2011 AZ Rifle Pronghorn (long read)

redline410

New member
Joined
Jan 9, 2006
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116
Location
Chandler, AZ
Born and raised in Arizona, I have spent my entire adult life trying to get drawn for a resident pronghorn tag and have yet to be the hunter. However, I have been fortunate enough to have close friends pull a handful of tags over the years and been able to spot, range and lug decoys around the sea of fire that is northern Arizona’s pronghorn playground.

2011 left me once again disliking AZGFD but a couple of the boys lucked into rifle pronghorn tags and if nothing else we were going to have a good time. Due to a conference out of state, one of the guys wouldn’t be there until Saturday night, figured it was easier that way anyhow. Get one done and concentrate on the other when the time comes. Although the unit isn’t what you’d consider prime big buck country, we found a couple of quality targets over the summer and as the last hard core archery hunter left we set up shop (only five archery tags mind you). Not seeing a soul scouting for the past 4 weeks we thought we had the biggest buck in the area all to ourselves. Thursday night we spent reviewing scouting video and went to bed wondering how we were going to spend the rest of the three day weekend since this thing was going to be over by 9am…… uh huh, riiight….

At 4:45am opening morning we were sitting in the dark over looking what we knew would soon materialize into a vast green meadow with two stock ponds and a small cluster of trees, the perfect setup. I started getting that anticipation tingle and I wasn’t even the hunter! Sometime around 5am I am assuming, the green flag dropped and the Flagstaff 500 off road rally got underway. The main road looked like I-5 on a Friday afternoon. utvs, quads, jeeps, super cab trucks and one el camino cut every side road, two track and flat spot within a 3 mile radius. By the time the sun broke the horizon, the dust had settled into the valley, we were surrounded, the boys were slightly perturbed and the cursing began.

Knowing this buck was not a fan of traffic and not wanting to risk a friendly fire incident we hustled back to the truck and hauled to the complete opposite side of the unit (pretty sure we counted 37 of the 40 tag holders on the way there) climbed to the top of the tallest bump we could find and went to glassing. Somehow Rick picked up a pronghorn some 2 miles away slipping in and out of the tree line. Needing to see what we were dealing with we drove as close as we could and made the last ½ mile stalk on foot. Locating antelope in the trees is a bit more difficult than I thought. How something so flat could change so drastically once boots are on the ground is beyond me. We blindly stumbled around the cedar grove for about an hour and by some miracle we found those cagey speed goats. To make a long story short- the pronghorn are still there and much smarter…….they also probably suffering some degree of hearing loss due to the amount of rifle reports they were subjected to.

Day two: new spot, no other vehicles and the action started immediately. The second biggest buck we had on camera showed up and was now top priority. Rifle pronghorn is turning out to not be as easy as first anticipated. The cat and mouse game was nerve racking- so much so that we had a few disagreements and had to separate to get back in control. During which time the buck and his does ended up 58yrds from me- all I could do was watch….and laugh. As they left I tried to cut them off and turn them back. Not seeing them again I found a stump to sit onto think about the next move, a few short minutes later, BOOM! When I found the boys I could see the dejection in their faces…..Another missed opportunity, back to the truck we go.

Hot, sun baked, wind burned and worn out from walking about 1000 miles more than I ever thought a person should walk on this hunt, we get to the truck and try to cool off a bit. Its hovering around 93 degrees and as still as night. Across the great basin we can see what appears to be a small dust devil- upon closer inspection it is game of buck tag……time to get after it……again…..40 minutes later we are within shooting range (that is a relative term by the way) and a hot burning slug of love is sent down range…I love that “Whop” sound! He’s still up but has a hole in him somewhere and is distancing himself from us slowly. Too far for a follow up shot but he’s not moving too well so we’re good, we’ll just sit and wait.

“You feel that?”, “Feel what?”, “I think its raining.”, “You’re high!”, “no, it is. There was another one”, “dude, there is one cloud up there”……….“This can’t be happening!”. Oh but it was. That little ol cloud carried around a year’s worth of water and decided that was as good a place as any to lighten its load. It dumped buckets and with an injured buck moving into the trees we made the decision to attempt to cut the distance and try another shot rather than lose the blood trail and risk a loss. We found a small drainage channel that was big enough to stand in and be completely out of sight. We ran as fast as we could to the end and when we topped out, there he was- an easy lob wedge to the green and back to the club house……..
I'll get onto Matty's hunt another time...it was WAY faster but no less entertaining.

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Curt and his trophy
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This buck got bigger the closer we got
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The crew minus one
 
Awesome write up Dave! Congrats to the fellas. My weekend was very similar, minus the success.

lug decoys around the sea of fire that is northern Arizona’s pronghorn playground.

There were goats in that same meadow ^^ this weekend. They escaped unscathed.
 
Hey Dave, what the hell! You never posted the story and pics for Matt's bucks. Good times for sure.
 
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