Harvest Pics

nmelktrout · Sep 2, 2011

LAST EDITED ON Sep-02-11 AT 04:48PM (MST)[p]It is awful slow around here these day and I'm dying to see some harvest pics and hear some new hunting stories! Here's one to bide some time with. I harvested this speedgoat near Roy, NM after a 2+ hour stalk/belly crawl in zero cover on opening morning (Saturday). Tough drought conditions and the spookiest goats I have ever seen made for some tough hunting. My buddy Brian knocked down the 83 & 2/8 goat that was bedded 50 yards beyond my goat on Sunday, but I'm going to let him post pics if he see's fit. We saw 5 bucks on the 20K acre plus ranch we were on and killed 4 of them, with the two largest taping at 14 1/4 length and 15 and 3/8. A fun weekend with some hard-earned speedgoats...
-Cody

EDIT: Here's a teaser of Brian's Booner. Should easily book after the drying period....

www.streamflies.com

eldorado · Sep 2, 2011

Congrats Cody on your beautiful lope and on your buddy's trophy.

Eldorado

NMPaul · Sep 2, 2011

Great pic and great goat Cody. Is that grass about a 1/2" high.
Not much cover for a stalk.

crazeymaez · Sep 2, 2011

Way to go Cody,Still very dry out there,Congrats

twdjr · Sep 2, 2011

Congrats on the nice antelope. The country looks pretty barren.

264mag · Sep 3, 2011

Nice picture and trophy!

hunt4130 · Sep 3, 2011

good looking lope!

megalomaniac · Sep 4, 2011

Congrats on your antelope!

We had a fun hunt as well a little east of Springer. Probably 20-25 bucks on our 12 sections, but there were no 15"ers. Ranchhand said the drought really hurt sheath quality this year. The best antelope we saw got pushed off the ranch the evening of the opener. He was a mid to upper 70's "er. My friend and I settled for the 3rd and 4th best antelope on the property the second day.

Mine scored 73.25 and was only 13", but had decent mass. My buddy's was basically a twin, again 13", and in the low 70's as well.

The best antelope we saw harvested was across the road in a different unit and was 14" and around 75-76". Not a lot of grass, and I know what you mean about a lot of belly crawling. Even then, it got TOUGH to get close after Saturday. I took mine at 490 yards, bang-flop, DRT. My buddy got lucky with a small ridge for cover and killed his at 260.

nmelktrout · Sep 5, 2011

Congrats, Megalomaniac. Those are a couple of very nice speedgoats and it looks like you had as much cover to stalk in as we did. And, congrats on a hell of a shot. I'll tell you what, 13" goats were not very common this year in NE, New Mexico, so those are two fine animals. I know I was pleased with my goat 13" horn length, especially after seeing a number 10, 11 and even 9" goats that were being killed...More importantly, we had a great trip with a bunch of buddies and made some even more hunting memories.

Here's a better picture of the biggest goat that my buddy Brian knocked down, as well as the 14 1/4" goat with crossing horns that my buddy Joe's father killed. Check out how far up the cutters are on this first buck. Made the the third mass measurement just good enough to pull this bucks score up significantly. I can only imagine what these goats would have looked liked on a non-drought year...

Same goat, head-on.

Ed's crossed horn buck, truly a unique goat.

-Cody

www.streamflies.com

bmack · Sep 5, 2011

Here are a few photos from our hunt in Roy. Like Cody mentioned, it was a great time but we worked our tails off to get these goats. Didn't think it was gonna happen for a while there, but we got a little lucky.

I killed this goat on Sunday morning after we spotted him from a long ways off. After getting where we thought he was we had to do some glassing for about 5 minutes before we spotted him again.

I stalked down a fence line about a mile while he fed away from me. After a near disaster with a helicopter from the power company coming over the horizon at 200 feet off the deck this guy finally settled down and I dropped him in his tracks at 223 yards.

I feel very lucky to have taken such a beautiful trophy. He green scored 83 2/8.

My dad and uncle also scored two nice goats 20 minutes apart on Saturday evening.

Finally, here is another angle from Cody's great goat. His stalk was awesome as well to get this bad boy. Nothing like hunting them on a golf course fairway basically!!

OLBUZZTAIL · Sep 6, 2011

nmelktrout...Congratulations on a Great Buck!! Looks really sparse there right now!

Hunting is Life...everything else is
Just details.
Ol' Buzztail...