sneakem
Well-known member
Just thought I would share some pictures from this weekend in NW Colorado hunting pronghorn. My uncle drew a pronghorn tag in a decent unit this year. I promised to take him out once he drew the tag. I ended up drawing an unexpected tag in the hybrid draw in a much better unit next to his. So I agreed to hunt his first as he'd never taken a pronghorn buck, even though my tag was for a harder to draw unit. I realize there is a lot of pressure out in the public sections, but I had no idea that it was this bad. Unfortunately it was a poor display of sportsmanship on so many levels. Numerous people driving around shooting from the roads, hail mary shots, driving in travel restricted areas. Numbers of people opening gates clearly marked with horse and foot travel only and driving on and off road through these areas. Numbers of people shooting recklessly towards one another. The hunting was fairly good besides this as the numbers seemed decent, although I feel we saw many more nice antelope in the average unit. The trophy area I drew, I honestly saw 3 good antelope I would have even considered taking. My uncle took his buck the first afternoon after passing up several good ones and almost getting shot stalking bucks on several occasions. A good one for his first...
The rest of the afternoon and the next day we searched for an antelope in my unit. The pressure seemed a little less on this side, but still significant. Same story, driving on closed lands, plenty of road hunters, but no where near the quality of antelope. I saw maybe 3 bucks I think might have pushed the 75"+ mark. The next morning we found a really great buck and decided to make a move. This required a 2.5 mile hike around private ground to access, but there seemed to be a significant amount of antelope moving around. As we made our way towards the buck we spotted another good looking buck, not nearly as big, but with a noticeable limp. We could spot where it looked as if he had been creased along the neck/ front shoulder. He did not look to be getting along very well. I looked at him and then the bigger buck, I had to do the right thing... I'd felt sick to my stomach had I left him there to die, as I'm sure he was going to end in a very crappy way. The wound seemed to be a infected but was an obvious gun shot wound and season opened the day before??? Still a very nice buck and I'm happy to have taken him...
The rest of the afternoon and the next day we searched for an antelope in my unit. The pressure seemed a little less on this side, but still significant. Same story, driving on closed lands, plenty of road hunters, but no where near the quality of antelope. I saw maybe 3 bucks I think might have pushed the 75"+ mark. The next morning we found a really great buck and decided to make a move. This required a 2.5 mile hike around private ground to access, but there seemed to be a significant amount of antelope moving around. As we made our way towards the buck we spotted another good looking buck, not nearly as big, but with a noticeable limp. We could spot where it looked as if he had been creased along the neck/ front shoulder. He did not look to be getting along very well. I looked at him and then the bigger buck, I had to do the right thing... I'd felt sick to my stomach had I left him there to die, as I'm sure he was going to end in a very crappy way. The wound seemed to be a infected but was an obvious gun shot wound and season opened the day before??? Still a very nice buck and I'm happy to have taken him...
