Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game More recently deceased speed goats

Our antelope hunting this season came with more twists and surprise developments than a John Grisham novel. It�s going to take me a bit to sort �em out, so I�m experimenting on you guys. I�ll try to keep it short. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

My quest for a trophy Montana antelope has been ongoing for a few years now. I�ve shot dozens of speed goats, but for reasons that have never been satisfactorily explained; never a really big one. Montana only produces a couple of B&C antelope a year, so I�m in good company, but anyway�. A couple weeks back, I scored an incredible diplomatic coup, and was granted exclusive access for my son and I to a huge ranch (150+ sections). Now I�m not saying exactly where, as the owners requested I not tell anybody. How did I accomplish this little feat, you ask? Heh, heh�. Be serious! Let�s just say it involved common sense and good manners, plus some fortuitous references. Best, no cash was involved, although I think I�m going to send the owners a nice gift certificate or something. I will tell you what doesn�t work, though�.
These folks own a number of ranches, and allow public hunting on several, although a couple are outfitted. You don�t go pounding on their door at dinnertime the day before the season and expect to get anywhere, though. A couple of years ago, they were entertaining opening this place up for hunting. The story I got from the ranch manager; they were moving cows, and the owner�s daughter was circling around a vehicle-impassible section with a truck and horse trailer. Now she�s a hand, but got distracted or something and dropped the trailer wheels off the side of a cattle guard, & was stuck tight. She unhitched & went looking for help, and the first people she came on were two pickup-loads of hunters. Incredibly, they refused her request, saying they were too busy hunting to trifle with such matters, & she was SOL as far as they were concerned. A mind-boggling breach of etiquette, eh? Especially considering she�s reportedly good-looking, single, and very wealthy. Anyway, that ended public hunting before it started on that place, & the manager was amazed I�d gotten permission.
So, we were in fat city! And it was an incredible experience. There�s places where you can get up on what passes for a high point in that country, and the hills faintly visible on the far horizon are still on the same ranch, and not even at the other end of it! And antelope� it�s polluted with �em. But�.
It was the toughest antelope hunting I�ve ever done. Those goats were SO wild and spooky, it was uncanny. I mean, you�d come over a rise, and just barely be able to see these white specks a mile or two out, and they�d instantly be at a full run. Now there�s only a couple of people who are on that ranch consistently, and I don�t want to make any sort of hasty conclusions, but it seems pretty obvious to me that those antelope get shot at year-round. In fact, they probably get shot at less during hunting season than other times of the year! Although we certainly did our part to keep Barnes in business�
So we spent a lot of time crawling through the sagebrush, & are pretty much perforated with cactus spines. Out of hundreds, many hundreds of speed goats, I saw three that I wanted, and they were 15-16�, but real heavy & long prongs. One was unapproachable. I tried twice, & never got closer than about 600 yards. We put one of the others to bed, but by dawn the next day he�d apparently decamped for parts unknown. The third; I put an epic stalk on, only to miss at about 400 yards, with no way to get closer. A heartbreaker, that was�. It got to be kind of nerve-wracking, as we were passing on lots of bucks that we�d have ordinarily blasted in a heartbeat other places we�ve hunted, and bigger ones than we wound up shooting. But as time ran out, our standards came down and our ammo consumption surged! Embarassingly so�. But as I keep mentioning, the damn things were awful difficult to get up on, & not given to standing still. Besides, if you�ve never missed an antelope, you haven�t shot at many of �em!
So here�s a couple photos.

If you put another inch or two and some mass on mine, he�d be a trophy, but I guess the same can be said of me. I know I worked harder for him than any others I can recall, & maybe next year�.
The other is my kid backpacking his up to the truck.

It was only about a quarter mile, but up a pretty good bluff. If it�d been much further we�d have boned it, and as it was he complained mightily, but got �er done. I kept telling him if his hair wasn�t in his eyes he�d be able to negotiate the greasewood easier. His grandma told me to pick my battles, and the hair length wasn�t worth it. He says the girls like it, although he did mention getting a haircut one of these days, so�.

Way to go, Rimrock- tho you never did explain just how you got permission.... "good looking" you say....

Truely, I can't imagine not helping out someone in that situation, even if it's a 50 year old, weather-beaten curmudgeon!

It's guys like that that give azzholes a bad name!

The son of a friend got permission to hunt an otherwise "impermissable" farm/ranch in No Dak. a few years ago. He saw cattle coming up on the Interstate, stopped, and was herding them back in, or at leat keeping them out of traffic when the owners showed up. He then helped them fix the fence. In conversation he mentioned that he was just passing by on the way to go hunting, and viola! they offered to let him hunt whitetail on the property. No one in over 15 years had hunted it. He scored a couple nice ones with his bow over the next couple years on what for him was a private hunting preserve.

A couple years later he commented (I don't know how facitious he was being) "Of course, if you let the wires down....."

My experience with Eastern Montana ranchers in the late 70's was not good. Tho I contacted a dozen or more in April- June, and offered to help them with haying, or whatever over the summer, (which I enjoy) in return for the opportunity to possibly hunt their property later in the fall, all I recieved was surliness. Guess they had it covered, but still, they are the most unrelentingly unfriendly property owners I have ever met. Had much better luck in Colorado and North Dakota.

Rimrock -

Great story, thanks! No antelope license for me this year, but hope to get one again next year. 150 sections - nice job!

Very cool story. Congrats on the lopes and getting permission. I know only too well how tough that permission is to come by on the best places.

Way to go Rimrock and Chip-off-the-ol'-Rock! Sounds like an awesome hunt even if it didn't turn out QUITE the way you had wished.

Got any more photos to share?

Thanks, and I'll post a couple more photos later. Need to be out the door momentarily for a meeting....
las; Soldotna, eh? Do you know any Biastoch's? Back in my game processing days, I had a two kids from Soldotna work for a couple seasons. Kevin Biastoch, whose dad ran a meat plant in Soldotna, although I think he moved back home to fabulous Butte, MT since. Cameron Oleson was the other, who likewise more or less grew up in the Biastoch meat plant and whiskey sampling emporium. They were both top hands, and as good of help as I ever had. Fun to be around, too.... I just heard from Cam a month or so ago. He's now working for General Dynamics, making weapons of mass destruction.

Good tale (except that part about going thru ammo!)
Better luck on the other 146 sections next year.

Great story, thanks. Regarding the hair, here's my .02. I negotiated long ago that I would not complain about hair length or various piercings if my kids would agree to let tattoos wait until after 18. Since it ws too early for them to care, they readily agreed. My thoughts were that piercings grow over, but tattoos last forever ...

So far no piercings or tattoos, 'cept for the girl's ears (pierced).
Dunno if I did good or lucky. Hair's not worth the heartburn.

But I'd sure like to put my kids on a goat like you did! So far I've got one 4 x 4 buck courtesy my oldest son. One daughter and one son left. Hopefully we'll make Alaska someday.

Yeah, the hair thing is relatively minor in the whole scheme of things. No tats or piercings for either my daughter or son, so I guess I'll let the hair ride. Besides, he's getting sick of it.