Photo by Stan Warren

The pronghorn buck in the alfalfa field stood patiently, eyeing the fence crossing. I was perched on the other side of the fence from the buck, high on a swiveling boat seat 14 feet in the air with my bow at the ready.

"Shoot him before he crosses the fence," my buddy Larry Buchholz had advised me before my first bowhunt for pronghorn antelope. "Once he crosses the fence, he'll be moving at a steady gait."

I had listened intently to all of his counsel. After all, he'd managed more often than not to slap his archery tag on a beautiful Kansas pronghorn from the elevated poles of his own design that he stationed at fence crossings on feed fields. "They don't look up," he assured me.

That sounded like good advice coming from a man with a 75 percent archery success rate for his clients -- amazingly high compared to the state's overall 12 percent.

I stood out like a sore thumb, since I was exactly 14 feet higher than anything within 50 miles of me -- but the goat never looked up. Unfortunately, he was approaching at a hard quartering angle and never offered me a good shot.

Surely I can stop him with a grunt or whistle after he crosses the fence, I reasoned to myself. I'd done that dozens of times with whitetails.

The majestic pronghorn buck dipped under the bottom strand of barbed wire and started trotting as predicted. At full draw I let out a quick whistle -- and the buck acted like he'd been shot from a cannon. He left me staring down my 20-yard pin at nothing but sagebrush and dirt.

"You can't whistle at them," I told Larry after the hunt.

"I told you so," he laughed.

Although I did manage to tag my first pronghorn later in that same hunt, there are many more stories just like my initial experience. Each year thousands of archery hunters try matching wits with the fastest land mammal in North America and come up empty. Fortunately, it all comes together occasionally, making victory all the sweeter.

Pronghorn populations in the Great Plains states of Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota provide plenty of opportunities for hunters carrying archery, muzzleloader or centerfire firearms permits to try bagging them. Here's a brief look at the pronghorn situation in those states.

NORTH DAKOTA
"We're on the edge of pronghorn range," said Bill Jensen, big-game biologist with the North Dakota Game and Fish Department. "In comparison to past years, we're at good numbers right now."

The highest concentrations of pronghorns are found in the southwest corner of the state, with a total population in excess of 10,000, according to Jensen. "And the numbers decline as you go north and east," he said.

Pronghorn populations fared well this year; winter mortality was low. "We've had an extremely mild year," Jensen noted.

The pronghorn permit system in North Dakota has a lottery system for firearms hunters, and over-the-counter sales for archers. If a resident is successful in the firearm

Lottery drawing, he can acquire an archery permit, too. Archery permits are any-pronghorn permits, while the firearm permits are either any-pronghorn (buck or doe) or specifically doe-fawn. Pronghorn permits are $20.

"Archery permits issued range from 1,000 to 1,800," Jensen said. "The gun hunters are issued about 3,000 licenses, and I think this year we'll have more."

Unfortunately for out-of-staters, non-residents aren't allowed to hunt pronghorns in North Dakota.

The hunter success rate in North Dakota runs about 85 percent for firearms hunters, while archery hunters are successful in filling about 20 percent of their permits.

The season dates for archery pronghorn hunting coincide with the archery deer season, running from the first part of September through the first week in January. The firearms season starts at the end of September and runs for about a month.

Most pronghorn hunting takes place on private land, but one area may hold promise for hunters looking for public land to fill a permit. Jensen points to the Little Missouri National Grasslands as offering 1.1 million acres in western North Dakota.

SOUTH DAKOTA
Pronghorns are found in the western half of South Dakota, and officials estimate more than 40,000 pronghorns reside in the state.