UT Pronghorn: KHunter archery 2016

[Khunter]

Well it is time to hit the road for Utah archery pronghorn. Can hunt Saturday through Wednesday before I need to get back and reload for elk in Wyoming. Think I should have some cell cover and if so will try to post some play by play and photos

Don't really know how to hunt them they are a favorite and love to spot and stalk after them while savoring the local offerings of cactus, ants and all things with thorns, barbs, and stingers.

This is where I left off my story of pronghorn addiction back in 2014
http://onyourownadventures.com/hunttalk/showthread.php?260177-Az-pronghorn-KHunter-archery-2014

I plan to have at least as much fun on this hunt....

 

[Big Fin]

Good luck. Hope you find a great one. If you are where I think you are hunting, I will be there with a rifle in 2017.

 

[el unit]

Excellent! Can't wait to hear about your hunt. Good luck!

 

[marksjeep]

Good luck! Looking forward to the pics and stories. That place looks like a maze, lots of varied terrain and habitat. Should be a fun hunt.

 

[pointingdogsrule]

Have a great trip.

good luck to all
the dog

 

[duckhunt]

Good luck on the hunt.

 

[Khunter]

My usual camp setup when lope hunting under clear sunny skies. This is opening morning. 5 minutes later I am packed up and off to find some antelope.

Do not know how many guys sleep out in the open, probably few, but I do pretty often when hunting solo in warmish weather largely because I like to camp wherever the day ends near the animals I am after versus travelling back some "camp" spot. Only been rained on a couple times Also, it's not like I am hanging out goofing off around "camp". Quick dinner then to sleep then jump up for a quick coffee and breakfast burrito and I am packed up in a few minutes.

Opening morning started with hounds, houndsmen and hunter chasing a bear by camp. Brings back memories of my own bear hunts in Colo before a ballot initiative wiped out our pursuit hunts for bear.

 

[elk_hunter]

Go get em, Kirby! Looking forward to the play by play and pics!

 

[Big Slick]

Great luck to you! I camped like this on my scouting trip to Wyoming a few years ago, way easier then packing to much stuff.

 

[Festus]

Best of luck! Looks like a great 'camp'.
Keep us posted.

 

[Khunter]

not antelope but a couple nice mulies seen this week...

 

[Khunter]

Found nice pronghorn bucks immediately on opening morning and a lot of rutty looking activity, which was a suprise so early in the season.

 

[Khunter]

the sage is quite short and there was very litle cover in my chosen focus area. Requires patience and luck and a little magic perhaps to stalk in this terrain. And obviously good use of the bumps and dips in the terrain to crawl in close enough for a bow shot.

The UTV in the photo was carrying an elk hunter and was off the 2 track for no good reason and got a ticket from UDWR! We do not se that often enough.

 

[duckhunt]

Looks like alot of fun.

 

[Khunter]

I saw perhaps 16 bucks and this was the biggest so decided he was plenty good for me in this hunt area that had seen hard times and actually had pronghorn transplanted into the area in the last few years.

Also lucked out and got to watch this buck and his 14 8 does join up with a herd with a similar size buck and 14 does. Right awy the bucks got to fighting and this buck won...sending the loser of limping heavily and having lost all his does.

So now I was planning a Stalk on a buck with 22 does in thin cover. Fun!

The 1st and 3rd photos in the previous post all show the same draw from a similar perspective. One photo is more zomed in.

Imagine a 2 mile long broad ridge runing east/west with a long broad shallow (100 feet deep) draw down the middle of about 3/4 of a mile the overall ridge. The photos and my stalk started 3/4mile from the herd and I traversed just below the south lip of the ridge to stay out of sight. I crawled up to the ridge and starting glassing, finding the herd as you see it in the photos and here...essentially unstalkable at the moment and too far away to do much but wait or reposition from a new direction.

 

[Khunter]

I decided the current vantage would not work and needed to back out and loop around to the other/north side of the ridge and sneak along the northern edge. My thought was the pronghon were kinda stacked over to that side and maybe I could crawl to one of the FEW pinon/junipers for cover and maybe find a path to get close enough for a bow shot.

