Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better dear hunting. Present it by
Speaker 1: First Light, creating proven, versatile hunting apparel for the stand,
Speaker 1: saddle or blind. First Light, Go farther, stay Longer, and
Speaker 1: now your host Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. I'm Marrist
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today I'm going to talk about the lowly,
Speaker 2: no good, overlooked antelope. I'm going to make a bold
Speaker 2: statement here. If antelope had big, old antlers instead of small,
Speaker 2: prongy little horns, they'd probably be a hell of a
Speaker 2: lot more popular to hunt. The problem is, the difference
Speaker 2: between a giant antelope and a good one is like
Speaker 2: ten inches, and the biggest diaper butt you'll ever see
Speaker 2: on the horizon won't score more than the average two
Speaker 2: year old white tail in a place with shitty genetics
Speaker 2: and poor soil. The thing is they are a hell
Speaker 2: of a lot of fun to hunt. They are also
Speaker 2: a real test to your skills, and they are delicious,
Speaker 2: and they offer several different styles in which you can
Speaker 2: kill one. How many of you find listeners like avocados.
Speaker 2: I know that the current advice on how to become
Speaker 2: super wealthy is to stop eating avocado toast, which I
Speaker 2: guess was a fad, But it's kind of like the
Speaker 2: hackneyed financial advice that the distance between you now, as
Speaker 2: a brocass young person, and someone who I don't know
Speaker 2: wants to host parties on your private yacht is simply
Speaker 2: to ditch the Starbucks every morning. If only it was
Speaker 2: that simple. Avocados are superfoods. They contain omega threes of
Speaker 2: C and E vitamins of folic acid, which is good
Speaker 2: if your preggers. They contain magnesium potassium, are rich in
Speaker 2: soluble fiber, and on and on. In other words, avocados
Speaker 2: are good for you. They are also kind of wild
Speaker 2: for starters. The avocados you might see turned into some
Speaker 2: delicious guacamole have been grown in orchards here in the
Speaker 2: United States for like one hundred and ten years. Before that,
Speaker 2: they were grown in Central and South America for like
Speaker 2: five thousand years. But even before that, the avocado has
Speaker 2: a real origin story. Up until about thirteen thousand years ago,
Speaker 2: this fleshy fruit grew in the wild no surprise there right, Well,
Speaker 2: what is surprising is that it evolved as an awful
Speaker 2: lot of seed bearing flora has to get its seeds
Speaker 2: away from the parent plant. In this case of tree,
Speaker 2: you don't want to be a cute little avocado sapling
Speaker 2: fighting for sunlight and other resources while growing at the
Speaker 2: base of your parent tree. It's not going to work
Speaker 2: out very well, you know, unless you're dropping metric tons
Speaker 2: of seeds in a spray and prey method like oak trees.
Speaker 2: This is just a great way to not pass on
Speaker 2: your jeans. Instead, avocado trees through who knows how many
Speaker 2: thousands or millions of years figured something out. The megafauna
Speaker 2: of the time thoroughly enjoyed eating avocados and the ones
Speaker 2: and by that I mean the avocados with slightly bigger,
Speaker 2: denser pits survived the trips through the digestive tracks of
Speaker 2: these megafauna, and then they got pooped out in a
Speaker 2: new spot with a fresh batch of fertilizer to boot.
Speaker 2: So those giant ground sloths and wild horses, mammoths and
Speaker 2: other big old mammals ate the avocados and then walked
Speaker 2: off to do what animals do, or at least they
Speaker 2: did over time. The avocado jeans that ended up getting
Speaker 2: passed on were those with the pits that could survive
Speaker 2: the journey. Even when those megafana went the way of
Speaker 2: the dodo, the avocado survived, and they still have those
Speaker 2: giant wooden ball type pits, even though they no longer
Speaker 2: really need them. This is an evolutionary holdover. Evidence of
Speaker 2: these long forgotten traits and anatomical characteristics is found in
Speaker 2: all kinds of animals. Boa constrictors, for example, have pelvic
Speaker 2: bones and back legs. Even though they are tucked inside
Speaker 2: of a normal snake body, they are visible with an
Speaker 2: X ray. Some whale embryos have well developed beginnings of
Speaker 2: legs too, but they usually disappear with growth. Not always, though,
Speaker 2: and whales and dolphins have been caught with stumpy legs.
