Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Pronghorn Scouting

Drew a coveted Oregon pronghorn tag and went scouting this past Saturday through Tuesday AM today. I crawled around the country with binos and a spotting scope sizing up prospects, and Cookie took her cameras. I need to drag Cookie along and stay by her side when the season opens. Here's a sampling of about 500 images. Amazing what all shows up out in the middle of the desert. Everything from snipe and geese to vultures, hawks, and wild horses. One simply has to add water.

Mostly she held down a water hole. Tough deal from a blind when we're nearing 3 digit temps, but she hung in till noon or so, and would hit it again in the late afternoons.


Wide oval


Tall boy

Looks to be the same one showing his butt end in the first pic above.

Things pretty well ended this AM when a plane came in and buzzed the country for 8 or 10 minutes. Pronghorn were on the run from the engine noise alone long before the plane came over the horizon. They can flat cover ground when someone sticks with them only a hundred or so feet overhead. Looks to be a buck of real substance on the far left side of this image.


We broke camp and left after the fly over. I've noticed in years past that small planes can spook a herd from several miles away even when they're on a straight cross country heading.

Those with an eye for the specific country please be discrete until I get my mid-August tag filled.

Have a good one.

Wide Oval or Tall Boy would take a bullet if I had the chance ... Nice ones!

Wide Oval is pretty special.

Holy sh-t Batman. I think I know where you were. Not to worry though, no tag here.

Congrats on the tag! Looks to be 2 good bucks on the far left of that pic! Good luck on the hunt and please continue to share pics!

I'll put in another vote for that wide one!! His horns appear to really pitch foreword - really like that on antelope!

That's a bunch of antelopes in that last picture!!


Good hunting to you - I think I know which tag/unit you drew. You are going to have a memorable hunt for sure!!!!

Oregonmuley:
I was much further away than Cookie during that event. The last pic shows about one third of the herd, as her smallest lens at the moment was a 160 mm. Needed a wide angle to capture them all. It's absolutely amazing to see that many animals in motion and simultaneously moving like a school of fish with every change in direction. Looks more like something I'd expect in Africa as opposed to the US.

Got any side views of Tall Boy. Unless something is really short on prongs and skinny mass from the side, you have an 80"+ buck to chase, maybe even higher.

Reason I ask is that three hunters passed this buck. They were in front of me glassing for quite a while, then decided to move on. I suspect they did not get a look at him from all angles, as I did. When I ground checked him, he was even better than I thought.

Nothing real special, move along.



Hmm, maybe I need to get a better look.


Where's my rifle?


My suspicion, is that Tall Boy is a really big buck. Probably a "Shoot now, ask later" kind of buck. Tall bucks can hide mass very well, and his mass looks really good, even for a tall buck. But, without more pics, it is hard to say for sure.

I hope you shoot him.

Bigfin:
Sure looks like that one has lots of height.

Never scored one as our pronghorn opportunities are rather limited here in Oregon. Years back I helped a buddy working a pretty good herd. There was one "Oh Wow" buck that stood out like a sore thumb. One could instantly settle on him from half a mile out without even using binos. Luck favored the buck that season, but he was not around the following year when Cookie had a tag in the same area.

Just looked at the B&C site and outside and inside spread contribute gain for the wide boy. Circumference gains depend heavily on where the prongs fall with a taller set forcing the second measure below the prongs. I'll go though Cookie's files and see if she has some side views of the taller example. Probably does, as it cost her nothing to keep hammering the shutter. I could probably zoom in on just the heads on any of those pics and not lose much image quality. None of these have been cropped at all. Just downsized for posting.

I'd appreciate it if someone with scoring experience would chime in with a little advice. Could be the eyes, ears, or some other attribute might offer some sort of a standardized scale. My preferences are mostly related to mass and symmetry. Don't really care for some of the lopsided strange angled examples I've seen.

