hills away, and I didn’t realize we would come so close in the truck. The engine roared so loudly that I thought they would definitely hear us coming. I discovered they were making enough noise of their own that with the wind, they couldn’t hear us. Ray gave us instructions to quietly get our gear ready while he scouted the best possible route to the buffalo. When he signaled to follow, we were supposed to stay quiet and slowly walk behind him. We neared the hill that the bison were just over, and again Ray scouted for a good path. We made three arcs around the hill to find an ideal opening. We decided to cut over to the next hill, but we didn’t want to be seen. First Ray went across, then I followed. He motioned me to stay down and as I looked to my right, I saw a bison, plain as day, standing slightly lower about 150 yards away. I froze. My nerves skyrocketed and I hit the ground and crawled the rest of the way over. My dad followed just the same.

We were in a very vulnerable position. If we broke the horizon of the hill, they could have spotted us. We decided to take the risk. I followed Ray on his heels and we scurried over the hill. I wanted to stop and panic when I saw the herd; they were less than 60 yards away, staring at us. Ray set up the shooting sticks and in an instant my gun was at my shoulder. He told me at which to shoot and I took a deep breath.

The buffalo shuddered after the first shot, but was still standing. I pulled the hammer to half-cock, dropped the lever ejecting the spent case, and slid another lipstick sized .45-70 cartridge into the chamber and slammed the lever shut. I took my second shot. He dropped to his knees.

Ray gave me a thumbs up and set my dad up for a shot on a second bull that was to the left of the main herd. As he fired, I could hear the thump of the bullet striking the bison which stood motionless as if he had not felt a thing. My dad quickly put a second shot into the animal, and then a third. And a fourth..

My heart was still pounding as my dad took his shots. The guide had warned us before, if they charge, don’t shoot them in the head. Instead, aim for their shoulder and take out their leg. I responded to every move the herd made, and I was ready for anything. The bull’s head began to wobble side to side. First his front knees went out and then he rolled onto his side. The herd began to get antsy and shift around. They circled my dad’s buffalo, sensing his weakness; bullying him as he was struggling for life. Eventually they realized there was danger about and awkwardly galloped in the other direction. I let out a sigh of relief and knew that I could calm down.

When we approached the bison we had shot, Ray went first to make sure they were officially not alive. Of course, they weren’t alive and Ray went back to get the truck to load them up. My dad wanted lots of pictures of the whole event, so he told me to go sit on one. When I put my hand on the buffalo’s back, I jerked it back out of reflex. I wasn’t expecting it to be so warm. That was the moment I realized the fact that I had just killed a living creature. Before then I had been analyzing what I felt to find some kind of overwhelming emotion, yet it just hadn’t hit me yet. When I felt his fur, I also felt a deep feeling of respect and absorbed the moment.

We had to call in another guide to use his truck for the second buffalo, so meanwhile we loaded the first one. The bison’s front and back legs were fastened to a fork lift-type machine on the back of his truck to hoist up the body to be gutted. This was when I learned how to gut a buffalo! It was a lot less messy than I thought it would be. We had to saw through his sternum and that took both Ray and my dad alternating turns. When we sorted through the actual intestines, he pointed out what everything was and showed me where the bullets when through the lungs. I really got an “inside look” of the event.

After both bison were taken care of, we headed back to the ranch headquarters. We organized our gear and headed for the meat shop. By this time I was so exhausted that I fell asleep in my dad’s truck and missed everything exciting that happened at the meat shop (yet I don’t think anything exciting happened.)

Since we had planned a two-day hunt and we had the opportunity to shoot both bison at once, we had an entire extra day to do what we wished. We decided to make it a sight-seeing day and visit the surrounding landmarks while we traveled back to Rapid City for my next day air. First we hit the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and let me tell you, it hit hard. You could almost see the boundary line of where the reservation began, as it turned into a broken town with abandoned shops and an open bar. People were milling about, but my dad told me that when he drove through before, there were people asleep on the sidewalks and on the bar porch in broad daylight. It was almost scary, and definitely an eye-opener. We visited Wounded Knee and gave respects to the cemetery. Further down the road we entered the Badlands National Park and stopped at Chimney Rock. The rock formations were incredible and very outstanding against the flat horizon. We stopped to look for fossils and found some very cool rocks. And of course, we stopped at Mt. Rushmore after arriving in Rapid City. I found it absolutely incredible, especially the depiction of Teddy Roosevelt’s glasses.

The buffalo hunt was a brand new adventure for me. It was the catch of my first animal, and also an opportunity to learn from my dad and all his years of hunting. The latter is what I will cherish forever. This trip strengthened our father-daughter bond in a way that means a lot to both of us.

The trip was also an unusual event in my life. It’s not everyday that you meet someone who has shot a buffalo. I imagine carrying this experience with me for the rest of my life, and fifty years down the road I will be telling the story to my grandchildren.

I learned some about myself on this trip as well. Never before had I pulled the trigger on a living creature. Before, I was anxious and a little scared to find what my reaction would be. I had built up so much anticipation for that single moment that when it came, I took the shot, and I was actually relieved because I could finally let go of that anticipation. When I look back to the moments after the shots, I remember that I was searching for some kind of wave of emotion to come over me. Then I realized that I had already accepted that this was going to happen; I had prepared myself and I took the shot. If there were to be any overwhelming emotion, it may have stopped me from pulling the trigger. I could finally be at ease and feel proud about my buffalo hunting excursion and forever enjoy the memories I will keep.