The Outdoor Spectator: Prairie Goats
Croke, Bill
THE O`U,TDO°R SP CTATO by Bill Croke Prairie Goats Where the antelope play—and men try to shoot them. We found the Antelope extreemly shye and watchfull insomuch that we had been unable to get a...
...I am a man of some talent, but I'm no Natty Bumppo...
...At the ridge line I try to see the herd, but dare not raise my head for fear of spooking them...
...At the head of the draw I look down onto a cloud-shadowed wide bench, empty in the wind...
...Somewhere," says Joe...
...That's where they are...
...He passes the binoculars to me and points...
...With the silenc58 September 1999 • The American Spectator ing of the Blazer's engine, the air takes on a sizzling Indian-summer sound punctuated by a buffeting breeze...
...Gleason sips a Coke and scans the range with his binoculars as we creep along...
...Not that it isn't hard...
...A short life span (five to seven years) is lived in the West's most dry, desolate, and windswept country...
...The herd's absence puzzles me...
...A fluorescent orange sun, the color of our regulation caps, paints the newly snowed Absarokas west of town with alpenglow...
...Thirty miles later we cross the bridge over the riffle-shiny Greybull River, its attendant cottonwoods a sun-shot gold...
...another old friend, the ruddy faced and prematurely white-haired Doug Gleason—in from Reno for a few days of antelope hunting...
...Then Doug slowly rises up out of the sage and shoulders the .243...
...Turning off the highway, then vibrating over a cattle guard and onto a rutted Bureau of Land Management road, we rise out of the Greybull river bottom and onto a vast tableland of lunar-like buff rock outcroppings, peppered with sagebrush out to the horizon...
...The wind is right, and it carries the sound of hooves hitting the ground like the first hard drops of a thunderstorm...
...For the next couple of hours it's cat and mouse with the herd...
...And then they're gone...
...He crazily plows the ground, and ends up on his side kicking wildly...
...Big birds...
...Gleason will shoot first because that is all the herd will allow before they're again streaking out of sight...
...As soon as one sees you, that's what you'll hear...
...The road gets rougher and Joe shifts into four-wheel drive...
...Visors come down and sunglasses go on...
...The BLM topographic map spread out in my lap shows Wild Horse Heaven, Dutch Nick Flat, and the Buck Buttes, but there are no signs for these places: metaphorical landmarks in a land of Nothing...
...Nowadays it is rarely mined, and remains in vast quantities not far beneath the surface of the Big Horn Basin, where it proves very helpful in getting vehicles stuck...
...We silently grab our rifles and leave the truck's doors open, then start hiking up the steep windblown ridge of a hundred yards...
...Joe and Doug plot strategy...
...The ground between us and them is wide open, so our only chance is to try to drive up as close as we can and see if we can get a shot off...
...We found the Antelope extreemly shye and watchfull insomuch that we had been unable to get a shot at them...
...Out of the corner of my eye I see a buck antelope struggle to escape using only his hind legs...
...In a bad year the winter kill rate is high, though pronghorns can subsist exclusively on protein-rich sagebrush, if there is a dearth of grass...
...We soon flush a covey of fat sage grouse near the road's edge...
...It crosses a dilapidated wooden bridge over Fifteenmile Creek, which at this season is nothing more than a series of cow hoof-pocked puddles fringed with grass, the only green in sight...
...They breed in the fall, then gather in herds to winter in any large draw or valley that offers a windbreak...
...They ascend a long draw, and we know that the road loops around to the other side of the ridge...
...This, despite the 40,000 bucks and does that hunters harvest ever year...
...I think we got 'em," said Joe...
...I thought that's what I was seeing...
...Over short distances it can run 6o miles per hour, and can keep up a steady pace of 30-40 over several miles...
...At least they're goin' somewhere where we can follow 'em," Doug says...
...The Blazer's back window and sides are an oozing, coagulating mess...
...Joe puts the truck in four-wheel drive once more, turns off the road and starts crashing in fits and starts through the sagebrush, which bumps and jostles us and scratches the sides of the Blazer...
...The immense landscape lulls us into a state of non-seeing, until Joe hits the brakes and again takes up the binoculars...
...He definitely has the eye...
...Chuff...
...Joe continues: "When you hear the alarm...
...But if they're movin' fast just forget it...
...Here, Joe shoots a bolt action .270 Winchester, and Doug a .243 Remington—both with 6X scopes...
...A cloud shadow floods the prairie like water slowly spreading over pavement...
...That draw they went up funnels into a basin that's on the other side of this ridge...
...The state is 8o percent sagebrush, and according to Wyoming Game and Fish, is home to 550,000 antelope as compared to 480,000 people...
...Worland's over there...
...Turning, we bump and grind our way back to the road...
...Even a month-old fawn can outrun a hungry adult coyote...
...There's nothing and everything out there," he says...
...We spread out and do not speak...
...As morning wears on, it will prove a stunning bluebird fall day...
...We head out of town in Joe's bentonite-barnacled old blue Chevy Blazer...
...Right," says Gleason, who is heading back to Reno tomorrow...
...Doug and Joe run toward the kill...
...We now crawl on our bellies, dragging our rifles through the grit and between clumps of fragrant, silvery sage...
...I hear a pistol report Joe's merciful coup-de-grace...
