On several occasions, after a couple failed stalks, I’ve given up on a particular buck late in the afternoon and found him the next morning close to where he was the first time I stalked him. And yet I don’t think they move a great deal at night. If you find a buck towards last light and you don’t think there’s time remaining for a good stalk, you’re almost better to leave him. Chances are good he’ll be right there the next morning.
Last year I wanted to get a pronghorn for a young friend of mine, Adrian Flores. At 18 he’d been hunting for several seasons but had been having terrible luck with deer and elk. I thought maybe pronghorn would change his luck, and I did everything I could to stack the deck . An outfitter friend of mine let me use part of his lease near Limon, Colorado, and we got tags for the right area. The problem was that, after a couple of scouting runs, I was pretty sure there was just one good buck in the area we had permission to hunt.
The day before the season Adrian met me in Limon and we went out to do one last scouting run—me hoping a couple of “backup bucks” had moved into the area. None had—and we also couldn’t find the big one. I was frantic, because if he wasn’t there our options were extremely limited in that private land-locked hunting unit. Just as dark he trooped up out of a little cut along a long ridge—the best place he could possibly be.
The next morning we left the truck well back on the far side of the ridge, hiked along below the skyline, and crawled over the top. As it usually is, the ground was more broken up close than it looked from afar—for long, tense minutes we couldn’t find them. Then I spotted a doe, and when we crawled farther we could see the whole herd.
Keeping low, we started down the ridge to close the distance just about the time the pronghorns started up the ridge. We met them head-on at a bit over 100 yards, and they almost caught us with our pants down. We had just time to get flat and get set up for a shot when the herd came into view, and Adrian took his first pronghorn very nicely with an easy shot well-executed. Me, well, I knew that was the only good buck in the pasture at that particular time. So I did the sensible thing and shot the next young buck I saw. Sure was tasty!
I know that the does saw us on that occasion—but rather than spook they took a few steps forward for a closer look . . . and the buck followed suit, which was his undoing. This is not uncommon if you keep low, are perfectly still, and don’t have anything unnatural such as glare from optics or a shiny riflestock. Pronghorn, I must admit, are not the brightest creatures on the planet. I think, as is the case with most animals, even their fabulous eyes key primarily on movement. And they have a healthy curiosity. The old timers used to “toll them in” by laying flat and raising a stick with a white flag. At a distance what we see of a pronghorn is a flash of white, and I expect that’s also what they see, especially at long range. One might theorize that the pronghorn’s reaction to a white flag isn’t curiosity at all, but a response to a primitive decoy.
Whether that’s true or not, decoying work. Boy, does it work! I do not recommend it for gun hunters, especially on public land. Hiding behind a pronghorn dummy just plain ain’t smart! But for archers and hunters in unusually controlled situations it’s extremely interesting to watch pronghorns react. I was up on the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana with Dwight Van Brundt of Burris and Outdoor Life’s Joe Healey. It was late in the season and we were the only permit holders in the field, so we tried a decoy largely out of curiosity. Joe and our guide, Reno Shambo, pushed it ahead of them while stalking a nice buck. As soon as they came into view his reaction was instantaneous and startling—he darn near charged them! This decoy was a life-size image of a small buck. The rut was on and it was clear the large buck thought a youngster was horning in on his territory. Formerly the best tactic for archery was waiting at waterholes, but there’s no doubt in my mind decoying is not only more effective but a lot more fun.
Depending on exactly where you are pronghorn generally rut late in September or very early in October. Most seasons are relatively short and specific, so you can’t always pick the rut. While mating the bucks are more goofy than usual, which is good news—but the bad news is that they’re almost constantly with a fairly large harem, which means there are a lot of eyes out there while you’re stalking. Because of this, I don’t think the exact time of the season is really important. In hard-hunted areas with short seasons, opening day is important. Actually, the couple of days prior is probably even more important. Half the hunt, especially if you’re seeking a trophy buck, is finding one and figuring out where he lives and how to waylay him. This is best done before hunting pressure shifts things around.
