Sako's Speed goat 2004

This is copied and pasted from another forum I frequent, spelling and grammer are they way they are so deal with it :BLEEP: .
I know this is long but I tried to put in things I learned on hunting these critters, so you may learn something.
Wed Sept 8th:

Well Friday is the first of 3 big days in the next few months. Me and my brother both have area any sex tags. We went out and did some spotting a few weeks back and seen some good bucks and one very large buck. With both of us having a tag and were both going to be going for a big boy we have decided to flip a coin on who gets first dubs. I know there are more than just one big big buck in the area, were just hoping someone hasnt got onto him during archery. Pluss he has to work Friday so we cant go after him till friday evening so that gives the others a head start but thats ok, we have a month and I will go without getting one if I cant find one big enough. This will also be my daughters first time to go with Dad hunting. Should be interesting LOL.

Sat Sept 11th:

Well so far the count is 1-1-0. We found the big buck again that we had found three weeks ago. We started hunting at 4:30 and about 6:00 my brother hapend to look back and seen a lone antelope about 1500 yrds off. I drove a little closer to it and got out the spotting scope and sure enough it was the big buck. We immediatly started to devise a plan. We had just come through the area and there was a deep revine that we had to do some serious 4x4'ing to get through. I drove to the bottom again and earleir my bro had won the 3 flip coin toss on first dubbs so he got out and started to hike to the top. We were gambling the buck wouldnt change his direction he was walking. Soon he kneeled down and I knew the buck was near. Crouching he walked to a nearby sage mound. I got out the video camera and started to film.

First he tride a kneeling stance through the brush but the wind was howling and he couldnt hold still. He repositiond for a laying or prone possition shot and soon I heard the boom. He jumped up and signaled for me to head down the road. I immediatly knew he had missed and the chase was on. I got to the top and he told me to go to the next revine as that was where the buck was headed. he was going to walk the rim and see if he could see him. After getting there and watching there was no sighn of the buck. This was very open country so I knew he had to be laying down and couldnt have gone far or we would see him.

My bro came to the truck and was pretty mad at himself for missing. We still did not see the buck and it just didnt make since, something was wrong. I asked him if he was sure he had missed and he said "I think so but I guess there is that chance, I thought it was a good shot." I told him, "well lets start looking for him, he might be down." I drove back to the mound where he had shot from to give him a reference of where he was when he had shot. He started a Z pattern search for the buck working back to the truck. Soon I see him put up his rifle and start running then starts waving his arm to come that way. He walks about 20 feet farther and starts jumping up and down with his arm in the air.

I get over to him and there lay the buck. He had gone about 40 feet from point of being shot. I am not sure what my brother thought he had saw but the buck hadnt gone far. The buck is a real beauty. He is 15 1/4" tall, 5'3/4" prongs with the double prong or eye guards as some call them. He has a width of 17" OD and bases that measure 7 1/8". He wont make book but will come close, we figure in the 70-75" class according to the taxidermist my bro took him to last night including dedustions. I beleive it takes 82 to make book but not sure.

The second kill of the hunt so far I killed a coyote at 317 yrds this morning. Seen him running up a hill and when he got to the top I let him have it. Came across some other hunters and they had got a cyote as well. I have seen three other bucks with one that was iffy on being a shooter. I am sure others would have taken him but I am not ready to settle just yet. We have only coverd maybe a 3rd of the territory so I want to hit it all before I start to settle. Tomorrow My girlfreind and I are going after my neices beauty pagent. Were going to hit the area where I got my last buck the day the towers went down. There were several bucks in the area then so I am hoping more will be there.
http://www.groovebullets.com/forum/album_pic.php?pic_id=268
That is my brother and my now 5 year old daughter with his buck.

Mon Sept 13th:

Well the count is still 1-1-0. Yesterday was quite the day let me tall ya. It started out with going and picking up my girlfreind and we headed to a beauty pagent. My neice and nephew(beautiful baby division) are always in them but my sis-in-law finally talked me into letting my daughter give it a try. So instead of hunting all morning I was at a beauty pagent BUT it was the coolest thing this year. I had hopes that maybe she would win one trophy, she did, and six more and a crown!!! She took overal pagent winner and every catergory but one in her age group. My neice took first runner up in her age division but she was really crabby and just didnt want to be there. My nephew won overal pagent winner for males and 4 of seven of his catergories he was in. So it was a clean sweep for our family, both the male and female overal winners. I was one proud poppa!!