Speaker 2: Some great gray owl chicks are born with little owl
Speaker 2: hands at the end of their wings, and humans aren't
Speaker 2: immune to this either. We have wisdom teeth, body hair,
Speaker 2: and occasionally a tail that can be up to like
Speaker 2: five inches long, which is i'll say it, totally freaking bananas.
Speaker 2: And then there is the prong horn, who can outrun
Speaker 2: any predator by such a wide margin that it's almost laughable. Honestly,
Speaker 2: antelope are so much faster than anything that can currently
Speaker 2: eat them that it's almost strange. But it's not. When
Speaker 2: you evolve to deal with the North American version of
Speaker 2: a cheetah, you had to be fast or you would
Speaker 2: be lunch. That's it. And even though that predator is
Speaker 2: gone and has been gone for a long time, the
Speaker 2: speediness of antelope remains, which I think is pretty cool,
Speaker 2: and they aren't unique just in that way. They're also
Speaker 2: pretty crazy with their migrations. Some of them migrate like
Speaker 2: up to one hundred and fifty miles, which is second
Speaker 2: only in distance to the migration of some caribou herds
Speaker 2: in North America. Their eyesight is unreal as well. Some
Speaker 2: biologists compare it to looking through ten X binoculars at
Speaker 2: all times. Their speed and eyesight makes them confident because well,
Speaker 2: they're super hard to get close to, and if you
Speaker 2: do get close and screw up, there'll be three counties
Speaker 2: over before you can swear too much. This is an
Speaker 2: asset for them, but also a liability if you, as
Speaker 2: a hunter, learn to use it against them. Anloe also
Speaker 2: boasts a pretty unique paint job. While most deer species
Speaker 2: are born with natural camouflage that work so freaking well
Speaker 2: in a variety of environments. The antelope is brown and
Speaker 2: bright white. They are highly visible, which might be because
Speaker 2: they don't care if you know they're there or not,
Speaker 2: because they can see you first and run away seventeen
Speaker 2: times as fast as you can. Maybe that paint job
Speaker 2: is just there to taunt you a little bit. Maybe
Speaker 2: it's like when Mark used to wear bright green and
Speaker 2: orange jumpsuits while he and his buddies used to do
Speaker 2: yo yo tricks for crowds up to seven people at
Speaker 2: one time. They wanted the attention and they look damn
Speaker 2: good getting it. Now. The anelope isn't that cool, but
Speaker 2: he's pretty cool. He's also a hell of a lot
Speaker 2: of fun to hunt, and you know what else, I
Speaker 2: think he's the most underrated Western game species out there.
Speaker 2: Everyone wants to go after elk in the mountains or
Speaker 2: meal deer, which is pretty understandable in my book, but
Speaker 2: those opportunities are getting harder to come by. Analope opportunities
Speaker 2: are becoming somewhat limited as well, But there are still
Speaker 2: affordable DIY hunts out there that you won't have to
Speaker 2: build fifteen twenty years of points to get to and
Speaker 2: I think you should consider these hunts before they are
Speaker 2: gone as well. I really do. I think analope hunting
Speaker 2: is one of the most unique hunts you can do.
Speaker 2: And I want to start with a highlight reel why
Speaker 2: I think so. I want to get the good stuff
Speaker 2: rattling around in your brain before I give you the
Speaker 2: bad news about antelope, So here it goes. Analope are
Speaker 2: pretty easy to find, the easiest big game animal to
Speaker 2: find that I've ever hunted. To be honest, they just
Speaker 2: don't hide a whole lot. They aren't really nocturnal, so
Speaker 2: they do most of their anlope stuff in the daylight.
