Pronghorn Antelope

My Experience

I've been antelope hunting several times and it's a unique experience if you've never tried it.  It was the first time in my life where I went big game hunting and saw game almost continuously.  Unless you have your sights set on a record book trophy, I think you will find this to be a very easy hunt, assuming you go to an area where there are lots of animals.

My personal experiences were in Wyoming near Casper back in the early 90s.  At that time, licenses were easy to draw and the herd populations were very high.  The first time I was there, I had antelope in sight almost continuously.  Quite a change for someone who grew up hunting whitetails in the Midwest.  It seemed there were antelope everywhere you looked.  We hunted on a private ranch paying only a small trespass fee; if I remember right it was 25 or 30 dollars for the season.  There were 6 or 8 of us and we all filled in 2 days of very relaxed hunting.  No one took a monster but I think the smallest buck any one took was about 12.5 with the largest just under 15.  For Wyoming that’s respectable.

After this first hunt, I took my two oldest sons back the following year with similar experiences.  This was the first big game hunt for either of them and I would highly recommend it for a kid's first hunt.  It saves them the frustration of being cold and miserable and not seeing much game.  The only down side is that they were not really prepared for how tough hunting can be.

Since it was their first hunt, I was very pleased when both of them got a respectable buck the first day, after looking at over 100 animals.  After this, they were hooked on hunting, not quite as bad as dad, but it definitely has kept their interest.

Wyoming Antelope 2001 - my most recent debacle.

Recommendations

I personally used a 25/06 for all the antelope I've taken to date and it worked extremely well.  Each one literally dropped in his tracks. I would recommend anything from a 243 on up with a fairly fragile bullet that will expand rapidly.  In my 25, I used 115 gr Nosler partitions the first year and various 87 gr varmint bullets subsequently.  As long as you stay away from their shoulders on the way in, varmint bullets seem to do a great job.  I haven't tried them, but I would think Nosler Ballistic Tips would work great.  These are relatively small (less than 150 pounds), fragile animals that don't require much from a rifle to take cleanly.

Antelope are found in big, wide open country and your eyes will thank you if you use good, high quality optics for your glassing.

I haven't been back since I started handgun, muzzle loading, or bow hunting, but I think any of these alternatives would provide enough of a challenge to be interesting. With a flat shooting center fire, it's just a matter of picking out which one you want.

Where to go

 This is a link to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department Home Page and this is a link to the Casper Chamber of Commerce, they maintain a list of ranchers that allow hunting in the area.  

For trophy bucks, I understand that New Mexico or Arizona is the place to go, 17+ is not all that uncommon.