I have an upcoming September archery antelope hunt in SW Idaho, which will be my first big game hunt. I have done some boots-on-the-ground scouting and plan to do a little more in the next week. I will be hunting for 8 days: 4 days alone, then 4 days with a partner who pulled the same tag. In the research I've been doing leading up, I've come to understand there are a variety of methods people recommend to take pronghorn during the archery season. traditional spot and stalk (no decoys) sitting on a watering hole with a popup blind sitting on a watering hole with a natural blind setting up on a common migration point with antelope decoy(s) spot and stalk with a moving decoy ??? My goal is to maximize the odds of filling both of our tags (either sex) by the end of the 8 days. How should I allocate the 8 days? Should I invest in decoys? A ground blind? My thought was to go down next weekend and scope out some of the watering holes I found on Google Earth. I will probably be camping out of my truck for days at a time, so I should be able to get in pretty early and out pretty late. Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
If filling your tags regardless of size and sex and not eating the tag is the goal…there is really only one choice. Sit water. Also consider finding out what if any winter kill took place is in the unit, contact the biologist. And if it was substantial, consider not shooting a doe.
My understanding is most of the winter kill last season occurred on the East side of the state, to my knowledge the winters in the SW have not been severe recently. Regarding sitting water, should I shell out the money for a pop-up blind? And does the color matter? Thank you for your thoughts.
I am in northern Idaho and have never gone down south to antelope hunt, but I have three friends that have done it and/or go most every year. Of them, the two (husband and wife) with the highest success sit in a blind at a waterhole. You want the blind to have a black interior and be very dark inside. They keep the blind very closed up except for the window facing the water. They just wear shorts with a very lightweight, black, long-sleeved shirt, they say it does not take too long after sunup for it to be like sitting in a sauna. (bring plenty of drinking water) I have one friend that has had some success spot and stalk (no decoy), he would find one bedded just over a rise and would stalk up the backside of the hill as long as the wind was favorable. Defeating their eyes is the hardest part when stalking and he would spend quite a bit of time glassing to find one bedded in a perfect spot for a stalk. His general method was once he got towards the top of the rise, he would draw his bow and then creep up a step at a time until he could see the antelope.
