I would love to say I have stories to go with the following pictures, but I do not have stories. Yes I gave out waypoints for the hunters and I am told the were killed with in 1 miles of on of my waypoints. My understanding that Holly T had chances for two (2) bucks over water and harvested her buck with one arrow in 2012. The other two bucks were harvested in 2013 a couple of days apart by Mark and Jim. I will have to see if I can attach a link to the video’s they made of the hunt in the Warner Unit of Oregon. John Mark does work for an bow manufacturer (Bowtech) in Oregon. He lives by the bow and is a most successful hunter.
John Mark, plus his family and friends do shoot Bowtech!
If you would like to get a hold of their video you can find it on the following site:
Holly and Hubby – John Mark!Holly with her Warner Archery Antelope. She got two chances on taking an Oregon Antelope with her bow!
John Mark took his Antelope a few days later on the hunt with Jeff in 2013!Jeff took his buck on the opening day of the hunt! Great Buck from the state of Oregon
As you can see the Warner Unit which has not been devastated by Coyote predication on the Antelope fawns, has lead to a great herd in this unit! I do believe that if we add up the rifle hunters and bow hunters, my hunters are at 100% harvest in the Warner Unit!
Frank Jr.’s Oregon Grizzly Unit Not a guaranteed kill!
Horse Heaven Area Antelope 2004
This particular hunt came about with wanting to hunt Antelope sooner than later again with a rifle, plus not waiting until we had 12 or more points for hunting old haunts from the past in S.E. Oregon. My son Frank Jr. and I had 9 points saved up each. This would be his first Antelope hunt as a shooter! Getting very impatience with waiting for more points and looking out 4-6 years longer to hunt for Antelope maybe in the Wagontire, we decided since we had a couple of places to hunt in the Grizzly Unit in Oregon, that we would put in for the Grizzly Unit. Past and present I have sent many hunters into the unit with very good success!
Permission to hunt Earl Smith’s Ranch was given to us by Earl for hunting on the properties that laid in the Grizzly Unit, one piece being the “Old Gomes Ranch” and the other land lay south of the Cold Camp of Hwy 218, which included the Maupin and Hasting Buttes.
We had found a great buck on the “Old Gomes Ranch” prior to the season and he would be our first choice to chase. “Chase” Strange word with Pronghorn, as most of the time we like to ambush Lopes at water or crossings. In the Grizzly Unit you will not find the waterholes that one would find in the S.E. part of Oregon, so spotting and working in on them is the normal in the Grizzly Unit. We did not get to hunt the opener of the hunt coming in on Sunday late. Little did we know that Earl forgot about us (this happened a lot) and he let a guide come onto the land and hunt the place with his client. Having talked with the ranch foreman an old friend from the past, that particular hunt was very interesting to say the less. The client had a number of buddies with him at the time. It is hard to say who harvested the buck after all the shots that were taken with multiple rifles. Scuttlebutt was that the guide finally had to finish the buck off as it was leaving the property boundary, but then again it is only scuttlebutt! It did piss me off a lot on this one!
A little dog hunting with the Glock at Earl's
So the hunt had changed for the both us now. This hunt was about Frankie getting his first Pronghorn in Oregon. We would have to work old deer and elk haunts in the Grizzly Unit that carried a population of Antelope and put Earl’s places on the back burner. We would work the area around Hay Creek as I had found a good buck over in B.L.M. area during another earlier scouting trip for deer. There were the areas around Ashwood and the National Grasslands that we could concentrated on for Lopes also. None of this worked out, even with all the glassing from observation points. Water was scarce in these areas; the Lopes were not working the areas as expected. We would work another area of the Grasslands later in the hunt!
A run into the Horse Heaven and Donnybrook area was warranted. We found a couple of decent bucks that would be shooters for Frankie during the first day of the hunt, but light was fading. The 2nd day of the hunt, Frankie got on a pretty good buck near Horse Heaven. The wind was really blowing hard on the hill and the shot was at about 300 yards. That was one lucky Antelope at that particular moment of the hunt in the Horse Heaven area outside of Donnybrook.
Later a number of good herds of Antelope were located in the Grasslands near Hwy 97, but all the bucks were small. No mature bucks were hanging away from the herds that we spotted. A little dishearten for me as I truly wanted to see a Big Buck. The Grizzly Unit had gone through a major poaching epidemic of Antelope, Deer and Elk some years back along the Hay Creek Ranch, Ashwood & Grizzly Mountain area. The culprits (youth) were caught from what I understand (local rancher gossip) and given just punishment.
