Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Cookie's Post Season Pronghorn Inventory and My Regrets

With Oregon’s rifle and archery pronghorn seasons over, Cookie wanted to head out to see if the population had been decimated. In a brief fit of weakness, she swore another camera carrying buddy to secrecy and invited him along. As is usual, I got to do camp chores, take some extended walks, and hang out on the perimeter as long as I didn’t disrupt anything.

Here’s their first day setup with popup blinds by a strategic waterhole. Within about 30 minutes of their setup, the first group of pronghorn were at water, but the camera crew held off until first light the next morning. There’s a couple other sources about 2 miles away, so blinds did not seriously impair anyone's drinking abilities. One can also perch on some of the surrounding rims or beneath bordering junipers, but the best photo ops come from being near water.


Here’s the first arrival at water on morning one. Looks to have some maturity with his mass and somewhat Roman nose, but a little weak in the height department.


With the onset of the rut, the boys were especially mobile, so their pursuit of the ladies certainly enhanced photo opps. This was one of those rare moments when Cookie left a camera with me, and I got a few shots of this guy trying to keep a cute doe confined to a rimmed in corner near camp. They can sure pour on the speed and do corners cutting horses can only dream of.


Considerable effort goes into keeping others away from one’s ladies, so invading bachelors get invitations to leave.



At times, displays don’t suffice and the guys have to square off.



If the feints and bluffs don’t do the job, they start seriously tearing up the place.


Have to continue this in the next post as there's a limit on images.

Normally the fights are short lived, but they can occasionally do some harm. Cookie noticed several bucks with damaged (frosty) eyes, and has several images with visible punctures to the neck, shoulder, and legs.


Looks like one can have his nose seriously rubbed in the dirt if he's not careful. Also, the passing lady seems quite impressed by it all.


She also caught several bucks that we’d encountered on prior trips and of course has me Monday morning quarterbacking on some chances I passed on a couple weeks back when I was there with a tag and rifle in hand. Here’s one of the Wide Boys that I passed up on two opportunities. A slightly different color distribution on his face.



And this is SuperWideBoy, and I had one chance at him the second day of my season. With all that flare, it’s difficult for me to make an estimate as to what horn length might actually be.



Finally, here’s the one I’m kicking myself about. Had him within 60 yds twice on day one and again at about 100 yds on day two. I thought he was a good one, but did not really care for the stove pipe profile of the horns. Looking at the height and mass now, however, I should have dumped him. I think the first and second quarter circumferences would have been measured beneath the prongs.



Last, I had to include Cookie’s closest encounter.
Nothing of substance here, but he ended up so close to her blind that she could not get the full head into the frame.


It was a great weekend, and I’d love to go back, but there are a couple fishing trips to get out of the way now. Have a good one,

Great pictures thanks for putting them up.

On the second to last buck, you might have got the second below the prong on the right, but what you gained would just be gross because it dont look like the left would match up. hard to tell.

I hear you on second guessing.I've had my hands on a dozen B&C pornghorn, and they still have me wondering sometimes.

case in point last week in Wyoming. i passed him by as a jake at least twice before I paid any attention to him.Sorry my pic quality sucks..Iphone

Those are some great pics! I'll probably never get to hunt Antelope again but this thread reminds me of just how much I enjoyed hunting and just watching them when I could.

Thanks for taking the time to post them.

As always - great pictures thank you!

And that heavy buck towards the end is just a brute. He has serious mass going on, and not only the horns he looks like he's on steroids compared to the other bucks!!!

rosco1:

Just looking at your images and it brought some thoughts back to the surface.

A couple years back some locals came back from Wyoming with several bucks and handed them off at a taxidermist's drop station. The Wyoming examples seemed to have shorter, thicker, and more rounded ears than our Oregon locals and overall just a more blocky look to their faces.

I suspect the Wyoming critters endure colder winters than our Oregon flocks, and it might pay to minimize surface area.

Yes, Wyoming bucks tend to have bigger bodies, bigger heads and shorter ears.

But that is in general,more a comparison with bucks from AZ,NM and TX. Interesting to hear the same about Oregon.

Always love your pics 1minute. Thanks again for sharing.

JGRaider:

Thanks. Once in a while Cookie will let me snap the shutter.

I agree - one other thing about Wyoming bucks and our Oregon bucks, from what I have seen in the field and at the taxidermist I use here in Oregon our antelope are much more colorful?? Not sure that's the right way to say it, they seem to have more contrast between the different colors and are a bit more reddish I think. But all antelope are pretty critters:)

Awesome photos as usual.....

Thanks for sharing!!

Fantastic captures!

Great photos.

Looks like this one might have been on the receiving end during a heated discussion.

That's some cool stuff there,must be a blast out there taking pics with so many encounters.

rong:
It's enough to keep Cookie out there for hours/days. She does have the best spot I'm aware of in the state. Hunting there near drove me crazy.

Found another illustrating the risk to ones eyes when they tangle. Give it the right head shake and the socket would get hooked. Not very heavy critters, but I'd not want to be on the front end when they get pissed.


With Internet Explorer one can hold down the Ctrl and then repeatedly hit the "+" key to expand the image. Won't gain any pixels, but it will zoom in. Ctrl and the "-" key to scoot back out. Don't know about other browsers.

It works the same in Mozilla Firefox. Hitting Ctrl-0 will reset back to the default size.

Great photos, thanks!

And yeah, you should have dumped him, numbnuts!

Awesome pics!