I hopped on a plane not long ago and headed back to Makaha. The Waianae Hunting Association has been vigilant in trying to stop the state from eradicating all the goats in the legal hunting area of Waianae Kai. They have been successful as there have not been fly over eradications for several months and none scheduled for the future. Now there are small herds where there were none when I left. I checked the sign in sheet at the trail head (also lobbied for, installed and maintained by the Waianae Hunting Association) and saw that of 9 hunters the week prior, there had been 5 goats harvested. I am stoked that they now have actual data on harvest numbers from this location. No more guesswork. I signed in.
I packed my most disposable bow in my surfboard bag so a trusty beat up 55# samick sage accompanied me on this trip. I didn't bring boots, so my footwear was an old pair of skatebaord shoes which do not stand up well to Keawe spikes, so to say I was careful about my footfalls is an understatement! I hiked for the hour it takes to get to the flat top of the ridge, where the legal border to the hunting grounds starts.
I found some goats about 80 yards away in the grass on the hill side but I had to cross a pretty sketchy knife edge ridge to get to them.
After missing 2 shots at about 20 yards and 2 brand new arrows flying off into the cliffed out abyss I took a break to get my S#!& together and figure out a new plan.
I decided I would not shoot an arrow unless it was a slam dunk. I picked out a little pocket to check and slowly moved in. There were about 5 goats in there!
I put a stalk on them, telling myself I would take the first animal I could get a solid close range shot at. (being in Alaska for a year makes the Hawaii heat painful on the skin, and I was getting pretty burned.)
The wind was blowing hard and I slowly crept in moving a couple feet at a time almost crab walking. As I got close the herd moved around a large mound of rock and bushes, This allowed me to stand and get in a shooting position.
You can see me in the bottom right corner of this pic. The goats in the background are about 25 yards away.
I crept inside of 10 before standing and taking a small billy. The arrow did its thing. I found it on the other side sticking in the grass.
The goat fell about 10 yards from the arrow impact stone cold dead. My camera was also stone cold dead as I had tried to record several of the stalks and used up the batteries. So I got some more pictures back at the house.
The Hero shot.
The grillin shirt shot with "Big smoky Dave"
This is why that little billy didn't go very far.
. Broken Hearted!
And a picture of my view of the ridge across from me.
Forgive the dramatic difference in picture quality. Many of the bad ones are screen shots from video footage. I only took a few actual pictures.
Thanks for looking!
Msturm.
Topic: Back to Hawaii, back in the old stomping grounds... (Read 1502 times)
