Guns 2012-08.pdf - Jeffersonian

Rifles
Don’t be fooled by
the many enduring myths.
One persistent myth is pronghorns have 8X
eyesight. They do have very good eyesight, but
a human with an 8X binocular can see better.
In almost 40 years of pronghorn hunting, John
has only shot at two bucks more than 400 yards
away, and both were dropped with one shot.
One was taken at 401 laser yards with a .257
Weatherby Magnum (above), the other at 430
long paces with a .257 Roberts (below).
John Barsness
ne of the interesting things about growing up in
OMontana has been encountering many hunters from
other parts of North America who finally make their big
trip Out West. This first hunt often involves pronghorn and
mule deer, but for some reason the boys really obsess
over exactly the right pronghorn rifle, perhaps because
mule deer are, well, deer.
Unlike deer, pronghorns live out
in the open where we can see them.
Consequently hunters tend to take
longer shots at pronghorns than any
other North American big game
animal, even though it really isn’t
necessary.
These days most whitetail hunting
means sitting in some sort of stand,
waiting for deer to wander out of the
woods, so many visiting hunters have
little idea of how to stalk a big game
animal. Neither do many hunters
who grew up on the high plains of
the West, due to growing up stalking
from a pickup truck. As a result, both
types of hunters often start shooting
at pronghorns as soon as they spot
one, partly because most antelope are
already onto them. The boys figure
they have to shoot now!
Here it should be mentioned that
while “pronghorn” is supposedly
the “correct” common name for our
quarry, something often pointed out
by pedantics, the scientific name is
Antilocapra americana. This Latin
literally translates into American
antelope-goat, so yeah, it’s perfectly OK
to call pronghorns antelope—or even
goats, one of their common Western
names. In fact we often call them speedgoats
or stink-goats, depending on how
close we get.
The reason so many pronghorn
hunters emphasize high-magnification
scopes and high-velocity cartridges
is they’re not very good at stalking
unalarmed antelope. Pronghorn
hunting actually starts with
binoculars, so we can see pronghorns
before they see us.
You’ve probably heard the myth that
antelope have “8X binocular eyes.” This
arose from something written by Jack
O’Connor, who mentioned glassing
with an 8X binocular and finding a
buck looking right back at him. He
concluded antelope have vision at
least that good—and the myth entered
American hunting lore.
Antelope do have very good eyesight,
but it doesn’t magnify anything. Like
most prey animals, they see movement
really well, especially movement on
a high-plains horizon. If you really
believe in the mythical 8X story, go
ahead and bring a good 10X binocular,
but a good 8X or even 7X binocular
also works well, if you don’t hunt by
hiking ridgelines or driving ranch roads
until some speed-goats spot you.
The trick is to glass constantly,
long before you see any antelope with
your naked eyes, peeking from behind
rocks or sage, to break up the outline
of your head and shoulders. Often
they’ll appear as distant white dots,
but on cloudy days even their tanand-white
coloration tends to merge
with sagebrush, requiring very careful
glassing.
Once a buck’s located, the next
step is to get close enough for a shot,
and in some country this can occur as
soon as you’ve spotted them. Back in
the mid-1980s, before every particle of
Montana’s public pronghorn country
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WWW.GUNSMAGAZINE.COM • AUGUST 2012