Ultimately its pronghorn hunting and I know I am over complicating things here but wanted to reach out and see if anyone had advice for a really late season buck tag. I was able to pick up a special use voucher for a youth to hunt for a buck the last week of November.
I have taken several pronghorn myself but always with my bow and muzzleloader in August and mid September. That time of year is hot and dry so water is key. I also witness that the overwhelming majority of hunters like to drive and glass and move around until they find a buck. This tactic seems to work well, however for myself I have found much better success in learning travel corridors that are not visible from the roads. Once you can find pronghorn in the general area, sitting and waiting for the bucks to move through these travel routes in the middle of the day has been my most productive strategy. The pronghorn I have hunted early season are usually in the pre rut to rut stage, so watching a buck travel three plus miles in the middle of the day is fairly normal.
After mid-September however I have not spent hardly any time in pronghorn country. My late seasons change to studying elk and deer in the mountains. An old mature bull elk in November will go find a dark nasty hole to hide in and recover from the rut. Though their fighting and terrain are so much different, I would still expect a mature pronghorn buck to be seeking a hiding hole to put on some fat before the winter hits.
Just curious what your guys late season tactics are to finding a big mature buck late into November? How far and often do the bucks travel this time of year? I would like to give this young hunter that I am taking out the opportunity to see a couple mature bucks and not settle on taking the first buck he sees. The unit this tag is valid in has decent pronghorn numbers and is known to produce a couple really big pronghorn every year. Not one behind every yucca so I would like to put some extra work in to find a big boy instead of simply driving around and glassing from the truck for 4 days.
I have taken several pronghorn myself but always with my bow and muzzleloader in August and mid September. That time of year is hot and dry so water is key. I also witness that the overwhelming majority of hunters like to drive and glass and move around until they find a buck. This tactic seems to work well, however for myself I have found much better success in learning travel corridors that are not visible from the roads. Once you can find pronghorn in the general area, sitting and waiting for the bucks to move through these travel routes in the middle of the day has been my most productive strategy. The pronghorn I have hunted early season are usually in the pre rut to rut stage, so watching a buck travel three plus miles in the middle of the day is fairly normal.
After mid-September however I have not spent hardly any time in pronghorn country. My late seasons change to studying elk and deer in the mountains. An old mature bull elk in November will go find a dark nasty hole to hide in and recover from the rut. Though their fighting and terrain are so much different, I would still expect a mature pronghorn buck to be seeking a hiding hole to put on some fat before the winter hits.
Just curious what your guys late season tactics are to finding a big mature buck late into November? How far and often do the bucks travel this time of year? I would like to give this young hunter that I am taking out the opportunity to see a couple mature bucks and not settle on taking the first buck he sees. The unit this tag is valid in has decent pronghorn numbers and is known to produce a couple really big pronghorn every year. Not one behind every yucca so I would like to put some extra work in to find a big boy instead of simply driving around and glassing from the truck for 4 days.
