And, then, there are pronghorns . . .
Following ‘tagging-out’ on mule deer, we began looking over the pronghorn (‘goat’) population – we invested a full six days glassing the numerous, perplexing critters, which due to the unseasonably COLD weather, were bunched-up as if it were the dead of a snowy winter – and a winter with DEEP snow at THAT! ;) Rather than the normal early-mid October day-time highs in the mid-sixties, Mother Nature had decided to put a little ‘chill’ on the ‘GLOBAL WARMING’ thing, knocking-off a whopping 30-35 degrees F each day! Thinking that a new ice-age was imminent, the goats were running in herds from a couple of dozed, up to 300!
The good news was that this made ‘comparative’ analysis of the horns relatively easy – simply find a bunch of pronghorn bucks – there were many buck-only herds – and look for one which ‘stood out’! Well, so it says here . . . but in all that time, we observed but a single exceptional buck, and he was happily munching the herbs on the neighbor’s side of the fence! ;) There were literally multitudes of 12.5" – 13.5" inch bucks, but precious few that looked to be a honest 14" plus.
The sheer volume of EYES made for ‘crazier’ than normal goat behavior – for the first four days, the mere sight of a vehicle persuaded the beasts to head for some remote part of the pasture . . . and post haste! And THAT occurred following having invested a good deal of time glassing ‘empty’ prairie, until we stumbled onto one of the exceptionally large bands – we observed precious little of the traditional, "six here and ten there" dispersion, where, from almost any vantage-point, one can see small bunches scattered across the savanna . . . it was a crazy goat hunt . . . oh, and did I complain about the rain and snow? ;)
Well, following four days of perusing the goats, my rifle was itching to be uncased – by noon, I had decided to try to shoot the first 14" buck I could get close enough to . . . now, judging pronghorns adds yet another frustrating aspect to the game – if you’re looking for something ‘respectable’, an inch here or, there, is a BIG deal. Knowing my weakness at ‘sizing’ them from afar, I look for good ‘cutters’ (prongs), placed well up the horn, mass, and then, length – I’ll take good ‘cutters’ over longer horns, with poor prongs . . .
While motoring down the East boundary fence, of a large pasture, I observed several goats just below the sky-line, and ½ mile to my west – they had yet to see me. I stopped, shut off the motor and pulled out the Swarovoski binocular – there were two bucks, the better of which sported decent ‘cutters’. These goats fed down the rise, and out of sight! This might provide an opportunity – between my position and the pronghorns, were two more ‘basins’ , the first of which I could get into without being seen, and cut the distance in half – I uncased the .257 Ackley and departed on a direct line – quartering into the 30 MPH, 10:00 O’clock wind.
The lay of the land dictated that reaching the cover of the second depression would entail a slight detour, to the North, and navigating a slight saddle, via belly-down technique . . . not something I do well, but I managed. I was then free to waltz right across the bottom of the ‘hole’, but would need to execute another crawl, and hope the goats were still grazing where I’d last seen them . . . Following an extended serpentine path – had to avoid the cacti – I finally relocated ‘my’ pronghorns – ‘their’ basin was larger than I had anticipated, and they had move to the bottom of the far left-hand end. I got the bucks sized-up, and decided that, "at best, the largest might make 14" - probably not – but he’s got good cutters and mass" . . . I ‘popped’ the Harris bi-pod, loaded the .257 and dug-out the Lica range-finder: 297 yards; 298; 298 – "that’s close enough" – and ‘clicked-in’ the 300 Yd. zero. The wind dictated about 3MOA (9") of ‘drift’. I set the power selector at 10X, held for just over 2MOA - BOOM, whop . . . the goat dropped, and didn’t move.
The shot was perfect, entering just slightly down-wind of my hold (my initial 3MOA guess would have been only slightly better), wrecking the heart/lungs, and angling forward, to exit the off-side shoulder: the exit-hole was slightly smaller than a quarter: blood-shotting was minimal – in all, excellent bullet performance.
The horns turned out to be less than my best guess – the longer taping at 13 & 3/8Ths, the shorter at 13 & 2/8Ths . . . both the cutters and mass held up nicely: 5"+ on both cutters, with base diameters of 6 & 6/8Ths and 6 & 7/8Ths – in all, for this area, a respectable pronghorn. Matt collected his fist goat the following day - more later . . . RG