10/5/98

I just got back into town, about an hour ago, from my New Mexico Goat hunt.

We relocated the buck I wanted to hunt on Thursday afternoon. There was just something I liked about this buck. He definitely wasn't the longest horned goat that I saw but he had tons of hook, real big paddles, and was absolutely MASSIVE. The last time I had gone scouting was over a month before the hunt, so I was quite pleased to find him after only a few hours. He was with a single doe and, from what it looked like, in a very easy to approach area. I woke up on Friday and went back to the hill that overlooks the whole ranch and picked him up right at daylight and noticed he had won a couple of more does. I watched him, off and on, while trying to decide if any nicer goats moved onto the ranch that I had permission to hunt. After glassing all day again, I reaffirmed my decision that he was the goat that would get my attention the next morning.

Opening morning, I stalked him to about 500 yards but his does kept him moving and by the time I had closed the gap again, they'd move him some more. I should have known that it would be as easy as it seemed on Thursday. I kept with them all day and never saw them go to water. They had to be watering at night. Darn full moon. Anyhow, his 5-9 does had given me fits for a day and a half because they just kept running him but I finally got between him and his does when he went to chase off another smaller buck. No sunflowers on my stalk [Ed. note: see C.H.'s Colorado Sunflower Lope] but I did have about a 200 yard crawl through some cats to get to the corner of the pasture where I wanted to be. My hands, still punctured and sore, were bloody by the time that I settled on the ant mound to get above some of the vegetation for a better shot (the pastures were very undergrazed).

I range found the buck at 413 yards which was longer than I wanted to shoot and there was no way he was going to leave his does. He had to come through me to get to them. He ended up going by me a little wider than I thought he would since he was using the closer draw all morning. I tried to rangefind him to see what he was at now and wouldn't you know it, my rangefinder couldn't get a reading because of the angle of the sun. I figured that he was no more than 225 yards. I slowly got in behind my Encore and cocked the hammer. I got him in the scope and he was positioned very slightly quartering, facing my left. I squeezed the trigger and lost the scope picture but heard the bullet impact. The does went crazy behind me, but as I reloaded my pistol, I knew the buck was down. I picked up my glasses and picked him up dead on his side. As I walked up to him, I started to smile because he was my number one goat for over a month. I thought about him, I dreamed about him, I watched him, I stalked him and I was successful with the opportunity when it arose.

After I gutted him, while waiting for my buddy to bring the truck over from the glassing hill, I range found that antmound. It was 194 yards. I was caping him at my friend's cabin when the game warden pulled up the driveway. He heard that we had shot some nice goats and wanted to green score them. He picked up the smallest of the 4 goats and it scored, after deductions, 77 3/8" B&C and had 15 4/8" horn lengths. He then picked up another goat and measured it, and it went 84 7/8" and had 17" & 16 7/8" horns. He then picked up my goat and measured it. I figured that his horns were around 15.5" and was surprised when I found out that they only measured 14 4/8". Oh well, I thought to myself, I still would have made him my number one buck because I liked the looks of him. I went to grab a beer from the fridge and then went back onto the porch. The warden saw me come back out and had a smile on his face and told me that this was the heaviest most massive goat that he had ever scored and that the net score was 84 5/8" B&C. The last goat, which was shot on the neighboring ranch, had the same length horns but not quite the mass. He ended up at 82 2/8" and was the first goat that he had ever shot!

As I sit here in my office, I remember the good goats but most of all the good time...

OH BTW, I used the 6mm 95gr ballistic tip for the first time on this goat. Destructive li'l bastard! It destroyed a whole shoulder and blew about a 6" diameter exit hole. A couple of more inches to the left and it probably would have destroyed the cape. Carl watched the whole shot through the spotting scope from the glassing hill (~1.5 miles away) and said that he could see the hair, chunks and blood spray out of the chest. My recommendation is that while they are effective killers, they are way too explosive.

After spouting off about big NM goats, I knew I'd better shoot one.

Spyro