In areas with longer seasons, say 10 days or more, the end of the season can actually be as good as the opener. Most pronghorn pressure occurs on opening day, and the animals can get pretty stirred up. The pressure curve drops swiftly, and after a few days things settle back to normal. But do be aware that pronghorns drop their horns quite early.
The horns—cognified epithelium, like finger nails, with some hair enclosed, especially at the base—grow up around a bony core. Unique in the animal kingdom, they’re shed annually with the shedding usually taking place in mid-November. New growth starts very soon after and continues through the winter and spring. Eastern Montana is one of the places with a long pronghorn season. It starts early in October, before deer season, then continues on through much of the deer season, making a combo hunt possible. By the end of the season, usually mid-November, a great percentage of the bucks have lost their horns, making for slim pickings. One year, very late in the season, Jack Atcheson Jr. and I glassed a massive group of pronghorns ‘way out on a sagebrush flat. This, too, is typical of pronghorns—after mating season and as winter approaches they congregate into huge herds, almost certainly so they can collectively stamp through the snow to feed.
There were just a few bucks in the herd—easily 100 animals—that still had horns, and one was clearly outstanding. There was just one way to get close enough, and that was to crawl—a long, long distance. After an eternity of getting cactus spines in our knees, hands, and elbows we closed the range to long shooting distance. Jack led the way to a particularly tall sagebrush clump and we set up the spotting scope so we could be sure we had the right buck. Right there, while we watched, he dropped his head to feed and came up with just one horn! After all that crawling I was happy to settle for second best, a nice buck—but nothing like the one that got away!
Pronghorn hunting is mostly a game for good optics, good stalking, and plenty of patience. The optics are absolutely essential, for its critical that pronghorn first be spotted as far away as possible. And also judged for quality if that is important to you. Pronghorns are quite difficult to judge, and at first they all look bigger then they are. The ears are about six inches from butt to tip, which is a good indicator. What’s hard to see is how much the horns curl in or back at the tip. A pronghorn that doubles the ears in a 12-inch buck—but the tips can add three inches or more if they hook sharply and well. Good binoculars backed up with a spotting scope are really essential. Once a decision is reached, good stalking and patience take over.
In my experience it’s a myth that pronghorns must be taken at long range. Without a doubt ranges average longer than with most big game animals—but only once have I taken a pronghorn at more than 400 yards, and very few over 300. On that same Fort Belknap hunt—where you can purchase two tags—I decided to take my second buck with Dwight’s XP-100 pistol in 7mm-08. I shot it and figured I was good to 200 yards, hoping for half that. Reno Shambo and I followed a buck into some broken ground where a plateau fell off into ravine-cut badlands. The buck decided to come up the same ridge we were coming down, and we had a meeting engagement at point-blank range. At about 30 yards all I could see through the handgun scope was hair, fortunately the right hair in the right spot.
I expect the average shot is somewhere on the near side of 200 yards. This means ultra-long-range rigs really aren’t essential. However, accuracy is important b
ecause the pronghorn presents a relatively small target. A flat-shooting rifle is important, too, because range is very difficult to judge in that open country. Best to have a rifle that shoots flat enough so you can hold in the center of the chest at moderate ranges and high on the shoulder if he looks kinda small. Magnum power is not needed, but a pronghorn’s stamina shouldn’t be under-rated. Hit well, no problem—but hit poorly and a pronghorn can lead you on a very long day.
If you’re a good and patient stalker and the country is relatively broken a .243 or 6mm are just fine—but if you need to take shots beyond 250 yards or so you’re pushing the energy envelope. To my mind, the perfect pronghorn caliber is the .25-06, with the good old .270 Winchester an equally sound second choice. Of course, any flat-shooting deer caliber will do just fine, and there’s nothing wrong with the small belted cartridges like the .240, .257, and .270 Weatherby and the .264 Winchester Magnum.
