Miracle Shots Steve LaMascus


have made some shots that some folks would claim were impossible. I know I have and I guess, since the statute of limitations probably has run out on all of them, that I am now safe to tell you about a few. This was in my more, shall we say, permissive days. It also was a time when most ranchers considered game laws more as guidelines than hard and fast laws. I grew out of this phase very quickly and haven’t broken a game law in decades, nor would I. In fact, in later years I helped enforce a good many of these laws. It was the summer of 1968. My


I expect that most of us, if we have


brother David and I were hunting jack- rabbits just outside of Eagle Pass, Texas. We had only one .22 rifle at that time, one that David had been given by our parents. It was “purchased” in Vernon, Texas, a few years before we moved to Eagle Pass, with S&H Green Stamps that Mom had saved up. Remember stamps? We had no idea whose ranch we


were on, and in those days that was pretty common for the local kids in the smaller Texas towns. Any land within walking distance of town was generally considered to be free range for the kids and the ranchers didn’t say anything. Today, with every game animal in Texas being a cash cow, you would be drawn and quartered for such things. I think that is a great loss to today’s children and our society as a whole. We were walking along the edge


of what looked like an old field that had been allowed to go wild. At least there were what looked like terraces in it. And, sitting on the crest of one of those terraces was a rather arrogant looking jackrabbit. He had seen us, but appar- ently figured we were too far away to worry about. We stopped and I took the rifle from David to take a Hail Mary shot at the big hare. I lined up the open sights, raised


them up above the rabbit to a level that felt about right, and sent one off. A second or so later there was a faint and distant “whoomp” and the jackrabbit fell over. We stood there for a minute trying to decide what had just happened


Page 184 October — December 2011 hunted and shot all our lives,


and then paced off the range. It was 153 paces. I scratched the number into the butt of the rifle, so I wouldn’t forget. Da- vid still has the rifle but, unfortunately, the stock has since been refinished. Once when I was in high school


I had spent the fall in a frenzy of dove and quail hunting, to the obvious detri- ment of my scholastic endeavors. I have no idea how many of each I shot, but it was more than my fair share. At that time I was as quick and as good with a shotgun as I ever have been. Then, a day or two after quail


season closed, a friend and I decided to go rabbit hunting. I was again carrying my brother’s Remington single-shot .22. We were walking through a pasture toward a creek where we expected to find some cottontails when we walked into a covey of bobwhite quail. As the quail thundered into the air my reflexes took over; the .22 came to my shoulder and fired. A second later there were bobwhite feathers drifting on the breeze and one deceased quail lying feet up on the caliche (pronounced ka-lee-chay) at the edge of a small wash. I don’t know who was more surprised … my hunting buddy, the quail, or me. Another time my brother David


and I were calling bobcats on the old Frank Turner Ranch near Cline, Texas, between Uvalde and Brackettville. I was carrying a little .17 Remington that I had fallen in lust with. It was wear- ing a new 6x Redfield Widefield scope. David was carrying a Sako Vixen in .222 Remington. I don’t remember if we called up


any bobcats that day or not, but I do remember how the hunt ended. This ranch had some old rock


quarries on top of a rocky hill. One or two of them were now spring fed ponds, and the others held water during the rainy season. This was in late, late winter, I


think. Anyway, there were some ducks on one of the tanks. David loves duck, and wanted to shoot one to take home for dinner. I told him to sneak around and get a solid prone shot at them on the water. I figured he could take one’s head off with the .222. Being somewhat


of a smart aleck I told him that after he shot I would try to get one on the water before they flew. David got into position, took aim,


and squeezed off the shot. He missed and the ducks were in the air instanta- neously. I was standing on a high bank, looking down into the old pit, looking through the 6-power scope. Suddenly I noticed that there was


a duck flying directly at me with the crosshairs on its breast. My reflexes said “shoot!” and the gun fired. There was no conscious thought involved. The next thing I knew there were duck feathers floating away on the breeze and the shattered remains of the duck were splattering down on the water of the pond like pieces of a B-17 hit by flak over Dusseldorf. Once again, as Gomer Pyle would say, “Surprise, surprise, surprise!” OK, this is the last one, I promise. I was calling coyotes south of


Eagle Pass. It was either my last year in high school or my first year in college. I was packing my Dad’s custom 7mm Mauser, topped with a 4x scope. I was sitting on the edge of a rocky


hill overlooking a pasture of scattered mesquite and thorn brush. In the dis- tance the big irrigation canal was just visible. I had been calling for about 10 minutes when I noticed movement in the brush about 300 yards out. It was a coyote. It had seen me or scented me and was beating feet for safer territory. I swung up the 7mm, found the run- ning coyote in the scope, and pressed the trigger when the lead looked right. A second later the coyote rolled out of sight into an arroyo in a cloud of caliche dust. He had been just exactly one long jump from the safety of the arroyo when the 139-grain Federal bullet hit him in the ribs. I paced the shot at a couple of steps short of 400 yards. The moral of these tales is this: If


you shoot and hunt all the time, your reflexes and skills will sometimes do things you really aren’t good enough to do. Like a famous golfer once said when told that he was very lucky: “Yeah, and the more I practice, the luckier I get.”


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