Regardless, it should be a fine season with 9 days to get'er done. I'll probably put in a couple days on site immediately before the season too. Was hoping for some company on this go around, but even my retired buddies have filled their schedules. Either that or their backs went out from tying their shoes. Cookie wants to reserve three weeks this fall to chase mule deer with the camera, so she has to work too. Pretty sad when one can't count on their wife as a hunting buddy. One can bet she'll show up at the "barbie" when it's all done though.

Life is really tough,

The buck I posted netted 85 2/8. I think the buck you posted is disguising the mass with his length and his mass somewhat disguises his length. I've been lucky to shoot some really nice pronghorn, to the point where it is a borderline fetish for me. I stop everything I am doing to try estimate the size of bucks, even when I don't have a tag.

If you are hunting where I think you are, I hunted about five miles south of the border in Nevada. The size of bucks in that area are much bigger than AZ and NM, so the size of their heads can also disguise some of the horn size. The buck I shot in NV was the body size of some decent mule deer bucks I've shot.

All of that gets me thinking that you have a "lunker" on your hands. His mass is good from the front, and with a side view, might be really good. The mass carries very well into the C2 measurement. Prongs are hard to tell from a frontal view, but they are not stubby. Both the C3/C4 will be measured above the prong, with C3 being right where the prong swelling stops. That will give him decent top mass measurements, also. If he hooks back like I think he does, he is also longer than most people would suspect.

If that is him facing away in your top picture, his prongs are better than they look from the frontal shot. As far as score, if that is something that interests you, he is way bigger than the flared out buck. If score is irrelevant and you just want a cool looking buck, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

I hope you find an even better buck before season starts.

Bigfin:
Sounds like you have some experience. The one I'd like a close look at is near the left edge of the running herd. Looks massive with some but not extreme spread. One can not gain any resolution, but if using Internet Explorer one can hold the Ctrl key down and use the "+" or "-" keys to expand/shrink the pages. That one appears to be head and shoulders above any of his peers. I'll look at some more of Cookie's shots. She took several of the grand charge, but the whole shooting match went by in a matter of seconds.

Had the plane not shown up, I would have had several hours to size up the entire herd.

Appreciate your comments,

Just tried to look at that one. Hard to get enough perspective to make any concrete judgement. It is not out of the question that on a good growth year, in a limited pressure area like you are hunting, that there could be multiple big bucks in your area. If you have more scouting days, hopefully you can get a better look at that one. Maybe he is even bigger.

The picture below illustrates what I am talking about as far as some whopper body sizes near where you are hunting. Before the rut, they as fat as hogs in good moisture years. I helped a friend in this same unit, a few years later, and he shot one almost the same body size.



With that body and that head, it really messes up the proportionate judging if you are looking at pics of bucks in AZ and NM. And this one did not look like much from the side. I almost passed, until he looked straight on.

I think there is a very good chance that the buck you call Tall Boy will score higher than this obese thing I shot in Nevada. A side view of Tall Boy may change my mind.

Scouting pronghorn is almost as much fun as the actual hunting. Hope you get the most out of the experience, no matter what buck you shoot.

That looks like a heavy buck. Know what he weighed?

Super uber pics!



Do they get pretty wily when season rolls around?


Depending on the month most antelope around here are born on the run....

Wrapids:
Bigfin is a pygmy, and that buck will run around 90lbs live weight.

Bigfin:
That does appear to be a pig. Like that Roman nose as well. Thanks for putting it up. Without side by side comparisons I have questions about my judgment. Failed at talking a buddy out of a shot several years back, and it came within about 2 inches of making B&C. I'm hoping I'll still have a sizable herd to look over when the season gets here. A bit easier to pick the winners out when there's 40 or 50 other samples around. Give me a loner out on the plain and confidence fades.

SamO:
Show ones self in daylight on the horizon or out on the plain, and they are out of there from even a half mile+ out. During the brief near dark AM/PM twilight times, it seems they're almost blind. I convinced a buddy to try a twilight approach once, and we openly walked to within about 80 yds with less than parking lot cover. As we were bedding down for the shot, however, something else spooked them, and we came really close to being run over.

One seems to escape notice as well if he's shaded beneath a juniper or rim rock on a sunny day. Slow AM/PM approaches also work if one can get the sun immediately behind his back. I don't much care for looking into that light myself.

