Pronghorn Antelope Hunting Guides and Outfitters – Trips and Guided Hunts

Pronghorn is sometimes called the American antelope. The pronghorn antelope is well adapted for its life in open grasslands. It is probably the fastest large mammal of North America. It can sprint for a short distance at a mile a minute. It can run at a rate of 40 miles an hour for about two miles. It is among some of the fastest big game in the world. It also makes a hunting outfitter or guides job much harder to help the hunter get close enough for a shot during guided hunts. The pronghorn is not a true antelope. It has no close relatives anywhere. It has changed little from its ancestor which lived in the early American Pleistocene Age, between one and two million years ago.

A graceful hoofed animal, the pronghorn has a rather chunky body, large ears, slender legs, and short tail. Its general color varies from light tan to reddish brown. The pronghorn has some white fur on it’s under parts, its rump, the sides of its face, and on its throat. The upper and outer parts of the body are pale tan to reddish-tan, while the underside, rump patch, cheeks and lower jaw are white. Two white blazes run across the throat, which make this big game animal harder to see. The bucks have a distinctive broad, black band that runs from the eyes, down the snout to the nose, and is black crescent across the neck and black antlers.

The buck pronghorn antelope stands about 3 ½ to 4 feet high at the shoulder and from 4 to 5 feet long and weighs 100 to 160 pounds. While females weigh from 70 to 110 pounds. Its horns are about 12 to 15 inches long and consist of a bony core on which a black horny covering grows. This covering is shed and renewed every year. The pronghorn antelope is the only animal in the world that regularly sheds its horn covers. These horns are a prize trophy from a guided hunting trip.

The pronghorn lives on open grassland. It has remarkably keen sight. It depends on its eyes to detect its principal enemies; wolves, coyotes, and man on its speed to escape from danger. The pronghorn hunting guides or outfitters normally have tips on how to approach this big game animal without frightening it away.

During the breeding season, this begins in the autumn pronghorns mate in September and October. Each buck tries to collect several mates. He seldom keeps more than three or four at a time, but an occasional buck may have as many as eight, which are maintained in territories. Bucks defend their territories with snorts, chases, postures and occasional fights. The does {females} generally bear twins in May, or as early as March in the south. But a doe’s first breeding usually results in one fawn. The doe hides the fawns in high grass or brush, and grasses away from them to distract predators. Pronghorns feed on grasses and the tender twigs of sagebrush, atriplex, rabbit brush, and other shrubs.

Pronghorn antelope are social creatures. In winter, the bands of pronghorns gather into herds. The animals are estimated to have numbered as many as a hundred million at one time. But hunters, guides, and outfitters have greatly reduced that number from years of hunting trips or just for the meat and hides in the distant past that were needed for survival. They occupied a vast range from central Saskatchewan to central Mexico and from western Iowa almost to the Pacific Coast. In 1908, only 20,000 remained. Under strict protection, pronghorn antelope now number in over a few million. Some states and provinces permit seasonal hunting of the pronghorn antelope.

Scientific Classification The pronghorn antelope is the sole representative of the family Antilocapridae. It is genus Antilocapra, species A. americana.

Tips for Pronghorn Antelope Hunting