We finally took a run down into Clarno which is B.L.M., the Northeast boundary of the Grizzly Unit and were about to drop in on quads to get back into the basin about 3 miles were I knew some good bucks would be. Just as we are unloading a lone hunter comes up to the road off of the well warn trail. He told us he had not seen any Antelope and he had been in their whole day. Hmm! Here we have a long hunter that is working hard and walking in, who knows if he was getting into the area of the Lopes. I did not want to just head off down the trail and over the knobs with him there. He then told us he would be hunting back in there once he got some food, new socks and a little rest. Disturbing his hunt was not in my nature!
A very good hunt for Frankie! Grizzly Unit Lope
Finally Mike T., the ranch foreman for Earl Smith is located out in the hay fields on a tractor, see what glassing gets you. Mike says go ahead and hit it hard in the two ranch sections in the Grizzly Unit, I saw a number of bucks earlier in the morning on those sections. The hunts know starts to get pretty exciting for both of us. This hunt was for Frankie and I wanted to make sure he got his Lope. Since I do most of the glassing in the field and Frankie can spot them with the naked eye on the road, I was able to find a buck up on top of a draw along a fence-line at about 1000 yards. Since I could only see the horns of the Lope, I told Frankie he was about to do some hiking to move in on the buck. It was now very hot in the late afternoon, so this hike was a bit laboring!
We are able to close the distance to about 150 yards with little cover at this time. The buck was not a monster or even a big buck, but Frankie said he still wanted to harvest the buck and get one under his belt (youth and the wait). The buck started to move out, but Frankie now had a rest on a fence post on the side of the hill. He made the shot from his Browning BLR 270 loaded with 130gr. Nolser Ballistic Tips. The shot hit the buck in the chest cavity, a bit high in the lung at an angle, I would see later on. The buck staggers and drops, but then all of a sudden he is up and heading out full tilt through the sagebrush and not stopping until he was a more than about 1/2 mile out in the rocks and sage. I forgot to tell Frankie to shot if they move! Now the chase was on for us without actually chasing the buck. Using cover and moving quickly we were able to get within about 275 yards. To my surprise Frankie stands up without any cover or rest and shots offhand at the buck as he starts to run again. The buck drops and never moves a lick after that. I was quite happy that Frankie got a Lope on this hunt and he made the final shot that counted.
Frankie really liked the 270 BLR, now he has to shoot the 257 Weatherby in the future!
I never did see a buck that I would take on the rest of the hunt. The Grizzly Unit is not an easy hunt, as most areas of the Grizzly Unit are walk in area. Now if one can hunt some of the private lands that hold Lopes, it could be a much easier hunt. Would I hunt the Grizzly Unit again, yes I would. Though I want to go back to another haunt with Lopes that is going to take 12 points or better to draw. There is something about hunting the S.E. part of the state, that only one that has hunted it would realize what draws you to it!
The following video was taken during the archery season for Antelope.
The following Video is a pretty good Antelope – Pronghorn buck in the Grizzly Unit. I took the short video while I was bow hunting for mule deer near Clarno, Oregon.
I would love to tell you where this buck was taken, but I promised that I would not give out the exact location. For two (2) years a couple of the fellows in the circle have taken dandy Antelopes from this area in S.E. Oregon. It is a Pronghorn Archery Hunt Unit that takes about 5-7 preference points to get draw. As my biologist that I have known for more years than I can remember told me recently that Oregon has monster Lopes in every unit, “it is just a matter of having the time and patience to find them”.
I myself have hunted a number of units with the arrow and have been fortunate to harvest some big Antelope Bucks! So I know from scouting in almost all of the units that there dandy bucks everywhere.
Pictures from the 2011 Oregon Archery Antelope – Pronghorn Hunt:
A little different profile! Great buck taken by Russ!This is a dandy archery Antelope Buck taken by Russ in 2011This buck was one that got away, but not before Doug took his picture. Definitely a candidate of a buck for Boone & Crockett in 2012!
Most of my friends that have hunted with me over the years, know that I have little patience to sit and wait, though in more recent years I have found that I have grown to be more patient. Thus they know that I love to glass, find and stalk the Mulies and Lopes.
This story is about chasing Antelope in the Grizzly Hunt Unit in Oregon during Archery Antelope Season some years back. In the past one would put in for the premier rifle areas for Antelope and make the second choice for archery, knowing you would get an archery tag. I drew the Gerber Reservoir tag for many years and had a blast chasing and harvesting Lopes in the Sycan area.
Then the Grizzly Hunt Unit became a choice for Archery Antelope and the first couple of years it was easy to get the tag as a second choice. Having hunted for elk and deer in the Grizzly Unit since the early eights and seeing pretty good numbers of Antelope – Pronghorns, it was a great choice to hunt.
