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Some last minutes plans developed following a brief conversation at a Schuetzen Match last June. Some folks from Iowa asked if there was any potential for hunting goats (our name for Pronghorn antelope) in the area I live in Wyoming… Yes, the answer this year was we have goats in abundance – this hunt area has an estimated 15K goats, surrounded by areas nearing that figure, puts the population of goats in our county almost what the human population is. Normally applications for licenses need to be submitted in early spring and for this year I thought we missed it all. I’d mentioned this to my son after returning home from that match and I asked him to research what the dates were for those applications… As the cards fell, that very day the Game and Fish department had a drawing for leftover licenses that needed to be submitted no later than midnight. I’d responded to these folks the current situation and suggested they give it a try, things worked out favorably and five of them were successful applying for these leftovers. There were some drawbacks to these licenses as they were only valid on private land and that still excluded the walk-in areas of private, so things were very limited. Between my place, one neighbor, and one of my contractors we came up with enough area to give these hunters a fair shake. Mother nature has to play a part, no matter whether it’s a shooting event or a hunt, and she did. We haven’t seen any rainy or dreary days since April and wouldn’t you know it, these people show up and we have four of those days in a row… Heavy winds, foggy and heavy overcast, drizzling rain. The goats hunkered down, moved into the area subdivisions, back yards and grazed on fresh mowed yards, gardens and shrubs and drank water out of bird bathes for the inclement weather days. Conditions changed on the fifth day, the wind quit, the clouds moved out, and Mr. Sunshine made his appearance. The goats got the itch to wander and resumed normal traffic patterns.
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