...The American Spectator • September 1999 59...
...To hunt one successfully you must use the cover oflandscape to deceive those remarkable eyes...
...Meriwether Lewis September 17,1804 T he day starts with coffee and gas at the Maverick...
...We slow down and the four blocks of downtown Meeteetse float by, with waves from a couple of cowboy-hatted locals on BILL CROKE is a writer living in Cody, Wyoming...
...the sidewalk in front of the Mercantile...
...A fter lunch we get the Blazer stuck on a stretch of low-lying road...
...A hundred yards past the draw he parks the Blazer, then points up at a high slope thick withsagebrush...
...For some reason I'm drawn to the left, running, the sage whipping my jeans as I vainly chase the fleeing herd...
...An American Pronghorn Antelope is light brown, with a white underbelly and rump, the latter being what unsuccessful hunters spend much time looking at...
...Ranchers, hunters, and off-road vehicle enthusiasts curse it...
...The species ranges from the Dakotas west to Oregon and south to Arizona, but Wyoming is the center of the antelope empire...
...there are turnoffs and cul-de-sacs everywhere...
...For a second or two he lines up eye to scope, then from an invisible pronghorn I hear the distinct 'Chuff!' and hard on it the shot echoes in my ears...
...We are on our feet and running...
...The day has grown so warm that we ride with the windows down and the dust drifting in...
...I've seen it...
...Looks like one nice buck anyway," he says...
...Bentonite is a mineral found in the soil here...
...It sounds like `Chuff...
...Or we spy them, in stark silhouette, following a long ridge above us parallel to the road...
...This is the American Serengeti...
...About halfway up we are crouching, as if this will aid our concealment...
...From the left the drifting cloud shadow peels over the earth and the antelope pass into pale light, the last vernal sun illuminating their golden backs...
...Following some rocking and wheel-spinning that I fear might fry the clutch, Joe succeeds in breaking free...
...Again we accelerate into open country...
...and myself...
...A shot as close as zoo yards is rare...
...Yet this herd is big enough that we can keep them in sight much of the time, or at least hazard a guess as to their whereabouts...
...Its other defense mechanism is speed...
...Antelope season in Wyoming can mean sunscreen, or antifreeze and tire chains...
...The rule of thumb for the greenhorn is: Don't be joyriding on the prairie in the rain, or in snowy weather not cold enough to freeze hard the ground...
...Prairie chickens...
...Seventy miles to the east the sun finally clears the extended rampart of the Big Horns and blasts long rays into our eyes...
...Knew I should've brought a shotgun," Doug says...
...I am the last to see a large herd of antelope maybe a mile or more away, and so far oblivious to our presence...
...Mix in a little moisture and it quickly turns the soil into a grayish, gooey gumbo...
...My rifle is more suited to the thick eastern whitetail woods of my upstate New York youth...
...The autumn morning has a sharp chill as Cody's street lights fade out and Stampede Avenue comes to life with the morning commute...
...before the advent of synthetic substitutes, it was used in the manufacture of chewing gum and kitty litter...
...We pass one of these and a half dozen antelope speed across the road in front of us...
...And there's nothing like it," Joe says...
...The adrenaline sours the meat...
...I see about a hundred goats in full flight, crowding and bumping each other as they scramble out of the small basin, and pour down another draw out of sight...
...Joe is on the other side and says something to Doug, but I can't hear it above the wind...
...Joe stops the Blazer and reaches for the binoculars atop the dashboard...
...Near the crest we reunite for a whispering conference...
...The herd heads up into yet another draw...
...A black blaze runs down forehead and snout, and its eyes are set wide in its headlike natural binoculars, allowing it to see you at a distance of four miles in open country...
...Recent rain and melted snow have brought out that hideous thing wholly unique to Wyoming: bentonite...
...In the distance, the folds and creases look like crumpled brown paper...
...The BLM roads out here are myriad...
...Gleason has a pair too, and is out of the truck...
...The surrounding landscape begins to undulate in rises and knolls and low ridges with blind draws...
...Chuff...
...Today is his last chance to get a goat...
...We don't even get close, as the herd moves off en masse to the right, and begins working its way around the butte...
...I try to imagine the sound those hundreds of little hooves make as they thump dirt and tear sage...
...Under that far butte on the left," Joe says...
...Then, from the right it appears, spilling onto the bench...
...After the African cheetah, Antilocapra americana is the fleetest mammal on the planet...
...Gleason is nearby and rising barely to brush-level as he scans with his binoculars...
...After a long morning of cruising and periodically scaring up small bunches of antelope, we stop for lunch next to a crop of red sandstone hoodoos...
...I have a license to hunt, but it's a standing joke among us that unless I'm very lucky and get a close shot, my dependable 1952 Lever Action Winchester .32 Special sans scope won't get a goat...
...At the junction of 120 we turn south for Meeteetse, the sun thankfully out of our eyes...
...What alarm...
...At full speed the tawny mass shifts eastward toward broken country farther on...
...Joe says, making a sharp whistling-spitting sound with his tongue and teeth...
...We resume the hunt...
...Remember, never shoot a goat on the run," said Joe...
...We are three: Cody friend Joe Desson, tall and solidly built, with mutton chop sideburns...
Vol. 32 • September 1999 • No. 9
