I have been blessed to hunt pronghorn on the same property three years now and finally my wife got to tag along. For numerous "life" reasons this hunt almost didn't happen. Thankfully though my wife pushed me to make the trip happen.
The amount of rain the area received in the days prior to the season opener left the roads a deep sandy bog that I was afraid would hinder us even getting to the ranch we were hunting on. Thankfully though after crossing four deep water spots in a rented explorer we reached the property. I was just as relieved we arrived as I was I hadn't floated a brand new rental car. After a short chat with the landowners we set off to find some antelope.
I do not judge anyone's practices in hunting antelope but I am more of a boots on the ground guy than find them in the truck or act and then get close. It was around 9:00 am when we found z nice buck and about twenty does around two miles south of us. We quickly mad a plan and set off to close the distance. The property we hunted has quite a bit of rolling terrain than you would think would exist in the area and about halfway to the antelope a herd of cows who did not like our presence spooked straight away in the antelopes position. We backed off and circled way west around the cattle to flank the pronghorns. Unfortunately we closed the distance too fast and as we crested one of the many little hills we were immediately busted and had to back off in fear of pushing the antelope off the property.
We backtracked and took a wide path back around the cattle in hopes the antelope would have continued in the direction we last saw them traveling. Again we blundered into their view before spotting them. This time they were in range but they spooked and high tailed it north and over the horizon.
At this point it was around noon and we stopped for a snack and hatched a plan of following the east fencline to make sure they don't cross the onto another ranch while stoping to glass to the west where we last saw them.
Finally after a few miles we saw them casually feed over the horizon. We knew they were relaxed and likely would bed down soon for a midday rest. We slowly hiked to the last spot we had seen them and found them feeding west to east into a small bowl . I figured they would probably bed there but they were still 800 yards or more away and now cover for us to close the distance. I studied a topo and found some low areas to the east and north that we used to circle around them.
After circling way north we found them Bedded at around 500 yards away and again no rise in the landscape to hide our approach. It was then that I looked to my wife and asked if she was cool with crawling. She was game so we belly crawled keeping only a small palm between us and the antelope. 300 yards of crawling later I peeked through the small patch of palm and grass to see if they were still there. They were!! I ranged them at 205 and carefully came to a comfortable shooting position and waited. It was probably five minutes into waiting when a doe stood up to change her position in her bed and when she did she was able to see us behind the small brush we were behind. Within seconds they were all standing and the does circled the buck making a shot impossible. Finally I was presented with a clear frontal shot and I dropped the buck in its tracks. It was the first hunt my wife shared with me in years and the first time I actually killed something with her. It was an amazing day that I won't soon forget. Later we looked at the track that my onxmap tracked us on and we had covered 11.25 miles on foot that day. Icing on the cake was the antelope fell only a few hundred yards from the road. Had we shot him that first encounter it would have been a three mile pack out!
Anyways .....thanks for reading!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
The amount of rain the area received in the days prior to the season opener left the roads a deep sandy bog that I was afraid would hinder us even getting to the ranch we were hunting on. Thankfully though after crossing four deep water spots in a rented explorer we reached the property. I was just as relieved we arrived as I was I hadn't floated a brand new rental car. After a short chat with the landowners we set off to find some antelope.
I do not judge anyone's practices in hunting antelope but I am more of a boots on the ground guy than find them in the truck or act and then get close. It was around 9:00 am when we found z nice buck and about twenty does around two miles south of us. We quickly mad a plan and set off to close the distance. The property we hunted has quite a bit of rolling terrain than you would think would exist in the area and about halfway to the antelope a herd of cows who did not like our presence spooked straight away in the antelopes position. We backed off and circled way west around the cattle to flank the pronghorns. Unfortunately we closed the distance too fast and as we crested one of the many little hills we were immediately busted and had to back off in fear of pushing the antelope off the property.
We backtracked and took a wide path back around the cattle in hopes the antelope would have continued in the direction we last saw them traveling. Again we blundered into their view before spotting them. This time they were in range but they spooked and high tailed it north and over the horizon.
At this point it was around noon and we stopped for a snack and hatched a plan of following the east fencline to make sure they don't cross the onto another ranch while stoping to glass to the west where we last saw them.
Finally after a few miles we saw them casually feed over the horizon. We knew they were relaxed and likely would bed down soon for a midday rest. We slowly hiked to the last spot we had seen them and found them feeding west to east into a small bowl . I figured they would probably bed there but they were still 800 yards or more away and now cover for us to close the distance. I studied a topo and found some low areas to the east and north that we used to circle around them.
After circling way north we found them Bedded at around 500 yards away and again no rise in the landscape to hide our approach. It was then that I looked to my wife and asked if she was cool with crawling. She was game so we belly crawled keeping only a small palm between us and the antelope. 300 yards of crawling later I peeked through the small patch of palm and grass to see if they were still there. They were!! I ranged them at 205 and carefully came to a comfortable shooting position and waited. It was probably five minutes into waiting when a doe stood up to change her position in her bed and when she did she was able to see us behind the small brush we were behind. Within seconds they were all standing and the does circled the buck making a shot impossible. Finally I was presented with a clear frontal shot and I dropped the buck in its tracks. It was the first hunt my wife shared with me in years and the first time I actually killed something with her. It was an amazing day that I won't soon forget. Later we looked at the track that my onxmap tracked us on and we had covered 11.25 miles on foot that day. Icing on the cake was the antelope fell only a few hundred yards from the road. Had we shot him that first encounter it would have been a three mile pack out!
Anyways .....thanks for reading!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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