Mark Twain once quipped that the only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.

If you feel the cruel pinch of want right now, and bridle at bail-out expenditures that boost taxes as they reward the profligate, well, I can't help you. But I'll pass along what my psychiatrist shared the other day as I lay, shaking uncontrollably, on his couch.

"First, you must visit this office often," he purred. "Frequent sessions relieve tax pain."

"By relieving me of taxable income?" I might have been distraught, but I was not out of my mind.

Doc let it pass. "Secondly, you must take a vacation. Go somewhere you wouldn't ordinarily go. Take a rifle. Shoot something."

My ears perked up. "But these days I can't afford hunts in far-away places."

"Ever try pronghorns?"

As a matter of fact, I had. Good fun. High success rates. No outfitter fees. But that was long ago.

Tags for public units had since become much harder to get, and outfitting leases had pretty much locked up private ranches once accessible to anyone willing to knock on a door. And I said so.

"Actually, pronghorn hunting is as good as ever--better in some places. Wyoming may still have as many antelope as people. It issues additional antlerless tags. A few units even permit you two bucks. Get drawn for a public area, and your only other expense is fuel and groceries. While you can book an outfitted hunt on private land, a lot of ranches are still open to unguided hunting for a modest fee. You just show up and pay the rancher. Last time I went, I knocked on a ranch door north of Gillette and paid $50 for a day's access to 10,000 acres of prime antelope country. Saw lots of bucks, no hunters."

My shakes subsided. Doc shuffled from the room. He returned a few minutes later with a stack of big-game pamphlets from western states….

Like many hunters, I've scaled back my travel to assist GM. Still, I'll be hunting pronghorns three times in 2009, if all the stars align. Nowhere in the field can you get more fun for your dollar. Forget about horses and airplanes, and licenses that cost more than your first automobile. While ranch access fees have crept upward, landowners on the best pronghorn range generally welcome hunters. "No sense letting those goats over-populate," one told me last fall. While antelope can stomach sagebrush and other plants of little value to cattle, they can also nibble alfalfa to the ground. And many family ranches are run by people who understand the spending limits of blue-collar sportsmen. "We'd rather get a little money from hunters than subsidize antelope." Besides, he said, tags fill quickly. "Goat hunters don't move in to stay for two weeks."

Quick success appeals to people with limited time to spend in the field. It also makes sense to the biologists who manage New Mexico's antelope. Pronghorn season in that state's most popular areas is just two days long! Sure, the pressure is relatively heavy. But the battalions of riflemen behind those pre-dawn columns of headlights are soon absorbed by the vastness that is pronghorn habitat. I've hunted New Mexico pronghorns several times, and never felt it a competitive venture. The beauty of a two-day hunt is that most hunters feel pressured to shoot early. If you wait, you'll have the field to yourself on Sunday. And antelope that survive the weekend are safe to grow bigger horns next year. On a recent hunt in New Mexico, Savage CEO Ron Coburn upstaged my 100-yard kill on a mature pronghorn by dropping a Boone & Crockett-class buck just four hours later! No matter how open the country, these animals can find a place to hide. A short season takes the pressure off before hunters can look in all the ravines or cedar patches.

Montana, in the northern sweep of pronghorn range, has one of the longest antelope seasons. Pick an early weekend, and you'll likely see locals finishing their hunts early so they can commit time to elk and mule deer. Later, until deer sift onto winter quarters, you'll have the sage to yourself.

Successful pronghorn hunting starts in spring, when you get big game tag application forms. Study the maps and quotas. Results from previous draws will show you the most popular areas, and those that are tough to pull. Read between the lines! A plethora of pronghorn permits for a unit under-subscribed last year is not El Dorado. It's likely an area with lots of private land. Expect outfitters to hold leases. Northeastern Wyoming has several such units. They may still be top bets for do-it-yourself hunting--provided you're up to the homework to secure access. Do not wait until the day before the opener to ask. Where ranch property is productive, permission becomes darned near impossible to get opening morning.

