Record Book Pronghorn – Part 1

I was elated! My wife had drawn a pronghorn tag in what I expected to be a trophy area. I had been watching the data on this area for a few years, knowing that our regular area was increasingly hard to hunt, due to private land concerns. So I was thrilled to see my wife’s name among successful hunters for this new area. The area is a remote portion of our home county and our county is pretty big, a little smaller than New Hampshire and Vermont combined. I had high hopes and great expectations!

I immediately started plotting all of the desert water sources I could find from Google Earth ™ in an attempt to focus in on some key areas. I have learned to look for 1) roadless and trackless areas, with 2) enough water for the animals, and 3) the right habitat for food and escape. It isn’t as hard as it sounds, and I almost always do them in that order. I always start with roadless areas, because if #2 and #3 are present, you can bet your butt there will be hunting competition in season. Hunting competition almost always equals a lack of trophy animals, and also slim pickings on any animal at all. If you are a DIY public lands hunter, you’d better learn this drill my friends.

We scouted a couple of times over the summer, locating some nice goats, but nothing we were over the moon about. On our second scouting trip, a bedraggled and downtrodden cow elk hunter struck up a nice long conversation with us in the field. We told him what we knew about the elk and he told us that he’d seen what he felt was a very big antelope in an area central to our hunt, but one we wouldn’t like have otherwise explored.

You need to understand about antelope that once they get it in their mind to go somewhere, it is pretty hard to deter them.

We found this fellow’s group of antelope, but could never convince ourselves there was a brute amongst them, so we moved on. We ended our scouting season not really knowing what the hunt would bring.

Our hunt started off with multiple nice antelope sightings and a very long day in the truck. We had found what we thought to be a very big antelope within a couple of miles of where our cow-hunting friend had marked for us. Facing us in the heat waves, he had tall curving horns with I thought might be ivory-faded tips. We had observed so many antelope and it was very hot out, with this big guy being well over a mile away and at least two herds of goats between us, we decided we would continue to hunt and try to find a better situation or a better animal.

By the end of that day, we had numerous close encounters, but nothing that caused my wife to pull the trigger. We were surprisingly tired, and I was hoping maybe my wife might point us toward our nice soft bed at home. No such luck…she was determined to get a big antelope and to stay out another night on opening weekend.

We reached camp in the dark. Camp, it turns out, was a ridgetop near the big buck we’d seen earlier in the day. We dumped our gear out of the truck, inflated our Exped Synmat 9 UL (discontinued, grr!) air mattresses, which we love, and threw our bedrolls out in the back of the truck. We dove in and started sawing logs until I noticed a faint glow in the east on one of my sleeping-bag rollovers.

We rolled out of bed, dressed, donned our packs, threw some water and food into each, checked the rifle and started out in the dark. This whole ritual from sleeping bag to leaving camp takes about 15 minutes, tops. It was still dark enough that we stumbled on a group of antelope about 200 yards away. We heard them before we saw them, but they sure saw us and beat feet out of there in a hurry…toward the country we hoped to hunt. I crossed my fingers and said a quick prayer.

We found plenty of antelope, and realized we were seeing a travel pattern in what these guys were up to. My wife had a number of opportunities to fill her tag at close range as we hiked and stalked. We just could not find the one. We got to a low saddle in a ridge where antelope seemed to like to cross, and before we knew it, we had an antelope coming straight in to us at about 350 yards. He saw us. We saw him. We were caught in the open with our pants down, metaphorically speaking. I figured we were done, but I scoped the buck anyway just in case. Forks well above ears, check. I estimated he’d be 16 inches long, but couldn’t tell much about his mass as he was staring at us and the heat waves were already pretty dazzling.

He finally bolted and started over the east side of the hill to heading north. My wife opted to try to get around the west side of that hill as fast as she could, just in case the antelope was circling the mountain to get around us. You need to understand about antelope that once they get it in their mind to go somewhere, it is pretty hard to deter them. You might reroute them, but often they will plow straight forward. Not too bright once you figure it out, but this instinct must serve a primal purpose. Anyway, her tactic worked perfectly and before we could get around the west side of the nob, here comes that buck antelope around the corner and heading south on the slope across from us about 270 yards.

It was happening too fast. I knew it was a big buck, but I couldn’t exactly tell how big. The length was there, and with antelope the mass can be very hard to judge quickly…at least that is the case for me! My wife set up her shot and I gave her the green light, saying he was tall enough and a nice buck. I gave her the yardage and just barely got my own ears plugged. Wham! One shot, one kill.

We got to that buck and I could see he was a beautiful animal. Graceful sweeping horns of ebony and I figured I was in the ballpark on length of 16 inches. He later measured 16.5 inches on both sides. We were far enough from the truck, and I was unaware I could drive close to where he was, so we boned him out, caped him, and packed him on our backs to the truck about a mile and a half away.

We later found out that this buck probably was not the big one we’d seen the day before. A trophy buck, a near-perfect hunt, a brilliant tactical decision by my wife, and a one-shot kill made this a textbook hunt and one that is indelibly etched in my gray matter forevermore. We had the best time, and saw hundreds of antelope in two days of hunting. It was very satisfying to head home in the late morning knowing we had some time to relax and savor the experience.

What happens next? Check out Part II, which I will post this time next year…kidding, it is next up in the sequence!