The wind-swept sagebrush hills and open prairies the pronghorn calls home are uniquely beautiful in their way—and the pronghorn is one of the most strikingly handsome animals in the world. Especially in terms of sheer enjoyment, hunting him is also one of the most underrated pastimes in the hunting world. I really missed crawling through the cactus after him this year, and that’s a mistake I hope I don’t repeat soon!
Most pronghorn country isn’t as flat as it looks; there are usually subtle rises and low gullies that offer cover for stalking.
It’s simply amazing what decoys can do—but unless you have total control over your hunting area this is not recommended for firearms hunters.
Fort Belknap guide, Reno Shambo, Joe Healey, and Dwight van Brunt with Healey’s pronghorn taken by using a decoy. It worked like a charm; Healey’s buck darn near ran over the hunters!
Me and my father, Bud Boddington, made a nice double on these Montana pronghorn. Montana is under-rated as a pronghorn state, with good quality and an easy tag draw.
My very best pronghorn was taken in West Texas. The herd is small there, but hunting pressure is light and winters mild, so bucks grow to full potential.
MULE DEER—Where Have all the Mule Deer Gone?
The Great Days of Mule Deer Hunting are over, But there are Still Great Mule Deer… If You Know Where to Look.
Dark was falling quickly, but not as quickly as the freezing rain mixed with thick, wet snowflakes. I was driving through northern Utah, and I happened to glance to the left at a little stock tank nestled in a sagebrush coulee. Just on the far side of the tank was a huge mule deer, the kind you dream of—thick, dark antlers, spreading wide and with clean, deep forks. The Utah season had just ended, and I was glad to see this buck. Glad that he had survived, and glad that his classic mule deer habitat still held such bucks. Unfortunately great bucks like him are no longer common today—certainly not in the Rocky Mountain high country, the core of what has always been the most classic mule deer range.
It’s hard to define exactly what many like to refer to as “The Golden Age of Mule Deer Hunting”—but for darn sure I missed it. The best years varied with the area, and the downhill slide was almost imperceptible at first. The early 1960s were probably the peak for trophy mule deer hunting across most of the West, but some traditional trophy country remained fabulous well into the 1970s. I could have gotten in on the bonanza, but mule deer weren’t a big thing to me thirty years ago. I was much more interested in elk hunting and saving up for a first African hunt; I never even attempted to hunt trophy mule deer until it was much too late.
The perception back then was that all you needed to do to bag a heavy-beamed 30-inch mule deer was show up in the right area and look around a bit. Chances are it was never quite that easy, but there was some reality in this perception. The Rocky Mountain West, the core mule deer range, was lightly inhabited and lightly hunted back then. Ski slopes and condominiums were few, mineral exploration was light, and elk numbers were low. While management manipulations have kept overall numbers high in many areas, the percentage of mature and old bucks that existed just a few decades ago will never be seen again.
In those days serious mule deer hunters had it good—and many of them now in their fifties and sixties still have the big racks to prove it. Nonresident hunters in numbers were a new facet of a more affluent and mobile post-war America. Casinos all across Nevada hosted “big buck” contests (some still do), and merchants all through the Rockies welcomed the hordes of hunters from the East and West Coast. Even the game managers got in on a little free enterprise; Utah was not alone, but she was a prime example of selling her deer herd. During the Golden Age you could fill a tag and go buy another . . . and another.
The decline was not an avalanche, but a slow downhill slide that continues to this day across the heart of the Rockies. Season by season the mature mossy-horned bucks became ever more scarce—and in many areas overall numbers have followed suit.
The reasons are not altogether understood—and since the cause is uncertain, the solution is less so. Part of the problem, especially in the reduction of mature, trophy-class bucks, has been overhunting—but only part. Human development, whether mineral, recreational, or urban sprawl, has blocked or destroyed much critical winter range. Then there are various experts’ pet theories: sagebrush eradication, unchecked increases in predators, the elk population explosion. Sometimes disease is a factor, like the chronic wasting disease that is a serious current problem. All have validity, with the real reason probably resting in some combination of factors depending on the area. Add drought or a killer winter to several of these other factors and you have a disaster requiring years to recover from.