Speaker 2: And that's a good thing. You can be in the
Speaker 2: game all day long on antalope if you have the
Speaker 2: fortitude to hunt them all day long. An Analope are
Speaker 2: delicious too. In fact, if you take care of them.
Speaker 2: I think they're the best eating game animals out there,
Speaker 2: at least out of all the animals I've eaten, which
Speaker 2: is quite a few at this point. I know people
Speaker 2: will claim that elk or white tails are better, but
Speaker 2: antlope is the clear winner. If you don't lead the
Speaker 2: hide on for three days after you shoot him. If
Speaker 2: you get him skinned in on ice pretty quickly, it's
Speaker 2: unbelievable meat, and the only downside to it is there
Speaker 2: really isn't much of it to start with compared to
Speaker 2: the other stuff we hunt. You can also hunt antalope
Speaker 2: quite a few different ways, but the two most popular
Speaker 2: styles are one that is really fun but also super
Speaker 2: difficult spotting and stalking, and one that is mostly horrible
Speaker 2: from start to finish and can also be pretty difficult
Speaker 2: sitting water holes. Here's the thing about the two. Spotting
Speaker 2: and stalking an antlope is fun, but it's real difficult
Speaker 2: with a bow. With a gun, it's actually pretty easy.
Speaker 2: Provided you can walk over flat ground for enough miles
Speaker 2: with a bow, you're in for a challenge. I don't
Speaker 2: think there is a DIY domestic type of bow hunt
Speaker 2: that is tougher, but then again, I haven't done them all.
Speaker 2: I think spotting and stocking antelope with a bow ranks
Speaker 2: right up there with killing a good buck on public
Speaker 2: land in any state with high hunter numbers. It's no joke.
Speaker 2: With a rifle, you know, it's not a joke either,
Speaker 2: but it's nearly a foregone conclusion for a competent hunter
Speaker 2: who can shoot. And that's not a knock on it either,
Speaker 2: it's actually an endorsement. If you aren't sure you're cut
Speaker 2: out for Western hunting because you don't want to climb
Speaker 2: mountains and don't like eating expensive tags, well, buddy, I've
Speaker 2: got good news for you. The antelope is out there,
Speaker 2: and getting a rifle tag isn't terribly difficult in a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of different states. Now, you might have to
Speaker 2: play the points game for a few years, but you'll
Speaker 2: get your chance, and when you do, you'll find that
Speaker 2: not only are they easy to locate, but if you
Speaker 2: can shoot straight, you'll see they are as delicious as
Speaker 2: I say, and they're easy to get out of the field.
Speaker 2: The biggest antelope on the prairie might weigh what a
Speaker 2: yearling doe does in Michigan, so getting them out of
Speaker 2: the field isn't much of an issue. This is honestly
Speaker 2: a bigger component of a Western hunt than most folks
Speaker 2: give it credit for. We often overstate our physical abilities
Speaker 2: when we were at sea level and not standing at
Speaker 2: nine thousand feet over a dead animal that weighs four
Speaker 2: times your average whitetail buck and needs to be carried
Speaker 2: to a truck that is five miles away. That's a
Speaker 2: different world, and it is not for everyone. Most people,
Speaker 2: on the other hand, could get an antelope out of
Speaker 2: the field without having a major chest grabber or pulling
Speaker 2: a hammy. And that's not nothing, my friends. There are
Speaker 2: a lot of awesome things about antelope, but now it's
Speaker 2: time to take our medicine. Antelope hunts are usually hot.
