mark kayser
Nothing prepares you for the big game like practice.
Despite your thorough routine of archery practice in the offseason, consider adding an early season hunt to your itinerary before the big game. Any big game species equals the big game, but elk, mule deer and whitetails dominate the playing field for most. What could you possibly hunt and consider it a runup to the big game? Think pronghorn.
Many pronghorn seasons open in August, well before most other big game hunts kick off. With detailed planning you can expect to draw a tag every year in one of the handful of states that harbor the highest populations of pronghorn. Think of states like the obvious king, Wyoming, plus Montana, South Dakota and Colorado. Other states that offer pronghorn opportunities include Nebraska, North Dakota, Idaho, Kansas and even with a little luck in the lottery only state of New Mexico. No preference point game for those Land of Enchantment special tags.
With research you can begin to acquire points in one state and after a couple of years, be able to draw a tag every year or at least, every other year. States like Wyoming often have leftover tags, albeit in units with less public access. Nonetheless, the state is 50 percent publicly owned so begin investigating hunting units.
Need more of a nudge for a summer hunt than the opportunity to go after the lone survivor from a group of animals that date back millions of years to the Miocene epoch. Consider all the benefits you broker for yourself before embarking on a litany of future fall hunts. Start with intensity in your archery training.
Summer archery pronghorn hunting provides you with an opportunity to test your hunting camp before any other major hunts kick off.
practice that you may be putting off
Nothing spurs you to make yourself better than the calendar nearing a big game hunt. Some of you may be dedicated in your practice regime, but for others, the path of least resistance leads the way. When you do see that hunt date nearing, practice intensifies to hone your skills. Drive your practice with the possibilities you may encounter on future hunts, not just what could transpire on a pronghorn hunt. The good thing about having a pronghorn hunt as your first outing is the fact it could encapsulate all your hunts, thus prodding you to sharpen skills for nearly every shooting situation.
Your thoughts about pronghorn hunting may conjure long stalks across the prairie and that is a strong possibility. Stalking brings up its own set of shooting situations to consider. You may be shooting from a crouched position, from your knees or even standing full erect, all shooting scenarios elk hunters face with the addition of timber instead of blue skies. Steep up and down shots also accompany stalks, like the angles you commonly encounter from a whitetail stand.
Stalking aside, in arid country waterhole sets reign so do not forget the practice required shooting from a blind. I still have a blind in my inventory that a hunting pal branded with a broadhead notch. Sitting in a chair and launching through a small window is not as easy as it appears. And if you put a decoy into play during a stalk, that creates an entirely new shooting situation as you must draw horizontally from a crouched position, raise up at full draw and release in seconds before the pronghorn recognizes the ruse. Only steadfast practice prepares you for this autopilot approach to shooting.
Instead of leaving your last, hard push to practice until a month before your first fall hunt, your honed skills have a sheen to them a full month or more thanks to a pronghorn hunt.
organization of hunting gear
We all have that one hunting partner that leaves hunt organization until the last minute. One of my best friends drives me bonkers to this day for his unorganized and unorthodox way he prepares for hunting season. Basically, he does not.
A summer pronghorn hunt gets you and your gear organized earlier than ever. Tuning your bow and arrows, washing stained backpacks, waterproofing boots, cleaning optics and more get on the to-do list early to prepare for the summer hunt. Camp also gets a thorough review with tents reviewed for rips or mold, cooking supplies in order and all energy sources assessed for supply demands.
In addition to laying out your gear, inventorying hunting camp equipment and mending anything that requires a pre-hunt tune up, you get to test the entire system on a pronghorn hunt. A pronghorn hunt has ruggedness built in, but possibly not the same testing grounds as elk country.
Even so, a test run provides you with insight whether your tent option can withstand a powerful gale, whether that solar charger can power all your needs, whether your shower system operates smoothly and if your bedding situation delivers the comfort required to recharge night after night.
During this review and test, your results only prove to make your next hunt more efficient by weeding out the bad from the good. One summer pronghorn hunt exposed a chink in my hunting camp armor: refrigeration. A couple of Walmart coolers in my inventory were not up to the standards required to keep ice frozen for days at a time. An upgrade on coolers helped me on future pronghorn hunts, but also elk hunts where success suddenly requires dealing with the cooling of hundreds of pounds of meat instantly.
perfecting your hunting skills
Look at the average group of hunters and a few days earlier you might not recognize them. Instead of camouflage they journey through their days dressed in suits, slacks, Carhartt coats, yellow safety vests and white smocks, to name a few. Most of you do not hunt for a living. You work for a living. That adds up to huge gaps of time where you are not in the field, but possibly making customers happy in a service occupation. Thanks for your effort, but those hours do little to hone hunting skills. A summer pronghorn hunt jumpstarts that hunt honing earlier.
One of the factors you occasionally forget is to slow down. Stalking requires the precise planting of footsteps, particularly in the closing yards. In addition to a slow-motion approach, the conditions could warrant removing your boots and finishing the stalking in stocking feet. Times even require you to stop, re-evaluate and then reverse to try another course. Getting the occasional rush out of the way on a pronghorn could save you when that big bull opportunity occurs on a tag that required 10 years of preference.
Patience also requires a re-education course. The world we live in unfolds in moments timed in seconds, not hours and days. Hunting requires a patient approach whether waiting tolerantly in a blind with sauna temperatures or holding tight until an animal rises from its bed giving you a better view of its vitals. Hunts receive highlighted attention on TikTok, but rarely play out in a TikTok world of seconds.
Lastly, a successful pronghorn hunt refreshes your game tracking, field dressing and extraction skills. From blood trailing to deboning an animal, a little practice never hurts anyone.
A summer pronghorn archery hunt represents its own adventure safari in America’s savannah. Putting your Prime bow to the test early, along with every other aspect of your hunting universe, ensures your remaining fall hunts have a high degree of success. And remember, nothing aims like a Prime.