If you ask  resident hunters in many Western states what is the most difficult thing about pronghorn hunting, a lot of them will reply sardonically, “Drawing the tag!”

While there is a certain amount of truth to that statement, even more of a challenge is to take a good trophy buck after you’ve drawn the tag. After chasing speed goats around the deserts and prairies for going on three decades, I’ve learned five things every hunter needs to do to increase the odds of killing a trophy pronghorn.

Preseason Scouting

Knowing as much as possible about the animals   living in your hunting area and where they are hanging out is critical to your success. Ideally, you should begin your scouting trips as soon as you know you’ve drawn the tag. You can get a fair idea of a buck’s potential even during the early horn-growing time of spring. As spring evolves into summer, mature bucks tend to leave the herds of does and fawns, either going off by themselves or perhaps hooking up with some other bucks.

Keep an eye on these animals throughout summer, observing them and noting any changes in their range or behavior. Most pronghorn hunts are in late summer, occasionally extending into early fall, and a majority occur during the rut. Your scouting trips just before the season begins should focus on water sources because the animals probably won’t wander too far away from these areas, especially during extended dry periods. Be aware that it isn’t always the largest bucks that keep harems of does. Often a smaller but more aggressive buck will kick a big boy off his girlfriends.

Judging Heads

This buck has the potential to be a very good trophy in a year or two. Even though his horns are short, they have some mass.
If you haven’t seen many pronghorn, the differences between a so-so head and a trophy will seem subtle. A lot of hunters talk endlessly about horn length — 16-, 17- or even 18-inchers — but length alone doesn’t count much in the overall score. You need to take into account mass, prong length and width, and to a lesser degree, spread.

A typical mature buck’s ears are about 7 inches long. If the prong starts below the tip of its ears, it is a young buck — perhaps a 12- or 13-inch horn length. When you find a buck that has prongs starting above its ears, look for mass. The horn should be thick at its base and carry the mass all the way up the horn. Often you’ll see a buck with a nice bottom end, but it kind of peters out after the prong. The prong should be wide and about a quarter the length of the entire horn. What you are looking for is the whole package, and the only way to get good at judging heads is to look at a lot of them. A trip to your taxidermist is time well spent. He’ll often have a variety of heads brought in by clients, and checking them out, even measuring them, will help bring you up to speed quickly.

Nontypical, or freak, horns are not unusual. Some people really like to focus their efforts on crazy speed-goat heads. Some horns will come out straight forward; others will go straight up and have an excessively pinched look about them. Still others will look as if someone with a big foot stepped on the horns and splayed them out to the side.

Use Enough — But Not Too Much — Gun
This Colorado buck was taken at 275 yards with the author’s .270 WSM?using a handloaded 110-grain bullet.
I have seen folks use anything from a .22-250 up to and including a .375 H&H Magnum on pronghorn. If you are traveling out West from back East, your .35 Remington that is absolute death and destruction on whitetails and black bears will be lacking on pronghorns. It certainly will do the job if you hit one, but the difficulty likely will be hitting them. The problem is pronghorn are hunted in wide-open country, and a hunter needs to be prepared to take and make a long shot. How long? Well, of the 36 pronghorns I have taken, only five were shot at less than 200 yards. At least 10 were shot at more than 400 yards. Most of the shots I have made on speed goats have been between 275 and 350 yards. And at these ranges, your rifle needs to be accurate. The closer you can get to an honest minute-of-angle gun the better.

On the other hand, a large pronghorn will weigh only about 120 pounds, tops, on the hoof. They are not that difficult to kill as long as the shot is properly placed and the bullet performs correctly. Ideally you want a cartridge that shoots flat, doesn’t recoil too much and is packaged in a relatively lightweight, accurate rifle platform. I consider anything from a .257 Roberts up to a .300 magnum to be good pronghorn medicine.

No Substitute For Range Time

To be able to shoot accurately at 300, 400 or 500 yards, you’ll need to practice at those ranges. There simply is no other way. And that practice needs to be done from the positions you’ll be shooting from in the field. There are precious few bench rests in the field, so if you plan to hunt with shooting sticks, with a bipod or using a sling, practice from field positions, at extended distances, after you have sighted in your rifle.

After It’s Down

Because pronghorns are hunted in late summer and early fall, it is absolutely imperative the animal be taken care of properly after it’s killed. That means getting the guts out of it, the skin off it, and the meat and cape on ice as soon as possible. When the temperature is 85 degrees, an animal can sour in half an hour. I’ve seen several pronghorns go bad in the time it took to take the hero photos. Sure, get your pictures, but don’t dillydally. Don’t lose your hard-earned trophy due to neglect.