Chasing speed goats on Montana’s prarie
Been hunting antelope for 20 years and most of those times it’s with the same crew, my father, Fred; a friend from the commercial fishing industry, John van Amerongen; my uncle, Bill Thomas; and another friend, Dave Zimmerman.
This year we were missing Bill because he stayed in Seattle to look after a young family member in the hospital. Not good.
And another thing that wasn’t good—there weren’t many antelope. In places were we saw lots of antelope in the past we found the ground barren. After the initial day we thought that the tags might go unfilled. But John put the smackdown on a doe late that first day. And then on Saturday Fred and I walked a five-mile circle and finally edged within range of a nice buck, one of the few bucks we saw during the trip. A first shot was errant and the buck and about seven does ran straight at us. For a moment I thought they might run right over the top of us but, 50 yards away, they veered right and that ended the game. The buck stood, a shot fired, and he dropped into the sage.
After the animal was dressed, I wrapped it in a tarp and dragged it about a mile or so to the truck. Hard work, but it was rewarding because I treasure the time I get to hunt with Fred. So here are a few pics from the hunt, including a shot of van Am’s tent in a major windstorm. If we hadn’t worked on that tent and got it upright van Am would have slept with the top of his tent bouncing off his nose. Good laughs and a great weekend. Now back to fishing!