There were a great number of areas to hunt Lopes in the Grizzly Unit for public lands in the Grizzly Unit carried Lopes with some numbers. The National Grasslands was a great place, along with the BLM both in the Northern Sector and near Ashwood, Oregon.
Many of friends think I am off the wall with some of my mannerisms when it comes to hunting. First off I would never relieve myself in an area that I hunt and I am going to have a wide stance so none of my sense is getting on my boots or pants.
4x Globe Sight Target Style
Then there is the issue with sunglasses, I would always wear sunglasses during the day and “Photo Grays” for the evening hunts. I felt if the game, especially Antelope can’t see my eyes or movement then I could close the gap on them. I always wore a hat and a backpack with the spotting scope & tripod sticking out of the top. It is what it is with habits and wearing the same pants on every hunt! Terrible that it may be I wore blue jeans as my basic pants! It has never been about hiding from animals, only other humans.
Let’s get onto the Antelope hunt in the Grizzly Unit this time frame in my life! Realizing that story is based on a hunt in the 80’s, things have not changed other than I might hunt more waterholes now as I grow older.
My equipment in those years was P.S.E. Mach Flite 4 Bow 70# 29″ Draw, Easton Arrows, P.S.E. Brute 3 125gr. Broadhead, Stanislawski Sight (Globe), Stanislawski Overdraw Rest (Mel Built for me) and Stanislawski Superb Rest (attached to the overdraw). The length of the arrows are 25 ½’ with a speed of 340 fps!
Couple more years he would have been a dandy buck!
The weather was great and was able to find Antelope in the numbers in the area around Haystack Reservoir and Grays Butte. This was going to be a usual weekend hunt only as I could be make it their in about 1 ½ hours from my home in east Portland. On Saturday I made a number of stalks after spotting lone bucks to within 100 yards. Funny how that distance is workable with Antelope. There were not many does around to mess up my stalks. What I needed was to find Bucks that would be in areas with more cover. The area that I hunted had little water and the Lopes would range into the private for water. Saturday ended with no success, but I would make the most of the following day.
The following day I would work the area on just south of Grizzly Mountain, which was always a great area to find Antelope and Mule deer. It was a time that the road in was not gated off and one could work a lot of area. Now it is gated off, yet it is only because about 100 yards of the road touches private. If one wants to hunt it present day they will have to come around from the west and do a great deal of walking.
I found a lone buck at about 1000 yards while glassing an area that I could find Antelope at any given time. The stalk was on and I was able to move quickly, even run as there were bulldozer cuts in the land for fire lines. Settling down I was within 80 yards of the buck, which I figured to be about 14″ with decent mass making him a shooter on this weekend hunt. The wind was blowing off the mountain as it was getting late into the day. His attention was to the direction of the mountain and with the wind (heavy) I was able to move in on him to 45 yards. It was still a time that I used fingers and as I came up from the crotch position I was a full draw. I aim at this chest and released the shaft, he made no movement as the wind was making a lot of noise and his head was turned away from me. I missed the mark and hit him in the shoulder and the arrow did not pass through him, but yet looked deep enough that he would not go far.
Pretty good mass and cutters
After waiting for about 30 minutes I went to the place of impact and followed a small blood trail, he had gone about 500 yards and laid down in the trees. The area of made up of Junipers, Sagebrush and rocks.
Great way to end a weekend of hunting for Antelope and take a buck that would score around 69″!
Ray contacted me around June 30th after searching the internet for information on the Oregon Malheur Antelope Unit. What I liked about Ray, was that he was prepared for hunting, having the right equiptment. He also had a Garmin GPS with mapping and he did buy the www.huntinggpsmaps.com Maps for the hunt!
Frank, I used my Remington 700 – .270 with the Winchester Ballistic 150gr (I think, could be 130gr). We ended up camping off of Warm Springs Rd just a few miles north of the Res. (we were the only camp I saw all week). We covered a lot of ground in this area from camp towards Riverside and S.W. towards Crane before deciding to hit the hills east of Shumway south out of Juntura. As you had mentioned, most water holes were full so jumping pond to pond wasn’t giving us any results. On the hot afternoons saw a herd bedded in the timber. Jumped a nice herd of 10-12 lopes with a huge Buck in the rear but we were crossing through private land at that point. We ended up trying to stalk that herd once they ducked the fence to BLM but it only took a few minutes for them to cover a few miles. After hiking to where we thought they might have slowed down they were nowhere to be seen (It took us a few hours to get there). They were bedded down in the sage on a hillside maybe 80 yds off of the road. Saw a nice shooter again on private right along the highway one morning also.