Speaker 2: If you bowhunt them, it's damn near a guarantee that
Speaker 2: you're going to sweat your knackers off. Mid August openers
Speaker 2: are the norm, and if you wait till September, you
Speaker 2: might get a break of a couple of degrees, but
Speaker 2: it isn't going to be much. Pronghorn also have the
Speaker 2: annoying habit of living in places where trees are more
Speaker 2: rare than finding a hunting cameraman who isn't the loudest
Speaker 2: person you've ever met. You won't get to lay up
Speaker 2: in the shade African Lions style, while though day progresses
Speaker 2: in the cooler temperatures, are finally delivered upon the scorched
Speaker 2: wasteland that antelope call home. On a spot in stock
Speaker 2: hunt this is a concern, but it's pretty easy to
Speaker 2: keep a cooler full of cold water in the truck.
Speaker 2: On a water hole hunt from a blind, well, you're
Speaker 2: in for a real treat. There's nothing quite like it,
Speaker 2: and if you're into suffering, you better get out there
Speaker 2: and try it. The rub here is that it's the
Speaker 2: best way to earn a high odd shot at an antelope.
Speaker 2: It's just that you'll pay for it, kind of like
Speaker 2: how most people view all day sits for running white tails.
Speaker 2: You know, the idea is simple, and the theory is sound.
Speaker 2: Put in your time, all of your daylight time where
Speaker 2: the odds of a cruiser are high, and then eventually
Speaker 2: you'll be rewarded. But talking about this stuff is a
Speaker 2: hell of a lot easier than going through it. The
Speaker 2: idea of a water hole analope hunt is like that.
Speaker 2: It sounds easy, and it should be, but let me
Speaker 2: tell you something, it sucks. I've never killed one that
Speaker 2: way and haven't really given it my best effort, to
Speaker 2: be honest. I have sat dark to dark in quite
Speaker 2: a few blinds on the prairie, and I've seen plenty
Speaker 2: of goats out there. I just haven't had the right
Speaker 2: one come in. I have also found spots with like
Speaker 2: a lone cottonwood over a pond that antelope will occasionally
Speaker 2: swing in to drink from. That's marginally better because the
Speaker 2: view is nice and you're not stuck in a hot
Speaker 2: canvas box all day. If you do find that, it's
Speaker 2: a pretty good option. Plus, analope don't look up well.
Speaker 2: They probably do, but they aren't as hip to the
Speaker 2: whole tree standard tree saddle game as your average white
Speaker 2: tail fawn in Pennsylvania or South Carolina. I think the
Speaker 2: best way to plan an analope hunt is to keep
Speaker 2: an open mind. Now, if you're going to rifle on them,
Speaker 2: it's pretty simple. Got learned to glass like I talked
Speaker 2: about in the last few episodes, and then figure out
Speaker 2: how to get in range when you see them. Pretty
Speaker 2: damn simple, pretty damn fun. But if you want to
Speaker 2: bow hunt them, I'd plan around whatever style you think
Speaker 2: will suit you best. But I'd also have other options
Speaker 2: just in case. Even if I'm dead set on walking
Speaker 2: one down with my bow, I usually have a blind
Speaker 2: in the truck. I might have escouted a few water
Speaker 2: sources or run across a tank out there somewhere when
Speaker 2: I'm roaming around, but either way, it's just worth having
Speaker 2: the option. And the reason for this is simple, You're
Speaker 2: probably going to really suck at stocking them. I do.
Speaker 2: I'd say it probably takes me like ten or twelve
Speaker 2: stocks on average to get into bow range, and even
Speaker 2: getting there isn't the end of the deal. They will
Speaker 2: spot you often and they usually won't stick around to
Speaker 2: let you range them, draw, settle in, and execute a
Speaker 2: perfect sixty seven yard shot on an animal that requires
Speaker 2: precise aiming. Now, this is another point I should probably
Speaker 2: get into. Rifle shots seem to be pretty much what
Speaker 2: you'd expect. It's not that hard to get within maybe
Speaker 2: two or three hundred yards of an antelope, which is
Speaker 2: where a flat shooting rifle with a decent rest is
Speaker 2: damn near a sure thing. Spotting and stocking antelope with
Speaker 2: a bow on the other end, it's a different story.