After the pagent was over it was time to start hunting. My GF, bro and I, headed out in my truck and went to where I had shot my buck I got 9/11/01. It didnt take long and we were in a bunch of goats. Seen several ok bucks but nothing big. Unlike the day before, it was rainy and cold and very windy, but I think that got the antelope moving. Then we were following a heard when a very nice buck joind them after they went over a ridge. It was on now!! We chased that buck from creation and back. I got off 2 shots at him but missed. After we had lost him I had misjudged my distance by 250 yards. I guessed him at 600 yrds and he was 850. We got on 2 other bucks that were both very nice as well but never could close a decent enough gap. There had been hunters in there the day before and I think they had been lit up. My girlfreind was a real trooper though, she went tromping through the brush to head em off and everything. Needless to say I think she is a keeper. So I figure we'll let the goats settle down through the week and hit it hard next weekend. I wont have my daughter then and can hunt from sun up till sun down if I want.

Mon Sept 20th:

I didnt get to go quite as much as I wanted this past weekend. I came down sick on Thursday and didnt get feeleing better till Sat.. so i ended up hunting about 4 hours Sat eve and all day Sunday. Sat eve was rather uneventful cept on one goat.

We had spotted him standing in a thick & tall sage patch. After looking at him through the spotting scope we could see he was a true trophy buck. gussed him 15-17 inches in height, good mass, and BIG prongs not overly wide. Thing was he was in the bottom of a shallow bowl if you will, that was probably 800 yard wide and 1000 yrds long. He could see our every move. So we devised a plan. I dropped my Mom off on one side and she was to walk down then over towards the buck, she had a good mile hike to do this. I then dropped my dad off directly above the buck but 800 yards off. he was to be a focus point for the buck, or a distaction you could say. I dropped off on the side oposite that Mom would be coming from as that was the only side where I could do a sneak and get up on him without being seen. The plan worked great for the most part. As I snuck on him I could see him when I would pop my head up and he was watching Dad. I crawled a bit farther and popped my head up and he was gone!! I could see the bottom of the bowl as I crawled and watched it closely, he didnt go out there. He didnt go towards Mom as she would have seen him and same with Dad. Dad could see him the whole time but looked away for just a minute and looked back and he wasnt there. I then stood up and we all walked all through the area and even found where he had stood. tried to track but couldnt he simply vanished. Were guessing he dropped down and crawled to a hole under a brush or something and wouldnt budge. It was the dangest thing I ever saw. I guess he didnt get that size by being stupid.

The next morning my Mom and I set out at 6:30 A.M.. The plan was to hit a diffent section of my area in the morning then go back to where the big buck was that afternoon if we didnt get one by then. We started out seeing a bunch of small bucks I wouldnt feel right shooting. One was however a medium buck that I put on the maybe come cack to list. Thing about this area the goats werent spooked a bit unlike the first area was. I knew they would be there when we came back.

So we headed down to see if we could find the big boy. Found 2 nice bucks right off but the second the truck slowd they were off like bullets. Got a shot at one that was about 400 yards but he was running with a full head of steam. Even with a good 2 foot lead I hit about foot behind him and he was gone. Thats my closest shot this hunting trip! We went on over to the "bowl" and the surrounding area, spent a good hour and a half, no sighn of him anywhere. So now I am getting tired of this, tired of spending the money for gas and putting countless miles on the truck. I decided to take QH's advice, I tell Mom lets go get that medium buck and call it a hunt. So we decide to go a different route on the way back to his area. Continued..............

Turns out it was a bit rough going. We winded our way through miles and miles of clay badlands and sage. We finally reach a small river that wasnt far from where we needed to be. We knew being by water the chances of seeing a good goat were good. We did just that. Found a dandy buck hanging with four doe's. After looking the terrain over I devised a plan and it was PERFECT. Turned out about 150 yards from the goats that werent paying any attention to us, was a small draw that looked just tall enough to concele me for a sneak. So we drive down and out of there sight. I tell Mom to keep driving the truck down the road so they would watch the truck and not be looking my direction. I dont know if she didnt hear me or what. I start walking up the draw till I get to the rim. I drop to a crawl and crawl up to the rim. There was a sage patch about 10 yards from me that had sage tall enough to fully conceal me. I crawl on over going undetected. The problem was though I couldnt see them either. The sage was in the way. I reposition my self so I can see them through the brush and for some reason they are getting ansy. The wind was to my favor, I know they didnt see me, I couldnt figure out what was going on. I hurried and tried to get my gun into position and just as I am rady to shoot the buck whirls and takes off on a dead run. I pop out of the brush to get an open shot but by that time he was but a spec in the praire. I was baffeled. Till I turned around. My mom was standing about 200 yards behind me on top of the back rim of the draw with binoculures watching them. She had no idea that she was actually right directly behind me in the sight of the antelope. She hadnt drove the truck on down as I had asked, instead she decided she needed to keep an eye on the antelope incase they ran. Needless to say I was bit beyond mad. I bit my tongue though as she was taking a day of her time to help me and it was a honest rookie mistake. She had never really seen anyone put on sneaks or anything like that. The hunts for goats she had been on were the kind where you drive, put the gun out the window, pop one, and go home. So there went my perfect plan, perfect chance at a good buck, and a decent shot distance all at once.

