KHunter NV archery pronghorn 2025 edition

Had no cell last day plus..yesterday was slow and mostly pronghorn free till arrived new location in the evening. Saw a lot of desolate country looking for better pronghorn and in better numbers.

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Way too many feral horses hogging the water
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Standard antelope camp for me just throw out a cot wherever the day ends no tent needed. can’t remember last time I was rained on during antelope season.


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Cool old homestead

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yesterday evening after a long drive stopping in glassing arrived at a spot many miles from the original place where I had seen some antelope in good numbers during my one day scouting trip.

Found a group of a dozen bucks to stalk.
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Used the trusty BetheDecoy hat and shirt.
crawled 160 yards along a fence line with some decent grass, along to shield me other than a little bit of an antelope head.
When I started, there were two bucks hanging out about 30 to 40 yards from the fence corner I need to reach to be able to shoot and have all the envelope fully on BLM instead of private

By the time I got to the corner, the closest antelope was 90 yards so I gave the old college try and crawled out in the open with the halo Pat closest I got with 70 yards and then 100 yards twice to the entire group. Certainly a lot of fun though though after extremely long, hot boring antelope, free day free day.
 
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Hoping you get an arrow loose at the far right one in the second photo (is he the same one straight on in fourth?)
 
headed down the road eight or 9 miles to pick a spot on Blm in the dark to camp. I knew it was next to some irrigated grass private ground and hope I might see some antelope first thing.

Darn if there wasn’t a nice buck out there in that center pivot with a dozen or so doeses at first light. And about 20 deer, but the deer in the antelope kept an opposite ends of the center pivot from each other.

These photos are clipped from a video of when the door decided to abandon the pivot, and do me a favor of climbing through the fence out of the private onto the Blm or then proceeded to put on a stalk. So far every inch of this unit is dusty as it looks in these photos.
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The stalk didn’t pan out. I never got closer than 150 yards but the wind was terrible and I think that contributed.

actually, the wind shifted on me last night too now that I think about it.
 
plan a for this afternoon and probably tomorrow is hanging around where I’m finding all these antelope bucks with zero cell coverage so may not be an update for awhile.
I did today gain access to some center pivot hay operations, that are absolutely loaded with antelope. I’m not quite sure how to hunt that. I’m gonna go give it to go. and keep an eye out for lope in some of the sage and salt brush BLM terrain where I might have a better chance to stalk.
 
plan a for this afternoon and probably tomorrow is hanging around where I’m finding all these antelope bucks with zero cell coverage so may not be an update for awhile.
I did today gain access to some center pivot hay operations, that are absolutely loaded with antelope. I’m not quite sure how to hunt that. I’m gonna go give it to go. and keep an eye out for lope in some of the sage and salt brush BLM terrain where I might have a better chance to stalk.
They will show a pattern. Don't do a stalk right away. Find the crossings around the pivot, and just watch for a while.
 
I did hunt around some hay field pivot irrigation as there were a ton of pronghorn in and around them and on adjacent BLM.

First afternoon of that I slipped in and hunkered down in the shade of a stack of 1000pound hay bales hoping antelope would wander nearby.

Guess I forgot rule number 1. ALWAYS KNOCK AN ARROW WHEN POSTED UP WAITNG FOR CRITTERS TO HAPPEN INTO RANGE. Sure enough as I was watching a bunch on pronghorn a 1/3 or more of a mile across the pivot (Ibecause a jadwad I ran into decided to mess up my hunt on purpose by driving around edge of ALL FIVE pivots right after he realized I was headed there. Really a butthead move I just had to shake off. Anyway, in comes a flyer--buck trotting erratically turning different directions along the way but he ultimately trotted right by me and stopped at 40 yards quartering away. So here I am trying to get knocked and drawn but too darn slow as he then runs off. HAd I been sewt up correctly I would havce ewasily been able to draw and shoot. Dumb rookie move. Maybe my mind was distracted by the aforementioned jagwad encounter. Nice buck too!
 

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I only had 3 1/2 actual hunting days allotted for this hunt as I need to save mega time if needed for UT archery Elk (that starts TOMORROW Aug. 16 thru Sept 16TH. For that hunt that took 19 years to draw with enough points to be at the top of the heap I will hunt this weekend, next weekend, then Aug. 29 through September 16th if needed to kill two big bulls (at least I plan to hold out for a special one not sure for the other HTer) one for me and one for a fellow HTer who also drew.). Also have an ID general elk tag I have hunted a couple times that is playing a distant second fiddle to Utah and a Nov Colo archery plains deer tag.

I stalked the above group of 12 bucks in nearly the same spot as the other day a couple more times on BLM that was nowhere near irrigated ag but did have a nice spring-fed pond close proximity. I tried decoys, white flagging etc. to no avail, just could not get in bow range.

I would considered setting up a blind but the pond was to large to expect a close shot plus there was water in a drainage running about 100 yards at least from the pond--and it seemed unlikely I could pop up a blind and immediately get pronghorn running in withing a day like I would need them to.

I even belly crawled, successfully undetected to within 200 yards of the bucks (7 instead of the full 12 on Monday afternoon/evening) with the water hole between me and where they were bedded. When they did not come to water and instead were feeding the other direction with sunset coming on, I belly crawled some more and tried flashing a decoy and even waving a white flag. The latter got them a bit closer but not enough to be flinging an arrow.

Alas, 3 1/2 days of spot/stalk, ambush and decoying did not result in a pronghorn taking a ride back to Colorado.
Was a lot of fun and had all kinds of cool encounters I will not relate in detail.

If the unexpected (outsized 350+ Utah bull) hops in my truck this weekend for a ride to Colorado I will buzz back down to NV but not likely to happen before the NV pronghorn season ends on the 21st.

Some additional photos from the trip including a couple big bucks I was focused on trying to kill: Photo quality not all that great as the heat waves were horrendous. Tough when the image quality is already degraded at 160 yards.

with a spotting scope..IMG_4800.jpegIMG_4759.jpegIMG_4720.jpegIMG_4690.jpegIMG_4605.jpegIMG_4716.jpegIMG_4718.jpegIMG_4643.jpegIMG_4630.jpeg
 
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Great narrative, thanks for sharing all of that. Score be danged - I sure do like the character and look of that tall dagger buck in the final set of photos. If he had a blacked out muzzle like that the bottom buck, he'd be a real looker for sure.
 

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