Mt Dutton Paunsaugunt Pronghorn

Hey gents, after 10 years of trying, my buddy and I pulled two of the three non-res Mt Dutton/Paunsaugunt goat tags. We were planning on coming up Thursday before the opener to scout, but my buddy wants to stick around home to watch his son's football game Friday night (totally understandable), so we'll be driving up from PHX through the night to get there for the Sat opener.

I've spent a bunch of time talking with the local biologist and doing other research so I feel pretty confident in the areas I have picked out and that we'll find some goats, but my question to folks familiar with the area is what should we be holding out for? We have 3.5 days to hunt and since we've waited so long to draw I'd hate to pull the trigger on something marginal on the first day, but to be honest, I don't really know how big a good goat is in this unit (we specifically put in for this unit because its the closest to our AZ homes and I've heard good things about it). Anyway, love to hear some opinions. We've both killed a few goats in WY over the years so we know what to look for scoring wise and to be honest, we're not going to be too picky, but I also want to do the tag justice. Feel free to PM me if you don't want to put anything out for public consumption. Thanks a bunch.

-Luke

As far as size goes, I think a mid 70" buck is doable. I have had the tag and have helped on two other tags over the years. There's plenty of antelope to chase but I have not seen any bucks that would make the 80" mark. It's a fun tag and gorgeous country. Good luck!!

Sent you a PM Hoof

I shot my best buck with my bow a couple miles Northwest of Rubys Inn, off of Toms best spring road. I also filled a doe tag with my triplet boys when they were five in the same area and one other doe years before that. My wife shot a decent buck with my 50bmg not far behind the Pines motel and cafe. Daves hollow, blue fly, tropic reservoir and west of there hold some decent pronghorn but I've had my best luck north of Highway 12.

PM sent

Thanks for the replies, gentlemen. I appreciate it greatly. Hands down there are no better, more helpful people out there than Utah hunters.

I'll let you know how we do (unless we get too trigger happy and shoot something small, wink wink).

BTW, I would like to know how that doe took a round from a 50 BMG. I always imagined that a 750 grain solid would probably just zip through it as long as you avoided the larger bones, but that had to be something else. Would love to try it someday.

They just zip through pronghorn and bison. I have some barnes tsx 50s I may try. The pronghorn was shot with an Amax. One of the bison (ranch animals for meat) we shot in the head with a tracer. Watching the video in slow motion it looks like something out of Star Wars, a laser beam going in one side and out the other. The thing about a .50 is that even if it doesn't expand it's a huge hole.

Let us know how the hunt goes I have 11 points for pronghorn I'm feeling like using them soon

First off, thanks to everyone who offered advice and suggestions. It was invaluable. Like I said, Utah hunters are the best.

We had a fun, but short hunt. My buddy had first dibs and killed a cool buck right before sunset on opening day that ended up being 16 1/8" on his left side. He was poor on everything else (hooks, prongs, mass, width) and had about an inch and a half broken off on his right, but the length had the "wow" factor so he went in the cooler. This was up in the Mud Springs area.

I passed up a few smaller bucks, got southed by a couple others and got itchy by Sunday afternoon, which I normally do. I ended up double-misjudging a buck on Johnson Bench south of 12 and pulled the trigger when he wouldn't run away despite my best efforts. I say I double-misjudged him because he seemed to get smaller and smaller as I walked up to him, but when I finally put a tape on him at home last night he was far better than I was expecting. He's not great on anything, but good on everything.

Both goats are mid-70s bucks, but I wish I'd held out longer. I'm sure there had to be a bigger one around, but we covered every chunk of land we knew of in the unit and these were the two biggest bucks we found. Stinkin' impatience! Oh well, I'm 43 now so maybe I'll beat the odds and draw a Utah goat tag again before my 60th birthday. Until then, I'm going to try and come back as often as I can draw one of the doe tags. Its a gorgeous area and I'd love to bring my son up next year when he turns 12.

BTW, shots were 146 and 175 yards thanks to some careful stalking and use of what cover was available. Who says you need to shoot 'em at 400+?

All my best from AZ and thanks again to all.

-Luke

The one buck I did take on the Paunsaugunt was with my bow at 18 yards. I was walking back to my truck after sitting in my blind. I was on the edge of a little draw that intersected another draw like a four way intersection. Luckily I was hugging the edge and had a couple trees close by to break up my silhouette. A big buck came trotting from around the corner and stopped, looking at me long enough to put an arrow through him. He did a death run and piled up about 30 yards behind my blind which I'd been sitting in for several days without any luck.

It's funny how a hunt can be going slow and then bam all of a sudden it all comes together with a little luck. Spending time in that ground blind was when I wrote my first book "Little Jake and the Three Bears". ;-)

Congrats, goat hunts are fun. My wife got her's opening morning in a different unit- nice 14 incher. Not many big ones but a few still out there.

Congrats on your hunt. Always seems to be some around Mud Springs. Haven?t hunted down there for about 10 years now but when I read your post I thought yes that was a good area. Congrats again on a fun hunt.