We went on up to where we had seen the medium buck. The problem was though a storm had been moving in all day and finally had hit. It was a complete downpoor of rain. We found the small buck that was with him and the 2 doe's. They hadnt moved from where we had seen them earlier just laid down. I looked through binocs and the spotting scope forever trying to find the bigger buck laying down. Never did find him. I even jumped the other three up by whistling at them and they moved about 50 yards and looked at me but no shooter buck. By this time the rain was sheeting down and we was loosing daylight so we called it a day and went home. Disapointing day to say the least.

Sun Oct 3rd:


Well Today was my last day to be able to hunt for my goat. next weekend it officialy closes and I have to get ready to go for Elk that weekend. Yesterday I was in Laramie Wyoming to watch the Wyoming Cowboys whip up in football with my parents and my girlfreind. So after burning one of the days I had left to hunt doing that, I set out this morning with a vengence.

I picked up my brother from his house about 9 A.M. and set out. We stopped at the gas station to get go go juice for both humans and the truck. The only problem we had is when we went around the corner there was a man laying in the middle of the road. Immediatly we thought that the man had been hit by car. Me and my brother Erik are both first aid certified so we got out to assist. Turns out the man had only fallen but had artificial legs and was having a hard time getting up. He seamed a bit on the mental side as well. Do to that people were not willing to help assist the man. It was sad and actually quite peeved me off that people were so unwilling to help the gentleman.

After getting him squared away we trully were off to the big hunting grounds. I had determined that if I found a buck thats prongs were higher than his ears he was going down. It was crunch time now and wanted some meat. We turned off to the main road onto a road I had gotten into several bucks on a few weeks earlier. Hopes were that the antelope had had a few weeks to settle down and not be so skidish and possibly offer some closer shots that werent at bucks running full speed ahead. After going a short distance we spotted a small buck and 2 does, nothing exciting. So we pressed on down the road. About a mile further we came upon a goat that was feeding off the south side of the road. I got out of the truck and walked about 50 feet down the road and set up. I waited till the goat lifted HER head and seeing it was a doe I went back to the truck.

After going about 5 feet I see a buck running across the road streight in in front of us. I jump out of the truck and shoulderd the rifle but couldnt really see the size of the buck. I keep watching as he continued heading west then just as he is about to drop off the hill he turned south and then I saw he was indeed a good buck. He dropped off a bit but then a second later I see he is at the same level but farther south. I knew then he was trying to do the circle trick on us. I started briskly walking down the road in a southerly direction. There was a canyon we had just came out of south of me and i knew thats where he was headed. I got to the rim and started walking westerdly. I knew I would head him off. I had walked about 300 yards down the rim when I see a glimps of him still moving southerly about 30 yards away from me. He hadnt spied me luckily. I knew he would either drop down into the canyon or cut around and go across right below me.

I dropped to a knee and set up my Snipe Pod on the 7mmSTW. I breathed deeply trying to catch my breath and calm myself. Sure enough I see the buck crossing the bottom and starting up the other side. I bear down on him with the crosshairs and waited till he slowd or turned giving me a better shot oportunity. He gets about 3/4 way up and turns east and starts to turn a circle in one spot. I put the crosshairs behind his shoulders and squeeze. The buck never took another step. I then walked back to the road where after waiting a bit, my brother came with the truck. We drove over to the buck and find him still in the same spot.

After a few high fives it was time to inspect the shot. Some how I ended up hitting the buck in the side of his nose with the bullet exiting out the back of his kneck. There was a huge puddle of blood under his head and kneck. I studied the tracks and aparently the buck had turned just as I shot to head back down the hill and his face was where his shoulder had once been. Well no meat ruined and dead is dead but certainly not what I expected to find. The shot was later meeterd at 402 yards.

Then fun then began and we got him clened out and loaded into the truck. After getting to my parents house to hang and skin the buck we did the measurements. Bith sides were just over 14" tall, a 12" width, 5 1/4" prongs and 6 1/8" bases. He has good mass and prongs which are the traits I was looking for. Not a monster or anything but a dandy last day buck. A perfect finish to a perfect weekend and a long, learningful hunt.

I hope you enjoyed my little story! Sako7STW



Thats me and my goat.



My weapon of choice and the ever useful Snipepod.

If one of you moderators would like to change those links to being posted pictures instead I would much appreciate it. I tried it but didnt work right.