Getting to the prairie is easy. You can join the migration of pickup campers and motor homes; but if you must drive far, a compact car and motel rooms may cost less. Book rooms early, especially in small towns! Bring jugs for water while you're in the field, and big ice chests to haul meat home.

Even in autumn, the plains get cold. Expect hard frost on sage flats that reach 80 degrees at noon. Rogue storms can bring snow in any month. While a log chain blown horizontal does indeed indicate strong wind in Wyoming, you'll get chilled in zephyrs that barely tug the chain off its post. Pack clothes for a range of conditions, including cactus-resistant shoes.

Prepare for the unexpected. Even where you can see for miles, and the earth seems to rotate in low gear, surprises abound. Crawling up on a rattlesnake qualifies. So does a locked gate halfway between the ranch-house and your hunting unit. You might not encounter the landowner who chased me down in a '66 Scout as I was sneaking on a very fine pronghorn. The eye of a dust-storm roaring in from the north, the old International alerted the antelope, just now in range of my rifle.

I stood, dumbstruck, as the rancher jammed on the brakes, dust billowing, engine still racing. "Git in! We'll git 'im!" The antelope trotted off, then hit second gear. I reminded the rancher that I'd paid to hunt alone, on foot, and that I did not have to shoot that antelope and would not shoot an antelope from a vehicle. He seemed not to hear. "Git in! We can still catch 'im." I unloaded the rifle, half afraid he'd snatch it and blast off after the poor animal himself.

Go where other hunters don't. Mature pronghorn bucks learn where the traffic is heavy. Roads put bullets in the air. One opening morning I joined a group of hunters on a Wyoming sage flat. These fellows were well armed and eager. My rifle stayed in its case. Many shots later, the prairie was littered with dead antelope, mostly young bucks. After photos and field-dressing, the hunters headed for the meat locker and an early lunch. I asked them to leave me alone until late afternoon. Climbing up into the rims, I found what I'd been looking for: an isolated herd of does and an outstanding buck. I made the long shot with my .280. While not every solo hunt into unexplored pockets yields a 16-inch antelope, the walk offers a confirmation that you have hunted. Opportunistic shooting isn't the same.

Stay low, and unless the law requires an orange hat, wear a camo cap. Crawl or get down on your belly to approach. Don't assume that because you are far away a pronghorn buck will ignore you. Upright human forms alarm them--more so than do pickups, because ranchers and oil-field workers drive the flats every day without shooting at antelope. Have patience. Once, after squirming slowly through the sage like a snake, I all but despaired of a shot with my iron-sighted carbine. Bereft of even short vegetative cover and on the cusp of a slope that would have exposed me fully, I lay prone for 20 minutes. The undisturbed buck turned, then swung my way with his harem of four. I estimated a rock at 100 yards, squirmed into position and loosed a 150-grain Core-Lokt as the buck paused near it. The heart-shot animal sprinted, then nosed in.

If you're using a scoped rifle, remember that brightly hued animals on flat ground typically appear closer than they are. That's why many pronghorns are missed low and stagger off with broken legs. Carry a rangefinder to hone your eye and to check estimates. Don't stretch your rifle's reach. Shoot carefully.

Contrary to rumor, pronghorns are good table fare. When I was doing range research as a graduate student in Oregon decades ago, a rancher's wife browned antelope medallions in a skillet with fresh eggs and peppers. Breakfasts that good may now be illegal, as I've not had one since. The key to tasty pronghorn is prompt and careful field-dressing. Early seasons can bring warm weather that quickly sours meat. Get the carcass to a locker or skinned and in your cooler pronto! Avoid contact with sage. Rinsing with cold water won't hurt soiled meat.

While hunting locally is much better than watching reality television, why not extend your season with a trip to antelope country? The pronghorn is a striking animal, exotic as the smell of sage after a storm and the distant cries of coyotes. But the price tag for all this is modest. And unless you insist on bucking the odds in heavily contested draws, a license is as certain as taxes.