North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Exotics Hunts

Too many hunters describe antelope as "speed mutton" for their gamy taste. But those hunters ran the pronghorns down, then allowed the carcass to bake under the broiling sun. If you kill a buck that isn’t shot-through with adrenaline, keep the carcass cool, and get the waxy hair off, you’ll find the real trophy of an antelope is its sweet, tender meat—there is no more finely flavored wild flesh.

Many hunters prepare for an antelope safari by working up a long-distance rifle load. Favorite calibers tend toward the light side: .243 Win., .25/06 Rem., .260 Rem. But pronghorns can be effectively killed with well-constructed bullets from a .223 or with lighter bullets from magnum rounds in the 7mm and .30-caliber families.

Besides a rifle capable of long-range precision, you need good optics and bullets with high ballistic coefficients that are relatively unaffected by the nudges of the relentless prairie wind.

The great challenge of pronghorn hunters, however, is not making long-range shots but seeing how close you can get to the wary animals. Use terrain features—dry streambeds, heavy sage stands, and even the rolling hills of the prairie itself—to hide your approach, and then belly-crawl the last few yards until you can set up for a shot. I wear volleyballers’ kneepads and heavy leather gloves for this ambush, since cactus and sharp rocks are abundant.

You can also effectively bowhunt pronghorns. Most archery seasons begin in early September and coincide with the antelope rut. During this window, bucks are abnormally curious but also highly territorial, so decoys imitating young bucks can be especially effective. Hunters typically work in pairs, with one holding a decoy in sight of a lone buck, moving or flashing the decoy up and down while the shooter prepares to make a snap shot at the incoming animal.

One of the biggest challenges of bowhunting antelope is quickly and accurately estimating range. On the prairie, you don’t have trees, bushes, or fenceposts for reference, and most archers tend to shoot over antelope, thinking that the small-framed animals are farther away than they actually are.

Pronghorn bucks can be notoriously hard to judge in the field. Horn length, mass, and depth of the prong—or the triangle that juts off the horn about halfway up its length—all contribute to what constitutes a trophy buck.

[A] Length

Horns that reach 16 inches (40 cm) in total length are the threshold for trophy status. A buck’s ears measure just under 6 inches (15 cm) in length. Determine where the tip of the ear meets the horn and then visually double that length. If the rest of the horn exceeds that 12-inch (30-cm) mark, pay attention, especially if the horn curves deeply.

[B] Mass

You want to find a buck whose horn bases are at least as massive as the circumference of his ear. And you should make sure that mass is sustained up the horn, well past the prong.

[C] Prong

A buck whose prong, or cutter, juts forward or sideways at least twice the width of the horn is a trophy, especially if you detect cupping of the prong. The cutter should project from the horn at least above the height of the ear, and remember: the higher the prong, the better scoring the buck.

For a short window in the fall—late September through mid-October—you can kill a pronghorn with a handkerchief at times as in lone satellite bucks. The herd buck with the does is not interested he has girls to keep in line. Even when they lay down the antelope doesn't lay with the does as deer do, the antelope buck will distance himself by 50 feet or so, this gives him the ability to watch ALL his does by looking in one direction.

This practice appeals to their curiosity, territoriality, and herd dominance. Just wave the fabric until you get his attention, then lower your flag, and periodically raise and lower it to keep him interested and coming toward you. I have my best luck tying a hanky (or white T-shirt) to the barrel of my gun and raising the muzzle; I can get the buck’s attention without showing myself.

FOUR PRONGHORN CURIOSITIES

1. Horns vs. antlers

Antelope have neither permanent horns nor annually shed antlers. Instead, they have something in between: a hard sheath made of hair that sheds each fall and a permanent blood-filled core that sprouts the new horn each spring.

2. Behavior in wind

When the wind kicks up on the plains, antelope become especially skittish. That’s probably because the relentless wind dries out their eyes, impairing their prodigious sight. If you can wait for the wind to die down, you can expect antelope to become slightly calmer, if no less eagle-eyed.

3. Signal hair

Pronghorns have specialized hair on their rumps that flares when they sense danger. This white hair can shine like a tin pan, and the flash signals to other members of the herd that danger is nigh.

4. Sensing a link

While pronghorns are apparently unrelated to the true antelope of Africa, one curiosity links them. The hollow hair of freshly killed American pronghorns and the common springbuck of southern Africa smell almost the same: exactly like sweet, dry corn husks.