PJ DelHomme bought two speedgoat tags, hauled a rifle and optics worth more than his truck down to southwestern Montana with two days to fill them, and figures it’s a formality. Then the pronghorn relocate: public land is picked clean (plus a few fawn skeletons and a “tough winter” to set the mood), and every animal in the county is loafing on some rancher’s irrigated alfalfa — behind a no-hunting sign, using cows as bodyguards, or one fence-line past where he actually has permission. So he belly-crawls through a camouflaged cactus minefield toward creatures that are basically binoculars with legs, gets within 300 yards, and watches them spook — except instead of escaping, they wedge themselves into a fence corner, queued up like a drive-thru order, legally his for the taking.
He passes anyway. No escape route means no fair chase, there’s no mature buck in the herd, and the carcass-strewn landscape suggests killing two breeding does isn’t doing the locals any favors — so he drives home with zero meat, two years of wasted gas and hotel money spent, borrowed parental capital unrepaid, and a driver’s window that won’t quite shut for company. It’s the most expensive nothing he’s ever bought, and the whole point is that “legal” and “right” are different words for a reason: baiting, long-range sniping, fence-corner gimmes — the rulebook may shrug, but the choice is still the hunter’s, and a hunt where the animal gets a vote is a success even with an empty freezer. His conscience is clear, his cooler isn’t, and he’s fine with that.
Would you have done the same thing?
Read DelHomme’s full story via Boone and Crockett, and get more information on fair chase. Report hunting, fishing, and trapping violations online here or by calling 800.TIP.MONT
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