New Mexico Archery Pronghorn - 2009

Good luck guys .Hope the footage is good,I really enjoyed the last episode of the show hunting antelope in Colorado.Reminds me I should buy a point for Wyoming.
 
Just got home from spending a couple of days with the archery antelope hunting gurus, and I must say, I learned a bunch and had a great time.

As you can see there are plenty of lopes running around and Bugler just about tagged out today. These guys are getting them dialed in and I'm sure they'll nail one real soon, probably because they don't have me to drag along and mess up their mojo anymore.

The hunters will keep you apprised of the hunt. I figured I'd share a little 'behind the scenes' action.

Here's the view I had all weekend, it's a bit different working with and staying behind a camera, but fun nonetheless and it didn't slow the action at all.
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A 20 hour drive and long days of hunting had these guys a bit more tired than I, but there was still time to wolf down some chow and Chip's Ahoy before bedtime. You'll notice Fin isn't in this picture.
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That's cause he decided to get his fill during the day. Luckily we talked him out of the meat pie this turd roller was on.
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But couldn't keep him from the protein.
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Enough to make even Bear Grylls dry heave eh? :D

Best of luck guys. Thanks for letting me tag along for a couple of days. I'm looking forward to the rest of the story.
 
We had high hopes for the evening hunt but things changed. We started by hiking in and checking the game camera and we had one pic of an antelope heading under the fence. Three others that were just missed by the camera. So it was nice to see antelope were ok with the blinds. While sitting there looking at the pictures we had antelope all around us. We went to the blind to look at a herd about 125 yards away when 4 lopes, 1 doe with triplets came running in. We were caught in the open and they pegged us at 90 yards. We hurried off in hopes to stalk some goats.

Here we are checking things out.
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Saw this guy along the way.
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We went around to stalk the area we were in this morning and found nothing there. A little farther down the road we ran into the guy we almost shot in the morning.
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They had moved over to private land and we had to leave them alone. We were able to see BWOP with the group also.

While glassing out through the sage we looked over at a blind we had seen all weekend. We noticed a guy standing beside a smoker of a buck. We also noticed they were tearing there blind down. We be lined over to where they were and meet them on the road. They smoked the big one we had scouted early on our scout day. He was the biggest buck we had seen and he was every bit what we thought he was.

A very lucky guys 85"er
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After talking with them we found out the had three guys incamp and all had filled there tags. We made tracks to the water and setup our blinds. To say we are excited for tomorrow is an understatement.
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Looks like Spitz sand Bugler have made a pretty good statement of how the day unraveled, so I will be short in my post. Some pretty close calls today, but no tags punched.

The other hunters who have been driving around, have the antelope pretty well congregated in a four square mile flat, with no terrain. The antelope are in big herds of 20+, so stalking, even with the cow decoys is very difficult. Yet, somehow Bugler and the cameraguy closed the distance to about 75 yards this morning. Very cool for Spitz and I to watch from about 125 yards to the side.

Here are some pics from that encounter.


Bugler lining up the camera guy to where he glassed the horns over the tops of some sage.
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Bugler giving us the "thumbs up" after the bucks headed into a very, very, small depression.
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Bugler and camera guy on their way to glory.
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Like Bugler said, tomorrow we plan to sit some water. The day we arrived and scouted, we saw a huge buck, with four other big ones. They were out near this big flat area. By the time we figured out where the water was, someone else had already put their blind in position.

So, we backed off, and let them have the area. Tonight, as we watched them pull their blind, we asked if they were done. We told them that we had tried to find a way to hunt those bucks, but since they were there first, we really had to just hunt the fringes. When they told us they were done, we put it in "swift and fast" and got the blinds set up at the "boneyard" just before dark. Hope tomorrow holds some good things in store. I can only guarantee one thing - it will be hot in those blinds.


This was the big buck we referred to on our scouting day post. Very glad for the hunter who got him. Just wish we would have been the first to put a blind up there. Congrats to the hunter.
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I am anxious to see what this guy scores, but Bugler and I both think he is 85+, now that we had our hands on him. Nice to know that when we scouted him, we thought he was this big. Given how hard antelope are to judge, I was worred I had talked myself into thinking he was bigger than he really was.
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Prepared for ambush at the "boneyard."
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Bugler made me bring the laptop to give hour by hour reports. First hour - about 20 bucks within 800 yards, including on Bugler says he would shoot with a rifle tag. Hopefully he gets thirsty sometime today.

Sunrise on the NM prairie.
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Big buck cicrling down wind of the "boneyard.". 7:55 AM and patiently waiting. Bugler is the shooter for all bucks other than BWOP. More later.
 
I see you guys are into the big bucks, sure is nice to see them. I hope the water hole works out. Good looking pitchers you have. Hope to see pitchers with your hands around some big horns soon. Keep up the good work. Looking forward to seeing what happens tonight. Good Luck
 
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