Meet In The Freezer

Finally a hint of success! My goat hunt couldn’t have gone better! I’ve been shooting all summer on the prairie at thousands of prairie dogs, and this time everything falls into place.

 I get out to the place I’m going to hunt and just as daylight brakes I see this guy driving down the road towards me. I was told that I had the west half of the ranch to myself. This guy was all lost and he came from a town about 20 miles away through fences and gates to find that he thought he was traveling west not east. So I directed him back to the highway and he found his way just fine now that it was light. I wasn’t mad that he had spooked all the goats from the last 20 miles to my ranch. That was actually pretty dang sweet!

So with 45 goats in a pasture that only holds about half that on a good day, I was pretty excited. I drove on further west into a deep drainage and parked. The plan was to walk down the drainage and take a look around. Now remember the rut is still in full swing and with this meany goats in one pasture there’s going to be some fights! There’s bucks chasing all over the pasture and does watching, I could’ve been wearing a clown suit and they wouldn’t have paid any attention to me, I had my pick of any buck I could see, it was out of this world!

I finally find the buck I want and he’s beaded all by himself, so I pop up to the top of the ridge and steady up on my bipod. I decided just to chill and wait for him to get up and stretch. Finally he stands up and he’s facing away from me and just slightly to the left. I’m steady, I got the wind figured, and I’m squeezing and nothing. Ya I had my safety on, amused by my silliness I settle down and shoot for his far shoulder and let drive. Through the recoil I saw him take the hit and stumble. He runs off to 200 yards and stops facing away.  I see 6 other goats pop up and run toward him and he turns broad side so I center punched his right shoulder and hamburger the off shoulder. He falls like a bowling pin and when the others reach him they stand around him like they didn’t know where they were going to go. So I figure I got a buck and a doe tag my buck is down right there why not a doe? The lead doe is usually the biggest and most mature, they also start to separate themselves from the heard first. This makes the lead doe not only the prime target but she also gives you a clear shooting lane by separating herself. I stand up and swing on the lead doe and she’s half way between a full run and a trot so I swung out in front of her and shot her in what I call the bread basket. The bread basket is hi on the shoulder; this shocks the spinal cord thusly dropping them like a bad habit wile also sending massive injury to the lungs and shatters the shoulders. The cool thing is at her current speed instead of simply dropping she rolls ace over teakettle! When I got down there I found that both of them were on a road going through a cut.

Hunts that go perfectly like this don’t happen, so when you get a victory, even if it didn’t go just how you planed, cherish the moment because you never know when your last hunt will be. I had a killer riffle antelope season and I hope you did also. But if you still have tags to fill there’s still time so go get’r done this weekend. This next weekend I’m taking my best friend out for his first deer hunt.

Good luck and good hunting.