The curtain has closed on this year’s antelope season.
The Rodney Dangerfield of Montana big game animals, pronghorn just can’t get any respect.
Most hunters pursue them as an afterthought, or, at best as something to hunt until the general big game season opens.
Chased by hunters in pickups and four-wheelers, shot en masse when they pile up at fence corners, and derogatorily referred to as “speed goats,” antelope deserve better.
Creatures of open country with eyesight far better than ours, they’re tough to stalk within range.
As dramatically marked as any big game animal in North America and related to no other critter on the continent, antelope also offer a unique hunting opportunity. Work hard, stay low, take your time. You’ll get a shot.
Miss and they’ll give you another chance because antelope don’t hide. They may run a mile or two, but won’t disappear like deer and elk. They’ll gather in the distance and watch for your approach.
Impatience does in the majority of antelope hunters. Too many hunters shoot before closing the distance. After all, through that nine-power scope they look sooo close and you just crawled through a prickly pear patch. Squeeze off a shot at 300 yards, forgetting your intended target is not much bigger than a German shepherd, and watch them all run away.
Antelope like to run.
But they’re also curious.
Walk toward them in plain sight and they’ll sometimes let you get within range. Drop into the sagebrush and they’ll sometimes come closer to see where you went.
Sometimes.
Most of the time, they’ll run.
Get one down though, and you’ll find they are far easier to pack out than deer or elk, and despite the rumors, make excellent table fare.
Someone’s always asking “How can you eat those stinky old things?”
Grilled with garlic and butter works for me.
While antelope have a unique odor, it’s in the hair and disappears once you jerk off the hide. The meat has a dense texture and mild flavor. There’s just not enough of it.
Better than whitetail or muley, antelope eats as well as the best elk.
But it doesn’t make any difference.
The bull elk that rises out of its bed in the timber and stands broadside to the hunter who kills it at 50 feet is a far more revered big game trophy.
And the loins of a swollen-necked whitetail buck draw considerably more praise around the dinner table.
Pronghorn antelope. They just can’t get any respect.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net