A large part of the problem is politics. Thanks to those long lines of out-of-state autos (whose occupants aren’t so welcome any more, but whose dollars are) that converge on mule deer country each fall, mule deer became a cash crop with politicians unwilling to do anything that might interrupt the cash flow. But ever so slowly the reins have tightened. Arizona was the first western state to institute across-the-board deer tags-by-drawing. Wyoming and Nevada followed. Idaho and Montana established quotas. Several years ago, in an extremely unpopular, downright courageous, and absolutely essential move, Utah went to across-the-board drawings. Colorado finally crossed this inevitable line as well.
Limited permits are the present and future of mule deer hunting. It is unlikely to ever get easier to get a tag—especially in a good area. Nor is it likely to get cheaper. The new wave is to make more expensive tags more available—and not only on private land. In a weak moment I paid $500 for a “sure thing” 1996 Montana deer license—which makes one wonder where it can go. At least the tag drawings are fair to all, and they work. Nevada’s trophy bucks were badly depleted when she went to tag drawings, but in just a few years bucks of “4x4” or better formed the majority of the harvest. Drought has had its impact recently, but Nevada—seldom considered a hotspot in the “Golden Age”—remains fine trophy country today. I expect much of the traditional trophy country in both Utah and Colorado to recover, at least to some degree, given time and a conservative buck harvest.
Right now, however, and almost certainly for a long time to come, I consider a really large trophy mule deer—not necessarily a “book” deer, but a buck with mass, length, points, character, and class—the most difficult trophy in North America. It takes luck and persistence, but there are many places to bag a great whitetail. The way elk herds are exploding new elk hotspots are emerging every year. Sheep hunting generally means either an expensive hunt or beating the odds in a tough draw, but with enough money and/or a great tag wonderful sheep can be taken. Even with a great tag in the best remaining areas there are no assurances of a great mule deer.
And what are the best areas? Within “traditional” trophy mule deer country, roughly from the eastern front of the Rockies westward to the Sierras, there are very few hotspots. The remote Arizona Strip country, almost impossible to get into, still holds monsters among its few deer. Arizona’s Kaibab Plateau, though weather-dep
endent, continues to yield giants. Likewise Utah’s Paunsaugant Plateau, though perhaps it’s even more weather-sensitive. These are all permit areas, tough to draw (or, in the case of some Paunsaugant landowner tags, pricey).
New Mexico’s Jicarilla Apache Reservation, also expensive, continues to produce some giant mulies. Nevada shouldn’t be overlooked. Especially in western Nevada the buck/doe ratios are extremely high, genetics are superb, and the age class distribution is good. Southern Idaho was a real hotspot a few years ago. Notoriety and some bad winters have had impact, but good trophy potential remains.
Mind you, big mule deer are where you find them. The odd giant still turns up in western Colorado or western Wyoming, and that buck I saw in northern Utah was wonderful—but these days such bucks are increasingly few and far between. Fortunately the mule deer situation is a good deal brighter in many non-traditional and fringe areas. Perhaps only coincidentally, these are almost universally areas where elk are not a factor.
Mule deer are making and have made a wonderful comeback on the southern Great Plains, at least some of it due to carefully controlled permits. It’s a closely-guarded local secret, but western Kansas is producing some huge mule deer these days. Unfortunately this is mostly a playground for Kansas residents; the only nonresident tags in the best mule deer country are archery or muzzleloader.
Almost as good, and much more accessible, are the plains units in eastern Colorado. These are all draw units, with the best-known areas, such as the famed Purgatory in southern Colorado, requiring several preference points. But today you could encounter a monster mulie almost anywhere in eastern Colorado—and many of the units are a one-point or no-point draw.
Fair Chase in North America Page 12