Speaker 2: Forty yard shots are a gift, especially if you only
Speaker 2: have four or five six days to hunt, plan to
Speaker 2: shoot farther than you would with white tails. Just trust
Speaker 2: me on that. You might also want to try a
Speaker 2: decoy to increase your odds. If you're hunting September, this
Speaker 2: can be a hell of a lot of fun. A
Speaker 2: small buck decoy or a dough decoy can sometimes get
Speaker 2: them running in, but you get a lot of goats that,
Speaker 2: for whatever reason hit the brakes at like sixty yards
Speaker 2: and acts an awful lot like they aren't going to
Speaker 2: stick around long. This This is panic time, and it
Speaker 2: leads to dumb shots. A better bet if you're going
Speaker 2: to decoy is pay attention to the herds you can see.
Speaker 2: Is there a stud buck running off some dings, then
Speaker 2: you're in the right scenario. Is there just a herd
Speaker 2: with a buck or two that seems to be feeding
Speaker 2: and loafing but not interested in fighting or playing grab ass?
Speaker 2: A decoy to them might be the signal to move
Speaker 2: off a few miles. Now, if you have low standards,
Speaker 2: and I think you should, a group of young bucks
Speaker 2: can be a decoyer's best friend. They often respond pretty
Speaker 2: well and it's pretty exciting when they do so. Either way,
Speaker 2: you have a few decoy options. You can go out
Speaker 2: there and you can use something like a Montana decoy.
Speaker 2: I've used those quite a bit. Or there's bow mounted
Speaker 2: options like the Ultimate Predator decoys. They both work, but
Speaker 2: if you use a bow mounted one. Just make sure
Speaker 2: to practice with it beforehand. They're designed really well and
Speaker 2: they can work really well, but it's just like a
Speaker 2: slightly different shooting experience that you should be comfortable with
Speaker 2: before you head out there. And make sure you have
Speaker 2: the right gear too. Now this is a shameless plug,
Speaker 2: but you want really breatheable, insanely lightweight clothing like our
Speaker 2: first light trace options. If you don't buy them, that's okay,
Speaker 2: buy something that is built like them, because you don't
Speaker 2: want anything even remotely heavy or insulating on an antelope hunt.
Speaker 2: In fact, it's a good idea to take your potential
Speaker 2: antelope clothing and wear it out while you're doing some
Speaker 2: summer scouting or tree stand work back at home, just
Speaker 2: so you know whether you've made the right choice or not.
Speaker 2: I can't stress this enough. Also, make sure you have
Speaker 2: decent optics and a quick drawway to get to your rangefinder.
Speaker 2: Antelope move fast, hunts unfold quickly, and popping a quick
Speaker 2: reading off of a buck so you can get a
Speaker 2: shot is important. This goes for bowhunts, of course, but
Speaker 2: also rifle hunts. They're a small target and you don't
Speaker 2: want to guess ranges or take the wrong reading with
Speaker 2: your rangefinder. You want to know the exact distance so
Speaker 2: you can hold for it. There's a lot more stuff
Speaker 2: I could cover with antelope, but this is kind of
Speaker 2: an overview why I think everyone should consider a hunt
Speaker 2: for them and what you should expect if you do.
Speaker 2: It's not for everyone. If you really hate the heat
Speaker 2: and August bowhunt might not be in the cards, but
Speaker 2: maybe an October rifle hunt it could be. If you
Speaker 2: want to experience a really cool Western hunt that will
Speaker 2: cost you less both financially and physically in general, and
Speaker 2: won't require as much of your time as a mule
Speaker 2: deer or an elk adventure, the pronghorn is your guy.
Speaker 2: Consider it, think about it, get out there if you
Speaker 2: want to do it before it gets too late, and
Speaker 2: of course check in next week because I'm going to
Speaker 2: be talking about how we are all hypocrites when it
Speaker 2: comes to hunting, so we should just try to be nice.
Speaker 2: That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson. This has
Speaker 2: been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which is brought
Speaker 2: to you by First Light. As always, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for listening, We truly appreciate it. Here If you
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