You finally drew a pronghorn tag! These 3 proven tactics will help you make it count

#2  WALK DON’T DRIVE

Antelope don’t respond well to pressure, and even the extra vehicle traffic from hunters scouting a day or two before the season opens can push them far away from main roads. Most antelope hunters are lazy by nature, and if they can’t spot a buck from a road or trail, they’re unlikely to go further afield. Smart hunters capitalize on this and head kilometres away from the main roads, often with a pack on their backs.

Southern Alberta is prime antelope country, including ranches comprising hundreds of thousands of acres where hunting is most often permitted on foot only. The areas where ranches border main roads will see a fair bit of pressure, but the average antelope hunter isn’t willing to don a backpack and head kilometres into the property. For those who are, though, the rewards can be huge.

Vanessa’s last antelope buck was a classic example of that. We’d actually spotted him close to a major highway the week before the season began, but when we returned to look for him a couple of days before the opener, he was gone. I learned a few other hunters in the area had also spotted him close to the highway, so I guessed he’d been spooked by the drivers stopping to look. So, on opening morning, we threw on our backpacks loaded with enough supplies for the day and headed deeper into the 60,000-acre property from the highway.

Over the course of two hours, we’d walk a short distance, then glass and repeat. We finally spotted a group of antelope in a dry slough, but after careful evaluation through our spotting scope, we could see our buck wasn’t with them. We were just about to pack up and keep moving when Vanessa spotted a lone buck about a kilometre to the east. One glance through the spotting scope confirmed it was our buck.

We quickly moved to get in position between him and the group we’d spotted to set up an ambush. Approximately 20 minutes later, he showed up 170 yards in front of us and Vanessa put him down with one well-placed shot from her 7mm Rem. Mag.

The two of us got some strange looks when we got back to the highway late that afternoon with our backpacks laden with fresh antelope meat. One hunter in a pickup stopped and commented how he’d been looking for the same buck. We just smiled, knowing our hard work had paid off.

Antelope aren’t large animals, making it easy for two hunters to pack out all the meat. Just treat it like you would any other backpack hunt. I’d avoid simply heading off into the unknown to look for antelope, however. They’re typically found in pockets, and it’s easy to waste an entire day blindly wandering around. Instead, this is where some pre-season scouting really pays off.

Start by finding the places where antelope like to hang out, then scout around those areas. I find they rarely roam too far during hunting season. If you spot them close to a road, you can usually count on them being within a few kilometres of that same location (unless there’s a major snowfall or other hunters spook them). Vanessa and I may look at 100 or more bucks while scouting, but only one or two will be target animals. The problem here is, those same bucks become everyone’s target bucks. On the upside, you can usually locate them again in more remote locations by burning some shoe leather.