TheYukiYama
Lil-Rokslider
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2023
- Messages
- 147
Got lucky and drew a tag as a non-resident where I grew up. Not by any means a trophy area but numbers are good. So I flew east (I currently live in California) to go pronghorn hunting. Traveled last Friday. Wore all my hunting clothes/boots on the plane as I didn't even have a carry on (dang base economy tickets), and my personal item had my range finder, binos, spotting scope, tripod. (guns, ammo, knives, camping gear all provided via my dad who still lives in the area. After arriving my sister gave me her extra truck for the weekend and I drove to where my dad had set up camp. Arriving in the dark in an area on I never had been, I was quite excited for sunrise in the morning.
My dad had arrived a couple days early and done some scouting. He described the area as rolling grassy hills with some sage mixed in, with pronghorn in every draw. Turns out he was right. I had 2.5 days to hunt, but as the sun crept up, I knew we wouldn't need it. By legal shooting light, we had glassed up 7 different groups ranging from 4-15 goats per group. The wind that had picked up over night began to die down.
My dad picked the one we wanted and we began walking. The stalk wasn't too challenging as there was a draw parallel to the draw the antelope were in that we followed to within range. When we believed we were even with them, we crept up over the hill. There was pretty strong rutting activity going on with the buck chasing the does around. They had moved up the opposing hill to around 350 yards which was further than my dad was hoping to shoot, especially with pretty active buck in tight with a bunch of does. Tag is also for buck only, so not a place you want to mess up. We were able to back out slightly and circle down around closer. The buck herded the group down below us through a clear spot next to a small dam where there was a dam at around 200 yards. I watched through my binos to let my dad know when the buck was coming. When he came through the clearing, my dad shot and hit him perfect. First tag filled. The buck was kind of neat, had a bit of double prong on his right side.
Now I was up. We hadn't planned to be picky since I only had a couple days to hunt, but as many goats as we saw, I decided to look around a bit more. We road the four wheelers around to some different points and glassed. I saw one I was interested in getting a closer look at. As we approached, some other guys came up over the opposite hill and tried to shoot it and missed but he ran far off. On to the next. Spotted one group, and when trying to look at them, we spotted a buck with a single doe back behind them. He looked decent, to me (never hunted pronghorn and had some difficulty judging them on the hoof) but thought we'd go after him. We circle out and around him about a mile and sneak up over a hill. He catches me as I try to get in position but seemed to not be totally sure what I was. He finally looked away but was beginning to walk off so I thought it was my chance. I take a shot, perhaps a bit ill advised and rushed, and he begins to run. I initially thought I may have wounded him so I try for a second shot that was also rushed and misses. I figure why not and try again. The third hits the spine and he drops. I follow up to finish him off. Not my finest decision making/shooting but our tags were filled and lessons were learned. Pretty happy with the hunt.
Was super fun seeing so many animals with pretty realistic stalking options. High action, activity. Will definitely be getting my family and friends to apply so I can join and get to go on these hunts more.
Since I had an extra day left, I decided to go see if I couldn't get a chance at filling my archery deer tag.. Spoiler- also successful, but will save that for the deer forum.
My dad had arrived a couple days early and done some scouting. He described the area as rolling grassy hills with some sage mixed in, with pronghorn in every draw. Turns out he was right. I had 2.5 days to hunt, but as the sun crept up, I knew we wouldn't need it. By legal shooting light, we had glassed up 7 different groups ranging from 4-15 goats per group. The wind that had picked up over night began to die down.
My dad picked the one we wanted and we began walking. The stalk wasn't too challenging as there was a draw parallel to the draw the antelope were in that we followed to within range. When we believed we were even with them, we crept up over the hill. There was pretty strong rutting activity going on with the buck chasing the does around. They had moved up the opposing hill to around 350 yards which was further than my dad was hoping to shoot, especially with pretty active buck in tight with a bunch of does. Tag is also for buck only, so not a place you want to mess up. We were able to back out slightly and circle down around closer. The buck herded the group down below us through a clear spot next to a small dam where there was a dam at around 200 yards. I watched through my binos to let my dad know when the buck was coming. When he came through the clearing, my dad shot and hit him perfect. First tag filled. The buck was kind of neat, had a bit of double prong on his right side.
Now I was up. We hadn't planned to be picky since I only had a couple days to hunt, but as many goats as we saw, I decided to look around a bit more. We road the four wheelers around to some different points and glassed. I saw one I was interested in getting a closer look at. As we approached, some other guys came up over the opposite hill and tried to shoot it and missed but he ran far off. On to the next. Spotted one group, and when trying to look at them, we spotted a buck with a single doe back behind them. He looked decent, to me (never hunted pronghorn and had some difficulty judging them on the hoof) but thought we'd go after him. We circle out and around him about a mile and sneak up over a hill. He catches me as I try to get in position but seemed to not be totally sure what I was. He finally looked away but was beginning to walk off so I thought it was my chance. I take a shot, perhaps a bit ill advised and rushed, and he begins to run. I initially thought I may have wounded him so I try for a second shot that was also rushed and misses. I figure why not and try again. The third hits the spine and he drops. I follow up to finish him off. Not my finest decision making/shooting but our tags were filled and lessons were learned. Pretty happy with the hunt.
Was super fun seeing so many animals with pretty realistic stalking options. High action, activity. Will definitely be getting my family and friends to apply so I can join and get to go on these hunts more.
Since I had an extra day left, I decided to go see if I couldn't get a chance at filling my archery deer tag.. Spoiler- also successful, but will save that for the deer forum.
