My son and I each bagged a pronghorn antelope about a week ago just outside of Gillette, Wyoming. My son took a buck with about 13.25" horns; I took a doe. My son "stalked" his buck in full view of the herd, as there was no cover between a hill perhaps 300 yards from the herd, and my son wasn't comfortable with shooting from this distance. He sat on his butt and leaned back, scooting forward slowly while the buck's head was down. I watched this in some anxiety from the lip of the hill. The does bedded down and watched my son complacently. When my son got to about 150 yards he took the buck with one shot. The shot was rather further back than preferrable, but the buck went down quickly enough.

I stalked up a long zig-zag dry gulch or creekbed just deep enough to conceal me when I crouched over or crawled on hands and knees. After some time at this I realized the bucks I had started after were not getting much closer -- I found it difficult to estimate ranges and distances out there -- and I readjusted my objective to a herd of does that was closer. To approach to within shooting distance of the does I had to cross over to another dry gulch over about 40 yards of open ground. I crawled flat on my belly very slowly across this open ground, not daring to lift my head to look at the does to see if they were running off or staying put. Once in the second creek bed I approached to within 240 yards and took my doe from that distance. My shot also was further back than desirable, but the doe stayed put and went down. I was pretty tired from the long stalk bent over. In the future I think I'll take a substantial breather at the end of the stalk before taking my shot. I had stalked these animals for maybe 30 minutes and they had remained in place during that time. It would have been a safe bet they would remain in place for me to take a 10 minute breather before taking the shot.

We hunted on a 1200 acre ranch just south of Gillette and paid a trespass fee to the rancher for this opportunity. There were lots of antelope there. If I had been ready to spend more time on the hunt I could have scored a buck later that day or the next day, but I had made some plans to visit some people over in SW Wyoming and felt constrained to tag out quickly.

We ate a leg roast from my doe last night -- our first pronghorn antelope meat ever -- and it was quite good. I couldn't really discern that it was different from good deer meat, but my wife and one of my daughters felt that it was better than deer meat and also different tasting from deer meat. I sort of thought that I tasted an extra zing or spicyness to the antelope, but this was not real obvious. I did not taste anything unpleasant about the meat. I skinned, cut-up, and processed the meat myself.

It was fun, and I hope we can do this again.