4 in 10 minutes
I always wake up early during a bowhunt, and this hunt wasn't any different, we had found a nice bivvying spot the evening before, after crossing a rising creek, and getting moved sideways about 1 foot, before gunning the vehicle across. and setting up camp about 70 metres up. at the base of the ridge we would be climbing on foot early next morning.
It was pitch black as I exited my small tent, and by torch light I noted that BXXXX was also up and getting his belt kit and bow ready. After the usual morning pee, I got my belt kit on, had a nice long swig of water, and started checking all my gear in my pants and shirt pockets. Binos, camera, fox whistle, allen keys and 9 arrows on the bow quiver.
We had planned on climbing this ridge in the dark, so I had a single led torch, which is only a few centimeres long, and seeing as it was misty and visibility was down to a few metres, this was all I needed. BXXXX also had a small torch, as we didn't want to haul unnessessary weight.
We'd done this ridgeline previously, so we knew the way, and also the long slog of a couple of hours hard climbing ahead.
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After climbing almost half way, we noticed a faint blueing of the light, which meant it was starting to lighten up, and the soft light coming thru the mist made for some good dark 'moody' footage of BXXXX climbing up the trail. We had short breaks during the climb, generally less than a minute, then would take it in turns to go point.
After what seemed an eternity, we crested the ridgeline, after passing the spot on our left where we had taken pigs on previous hunts. So far we hadn't seen or heard anything, but very soon after the ridgeline we heard the faint sound of goats.
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You beauty, the hunt was on. We slowly made our way along the trail to the general area where we had heard the bleeting coming from and noticed that the sounds were coming from a steep ravine off to our right, so we made our way along that, with a fair bit of mist still around, which we used for visual cover. There was no breeze, which was a favour to us.
BXXXX was filming so he stayed put as I went out in front about 60 metres using the ling grass and odd scrub for cover, where slowly out of the mist I spotted a few small goats, I snuck back towards the camera, where I stated, "They are a bit spooked, why don't we move down lower for cover", so we headed slightly lower and more off to our right, where we planned to sneek up using eucalypts as cover.
BXXXX and I decided it wasn't safe to try to film from above, so he headed back up to the trail while I made my way slowly through the Eucalypts. It was hard going trying to stay upright on a almost 45degree wet slope.
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After a while I made out one female goat in the mist, so headed towards her, as I knew the rest would be nearby.
I got to within 30 metres of her, and stood and sussed out the situation. Between me and her, the ground dipped down, and I saw that I could use that for cover to get nearer the 3 large trophy billies I has now spotted slightly higher and behind her in the swirling mist.
What should I do? I knew she would blow my cover if I tried moving forward, so sat and waited about 5 minutes to see if she'd head back. It wasn't going to happen, so I thought, 'stuff this I'm nailing her and I hope the others dont freak, and run'.
I lined her up, put the 30 pin on, and let loose, then I saw the arrow fly straight through her, she ran about 10 metres and bowled over and slid down the ridge a bit, but was still makeing a racket, spooking the other big boys, but they had all stayed still, in the mist, wondering what the hell was going on. I nailed her again, to shut her up, and then concentrated on the big billies, which had moved off slightly, making it better for me, as I had about an extra 10metres of mist as cover.
Once the female had quietened down, I slowly stalked down into the dip, and up the other side, with the only cover being the slight mist. I got to within about 35metres of the nearest larger Billy, and slowly chose which one to shoot. I chose the lower one, as he had a nice slow curl, and plenty of width, so I knew he'd make trophy class for sure. As I drew back, I went with my gut feeling of 35metres, and slowly put the 30 pin slightly high on his chest, and loosed the arrow, I knew straight away I'd got a decent shot, as he took off away from me, but only went about 20metres, before loosing his legs, and rolling down the steep embankment. Fortunately he stopped before sliding too far down, and in the mean time, I'd seen the same confused NON reaction from the others, as they tried to figure out what was going on. I think the mist was really stuffing their senses up, as I'd NEVER seen a mob not react to 2 hit goats. It was almost too easy. I next lined up my pins higher up the slope, on another large billy, who had a nice bit of curl, and also nice width, and shot him straight through the heart at 35metres again, and he took a few steps before expiring (about 10metres).
I was using tusker 2 blade spirits which were putting 1 inch holes through their engine rooms. After this third hit they got a bit wary and started to walk away from the trouble, but not run, and I thought to myself, "3 is enough, I'll call BXXXX down to get one", so I let out our signalling whistle, and a minute later BXXXX came down through the mist, where upon, I said "they've gone up there, but not to far, you have a go", so I stayed near my third Billy, and BXXXX dissapeared for a few minutes, then cam back with a grin, and said "I got one".
We had a bit of a 'tea break' after that, shot some video, got the heads off my 2 billies, then went up to BXXXX's goat and got the horns off him, then cut some legs of the first meat goat I shot.
My 2 went trophy class, approx 101 and 100 douglas points from memory, and are in the image posted of BXXXX's goat trophy wall. I think those 2 are top and middle right, another couple on that wall, are mine but I'll save those stories for later. All in all, we shot 4 goats within 10minutes of the first stalk, and it was all over except for the carry out, by 10am in the morning.
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Originally Posted by Enigma
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