Ray's first big game animal!
Hunting Buddy - JACK!
Ultimately I took my buck on our evening hunt last Wednesday. After a late lunch and a few cold drinks (we had been out since 5AM and had covered over 100miles on our quads and several miles on foot) we headed out of camp around 5:30PM on our quads headed North on Warm Springs Rd. Our plan was to try to glass the hills south of Hwy 20 where we had seen that nice buck off the highway that hit the hills toward camp once we pulled over to see him. We turned on to a road about 5-6 miles south of the highway (spotting scopes in hand) thought we would ride in to look for a good vantage point to sit out the sunset and hope to see him.
Green Antelope Country in August!
It wasn’t a few miles in when I creped around a blind corner and saw an antelope moving through the meadow (about 200-225 yds away) I grabbed my rifle and jumped off my quad. I put my sights on him and realized right then that this was my chance. The sun had dropped below the next ridge and things happened so fast that I quickly but softly asked my buddy who had just ran up with binos in hand “that’s my buck, right?” without hesitation he replied “YES! TAKE THE SHOT!” By this time he had us pinned and had adjusted his walk to a gallop and was broadside planning on getting up over that ridge. I squeezed the trigger and heard a whack! The adrenaline at that point I felt had never been stronger!
Ray's other hunting partner Neil! Find them Lopes!
But he didn’t drop, I hit him a bit low and he ducked around a lone tree at about 225yds . I almost began to panic wondering if I only imagined that whack since I had been dreaming about it every night since I drew the tag. Just then he popped out the other side and stopped broadside looking right at me, I squeezed off another round and he dropped in his tracks! After a few minutes of high-fives, hugs, and holy —-‘s I went up to claim my trophy! Not the biggest one out there but a solid buck with ivory tips and a broken kicker tells me he could have been a little bruiser!
Not the biggest one out there but a solid buck with ivory tips and a broken kicker tells me he could have been a little bruiser! I can’t wait until Christmas time when I get him back and have years to tell the story of my lifetime. Incredible hunt, and an incredible animal…
Antelope Country of Malheur Hunt Unit
We saw a large herd of Big Horn Sheep and more coyotes then I have ever seen in one place. Lot of deer too, and one really nice buck (wish I would have gotten a picture of).
I had gotten an email from Scott asking about Archery Antelope hunting in the Owyhee Unit for 2009, he had been successful in drawing the tag. I asked him what he had done already to prep for the hunt.
Scott is a great success story; he had already talked with the local biologist for the area and had mapped out the area. He also did a scouting trip for two (2) days just after the rifle season.
Scott also would dedicated if he had too the whole season which is 9 days to get his buck. He gave the spot he was going to work and I told him a previous trip that that area looked really good and to trust the biologist.
Here is the short version that I have on the hunt from Scott. Hopefully I will get a little more detail about the hunt.
“Frank, I killed a nice goat 14 1/4 and 14 3/4 just short of 70 inches. I sat at a water pond for 10 hours and made a 30 yard shot.”
I do believe that this was the first Big Game Hunt for Brian Henninger with his son aboard in Oregon. What a hunt for Hunter Henninger to go on, but an Antelope hunt with his dad. He would have the chance to see game and of course watch his dad harvest a nice Pronghorn – Antelope buck.
As with the two Frank’s in another story, I loaded up a Garmin E-Map GPS for Brian with what I thought were the best waypoints for him to hunt the Silvies Unit. Brian had waited some 12 years with his collective gathering of preference points to materialize into a Antelope hunt. This was Brian’s first Antelope hunt in Oregon.
Once hooked on Antelope hunting one wants to hunt them forever. Only problem it does take a long time to get a tag in Oregon. You have a great chance in Oregon to take a Boone & Crockett Pronghorn. You just have to wait it out and not get anxious!
I do remember Brian’s comment to me after he harvest his dandy buck and got it pack-out to the truck. “Frank after I left and went down the road about a 1/4 mile, I saw the biggest buck ever standing by a fence line.” This is the typical case when it comes to Antelope hunting, especially in Oregon. It has happen to me a number of times while archery hunting for Pronghorns.
Hunter assisted his dad with the GPS and was an expert in a very short while, giving directions to dad in the field. I also understand that Hunter Henninger could spot the Antelope better than dad in the field. Kids are always quick when it comes to spotting animals once they have been trained to spot for something out of the ordinary.
Brian Henninger with his 07 Silvies Antelope & 300 Weatherby
