My brother and I will be hunting pronghorns for the first time come this October. The area we are hunting is foothills with some PJ at the upper hills in Southern Colorado.
Does anybody have any good tips, tricks or little secrets about hunting "speedy goats"???
Thanks!!!
Blue Moose
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o.k. few things, good binos! a spotting scope will also come in handy.
have a good pair of boots, u will find some catice(sp), maybe even a pair of knee pads!
take a 2' x2' white towel with you. if you spot some goats at a long distane, get on a hill or in a dry creek bottom, and then wave the towel.make sure they can barely see the towel. they will come to see who it is! good luck!
Don't shoot the first one you see unless, you are not seeing very many,(low numbers) there is always another over the hill. Judge the horn size by using the ears as measuring device. And as manboy said use your optics! I love to hunt antelope as welll as eat them. Once you shoot one, cool it down as quick as you can. I always have a couple of bags of ice on hand and as soon as they are gutted I pack them with ice and cover with a tarp. I have actually quarted them and put them in large ice chest with ice right after the Kodak moment! If taken care of they are excellent table fair. Pronghorn get a bad rap for eating fair becuase 80% of the hunters in the field run the piss out of them before they shoot them, then they haul them around in the back of a truck all day in the sun, not even propped open. I see it every fall dozens of times. And Joe Bob says " them antelope taste like ****"! I will never eat one agian. Good luck on your hunt!
As Randy said, judge the horns with the ears. The average pronghorn has an ear length of 7" or so. Also, if you are close enough, and have good enough optics, the tips of the horns on a mature buck will have a yellow/whitish look to them. You want the prong of the horn to be above the tip of the ear by atleast 1/2", and you want as much horn above the prong as below it. These are a couple of things that I use and have found to work satisfactorily on getting +15" pronghorn bucks. I don't know what caliber your area is going to have, but good luck!
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everything they said, but i have to reinterate on randy here....
antelope are EXCELLENT table fare when ya do it right. in my mind absolutely the best meat on earth. i know cattle ranchers here who will say the same thing. get it cool quick.
i like mine barbqued!!!!!
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Walk,dont road hunt ,glass & follow there direction of there feeding ,use the terrian to make your stalk ,set up & wait near fence lines , & water holes, they will come in , they will run if they spot you ,so be ready to make running shots,& remember they are right hoofed ,so if they spot you & looking straight at you ,they will always turn to there right , & they will run 100 yards or so then curve to there left .& good luck
I too will reiterate the delicious subject. I also agree with quarter it up, throw it on ice, keep it that way until you butcher it!
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I seen a guy doing that last year.Not very smart in my book.
Antelope are realy not that hard to hunt,this a spot and stalk game,use you bino's,spotting scope and know how to shoot at least 300 yds.Antelope are small in body covered by coarse hair.They look farther than they realy are,good thing they have white on them and most range finders pick them up.Good pair of foot wear,watch for cactus[:-][:-]
If you spot a herd,you can cirle around and get in front and ambush them as they get closer,or you can crawl to them to get close.Watch fence lines when antelope get pushed they normaly run down a fence to find a "Hole" to crawl under,these are great anbush sites.Water holes are another good place to set up a blind and ambush them.If you are driving and spot a herd,DO NOT STOP!!! 95% of the time they will take off at mach 9 accross the prarie.Wait toget to the next low spot in the road,slip out and have someone keep driving the pick-up down the road,then slowly work the terain in their direction.
Feilds with round bales as cover are great places to sneak up on them.
I have shot many goats and guided many more to their first ones,most have been shotunder 200 yds,and a few over that.They are fun to hunt,take your time on the stalks and use the cover.The knee pads would be a great choice,as would a light pair of leather gloves to save on your hands.I don't have much use for bi-pods but they can make or break a antelope hunt when there is no rests around and the grass is to tall to shoot prone.
Good luck BBJ
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Have any of you ever use a call? While elk hunting in the foothills during archery, I have twice called in Pronghorns bucks. I was just using a cow call, but it really drove those guys nuts. One of them, we couldn't get rid of him. We would stand up and he'd spook a little. Once we thought he was gone we would start calling again. All of a sudden here he comes running in on us. After about an hour of this, we finally gave up and started walking back to the truck. He followed us all the way back. Of course if I had a Pronghorn tag, this wouldn't have happened. Does a pronghorn call sound like a cow elk call?
Also, when is the rut?
Thanks!!!
Blue Moose
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Elkaholism... It's not a disease.... It's an addiction!!!
Hunting Tips for Pronghorns?
