Much like deer hunting, one has to apply for a tag to hunt pronghorn antelope in ND. I was SUPER excited this year as I was CERTAIN my daughter, who has never hunted speed goats before, would draw a tag since she had 9 preference points for this years draw. The plan would be to drag the camper down to the SW corner of the state and flat out enjoy showing her how awesome goat hunting and the countryside down there really is. Turns out she was unlucky, but Dad and I drew tags with only 7 preference points. Same plan as before, but it would just be me and Dad.
Prior to the rifle season started my youngest son and I made the trip to get reacquainted with landowners, secure permission, and try to find a few goats.
It was SUPER dry down there this year which meant fewer goats and no driving off of the main roads for fear of starting a fire. The boy and I did try to sneak up on a herd with the intent of decoying the buck to within bow range, but the closest the buck came to us was 62 yards. Too far for my archery abilities but it was a fun thing to try. Anyone watching would have gotten a kick out of watching two grown men try to hide behind a plywood goat silhouette.
Fast forward a month. Dad and I set up the camper and proceeded to try find a respectable buck or two to take home with us. Again, pickings were slim but on the evening of the second day we did locate a herd with a fair-to-middlin' buck and one dandy buck.
We were sneaking in the next morning before shooting light, but due to the open terrain we couldn't get within range before they moved off. We kept after them several miles and after five and a half hours of playing cat and mouse, we ended up taking the two biggest bucks in the herd.
Dad had a hip replacement this spring, but he did WAY more walking than he probably should have. I was impressed! His unwillingness to wear his hearing aides out in the wind mades for some moments that all you could do was laugh. Needless to say, I shot the FTM buck and Dad shot the big dog which in addition to being a dandy, also had some pretty cool horns.
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Though body sizes were very similar, I was amazed at how the skull sizes compared.
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Just Dad's showing the uniqueness:
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Though we didn't see many antelope during the hunt we were able to see some really cool country, saw OODLES of mule deer, and more hungarian partridge than I have seen in my entire life. Pretty tough to beat three days of hunting with Dad.