Glare or reflections seem to go unnoticed. We were once shaded up near pronghorn and had other hunters sneak in straight across the flat. For safety reasons, I tried to get their attention by flashing a Pepsi can bottom held out in the sun, and the hunters and game both failed to notice. My bare metal tripod seems to go unnoticed as well.

Don't know if camo buys one any points with pronghorn or not. I'm too cheap to buy the stuff. Probably I'm dirty enough though that it really doesn't matter.

We see little attention to smell (they will completely circle Cookie's blind and still come in) or to noise. As we approached the area this weekend, I drove our 350 crew cab diesel to within about 20 feet of Peak Over Rock. When we climbed out and looked over, a dozen or so were still bedded about 30 yards out.

They did respond instantly to the sound of the approaching plane this weekend even though it was initially well behind the horizon. In this barren country, it might be common for bored pilots to give them a run once in a while.

Our wild horses will put it in gear if they hear a plane or chopper. That's the equipment though that's used for their roundups, and a long lived animal like a horse probably has some less than pleasant memories of aircraft.

Found it odd in Alaska, that flyers could damn near hit caribou with a float or tire, and they'd keep chewing their cud. We crawled out of a Beaver once, and bou about 100 yds out kept right on grazing. I fully understand their ban on same day travel and hunting.

In my book, elk are our most difficult to approach. They wake up to sound, movement, and smell. They usually want confirmation of sound or movement, but smell is definitive and they're gone.

One seems good with sheep if he can just stay out of sight. Rocks are falling all the time in their habitat, so they don't worry about sound. I don't have much experience though at testing their sense of smell.

Beautiful photography. I blew up the herd picture and there are at least seven bucks in there worth another look with possibly two really good ones.

Just hope the road warriors don't hit that area first.

Good luck and keep the photos coming, maybe crop out the horizon just to be safe.

Nice!

donsm70

The tall buck will score better and to my eye is better looking. But, as others say, you have only yourself to please. Years ago I killed a buck with horns that overlapped completely in the middle, they looked like a monolithic basket handle. There were bigger animals around but I found it interesting, so Bang!

Ok. Back from the dentist chair today. At least the hygienist is cute, furnishes all the whips and chains, and she only cost me $71.00.

I found a couple other angles in Cookie's files and I'll try to pack everything together here so one does not have to scroll up and down this whole thread to match things up. Here goes.

Wide oval original front:


Wide oval as close to a side view as we have:


Tall boy original front:


Tall boy side:

Bit of a Roman nose there

Last a zoom in and crop of the thundering herd selecting the two that were near the left edge. Not sure these are the same images (Cookie hit the shutter about 20 times as they were passing), but pretty sure they're the same animals. Not the best, but OK for about a 600 yrd capture going 50 mph.
Full image:


Cropped area only slightly downsized for posting:

Good sized heads or faces and much larger bodies than their immediate neighbors.

A couple days before the season might be well spent shaking these guys out. Pretty sure that neither of these are Wide Oval, as I'm fairly certain I have him located near the front of the bunch.

Think I might try to rent Cookie out to other scouting hunters next year if I can get her to retire.

Given our lack of opportunity in Oregon, I really appreciate your comments and observations.

My strategy will be two full days of preseason scouting. I pretty well have the major inflow/outflow routes nailed as we have many days under our belts in that exact location.

If there is competition, it will most likely come from the dead end road that accesses the basin. When that happens, about 80% of the herd leaves via the other end through some rugged ground that brings them back to almost a walk. If the competition is obvious, I'll go about a mile to that exit predawn and wait for the action to come to me.

Most hunters road hunt and drop the first available buck here in Oregon. In previous hunts I've been involved with there, one can pretty well get into a spot and stalk mode by the third day (Monday) with undisturbed animals. Regardless of the workings, it should be fun.

Well, a side view of Tall Boy settles that. I'm sure you've decided not to shoot him.

Both of the two you have zoomed in on seem to be worth more investigation.

Good luck. Hope you find "the one."