Also decided, after having seen the bucks fighting like there was no tomorow in the annual breeding competition, I would swing back by the truck to grab my immature buck decoy as that might work out if I could get close enough to represent a threat such that the herdmaster would come to chase it off.




So I loop around from the south to the north side and can see the pronghorn (and presume they could see me) as I crawl ther last 150 feet to this pinon tree in the distance in this photo Hmm... If you look close there is fresh flagging on that I was headed to in the background, why would that be? What was being marked? Spoiler alert?!:hump:

Anyhow, as I reach the tree and glass in earnest I see the pronghorn are a lot closer to where I had been that they were to this spot I just hiked up over and around to and again I have no viable stalking alternative. :W:. Below photo is as good as I could get of them from 600-700 yards.

 

[Khunter]

As I lay there eating a snack and pondering options including bagging this setup to find some other more probable opportunity, the herd runs off to at least 1,500 yards of so. Just as I am about to pack it in on this herd and buck for greener pastures, 6 of his does take off from the group at a trot headed generally my direction. They dip out of view as they bottom out in that broad shallow draw I mentioned so not sure where they are really headed but 4-5 does had not stayed with the bigger group and were still straight out from me so that seemed probable.

Just to be sure I was ready for good fortune if it chose to make an appearance I assembled my Montana Decoy buck and had it laying flat on the ground next to me. A couple minutes later the does pop up on 'my' north side of the ridge 225 yards from me and start feeding Hmmm...

This is the best picture I could take of them while hugging the short grass and sage I had for cover. I was also in the shade of that pinon tree. Not sure if that helps conceal you from pronghorn eyes but used what I had.

 

[Khunter]

Well wouldn't you know it the herd buck decided to round up his wandering Does and now he pops up at the same spot as the Does some 225 yards away. As he is trying to give direction to his girls, I knock an arrow and crawl forward a few feet to get into the bright sun and popped up my buck decoy to see if he will take the bait or not....and then get back to the shade.

The Does did not seem to mind...

 

[Khunter]

Well it took that buck about 3 seconds to spot my decoy and his response was what bowhunter dreams are made of.

He came straight in at a run and started to slow at 30 yards and was still coming at 25 yards when I raised up on my knees a foot to the right and 3 feet behind my decoy. I had a bead on him and would have taken an easy and ultra-lethal frontal shot if one of the few sagebrush higher than my shins was not covering his chest.

So I have to wait at full draw for the buck to move a little more and present a shot into his vitals. Which he does! Quartering away at perhaps 22 yards. Clean passthrough shot but only catches the near side lung and exits in front of the far side hip. The cool thing I have learned about decoying is you rarely have to rush a shot, they are so focused on the new buck on the block that they take some time to process that there is something very wrong with the situation. Ito me, A pronghorn running in on a decoy while you are crouched with an arrow knocked provides one of the better and more adictive adrenaline rushes we hunters get to encounter when everything goes from who knows? to Holy Cow This Is Gonna Work! in the blink of an eye. A few years ago Dinkshooter and hunted together and got an archery double in a day with decoys on great pronghorn bucks that is still freshly etched into my brain!

Not a great shot by any means it but does the job albeit less efficently than we all strive for.

Buck travelled only 40 yards quartering away from me to stop 55 yards out and to bed down. I could just see his horn tips and had to wait awhile but he expired where he landed.




Definitely not happy with my shot AND the clean miss at a guestimated 55 before he bedded and left me with no visible additional shot to take, but this is how my Utah pronghorn hunt unfolded after an 8 year wait for bonus points to stack up high enough to give me the opportunity. I happily own it and learn from it as with all hunts.

Really cool country and the hunt ended with one arrow that flew true enough only 4 hours into the season....Leaving me a several more vacation days to devote to archery Elk in Wyoming. And a rifle Bull hunt guiding my wife here in Colorado that is sure to be a highlight of the fall hunts.

 

[jvanhoy]

Congrats. Great story.