Dog Days Of Summer Huey Sandfort
the grass was now green. Summer birds fi lled the sky and fl ew with the joy that comes with surviving a long, cold winter. I had gotten off work at 3:00 in the
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afternoon and was on my way home driving south on Ash Street here in Casper, Wyoming. As I approached the old Brattis Grocery/Meat Market, I noticed one of my best friend’s ranch truck in the parking lot and I knew who would be driving it. So, I pulled in to visit with that man. It was the condition of most ranch trucks – a dent here and there, fl at bed in place of the original pickup box, and a couple of blue heeler dogs or a trio of border collies on the fl at bed. In this case it was the collies – sheep dogs and good ones. A beat up old saddle accompanied the dogs, a saddle that had seen forty and ten years under its owner, a saddle that showed its age with dignity and grace. The western saddle was and still is the true icon of the American West. I got out of my truck and went
over and petted the dogs, calling them by name and getting licks from all. As I walked away they all laid back down on the bed of hay left over from hun- dreds of hay bales fed over the winter. As I walked through the door of the old store I knew that standing at the old checkout counter would certainly be Nick Brattis. As always, I spoke to him with the utmost respect. “Good afternoon, Mr. Brattis. How is my fa- vorite Marine”? I asked. He would look at me and say,
“Well, it’s been a good day.” He was a World War II veteran and it was an honor to know him.
About that time the driver of the
truck out in the lot came around the corner of one of the aisles, pushing one shopping cart and dragging another. His name was Doggy, and the name fi t this grizzled old cowboy. The deep lines etched in his face by the sun and the life of hard days in the saddle were there for all to see. His eyes sparkled as he walked up to me and shook my
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t was early June in 1976. The mornings were still cool and
hand. He told me that he was going to call me later today but was waiting for me to get home from work. He said he needed my help and this is the story that started my hunt. The ranch on which I grew up,
and had moved away from many years ago, was at present running 12,000 head of sheep. They were divided into six bands of about 1,800 head each, plus a band of bucks (rams). The ewes and lambs were now in their summer range and that meant that they were high in the mountains. One band was in the Hay Stack Range, south of Casper. Doggy told me that the band was los- ing four to six lambs a night to coyotes or possibly lions, and the sheep herder with the band had not been able to stop the predation. Doggy knew I was an up and coming coyote hunter and asked if I would go up into the mountains on my next days off and visit with the herder to see if I could put a stop to the sheep killing. How could a coyote hunter worth his or her salt turn down an offer like that? Two days later on my days off I
was up on the mountain well before daylight. I knew where the band of sheep would be bedded for the night and I would be there well before day- break. I parked my 1973 Chevy Blazer a mile away and waited for the fi rst glow of daylight in the east. Then I would hike out on foot. I was silent as I left my rig and
started the short walk to the little val- ley where the sheep would be bedded. The morning was cool and damp as it had rained last evening. Not much rain, just a shower. I came to a barbed wire gate
about a fourth of a mile from the bed- ding ground. I hate barbed wire gates because they have a tendency to make a lot of noise when opened on a quiet morning. So I walked along the fence until I found a place to slip under, got down, and low crawled under, mak- ing no noise. As I moved along an old two-track road, I could hear the sheep over the hill from where I was, and they were making more noise than normal
in their bedding ground for this time of day. I quickened my pace and soon was atop a large rock pile overlooking the bedding grounds. The band of sheep had been bed-
ded some three hundred yards north of where I lay on top of a large fl at rock. The sheep were now in panic mode as six coyotes harassed them. Two ’yotes had already downed a lamb and were starting their breakfast. Others were waiting for their chance and were cir- cling the band. I slid off the rock, took off my jacket and rolled it up to use as a rest. I don’t think anyone had thought of a Harris Bipod in those days. With the jacket rolled up and the fore-end of the big Remington on it fi rmly, I started to further assess the situation. The bitch coyote and one of this year’s pups were in the process of eating the heart, lungs and liver out of their kill, while the other pups were still trying to make their move on the rest of the band. The young pups were hesitant in going after so large an animal, probably because up to this time their diet most likely had been mice and small rodents brought to them by their mother and father. I would take the bitch coyote fi rst
and then, I hoped, work over the rest one by one. I settled comfortably on the rock and let the cross hairs of the Redfi eld six power scope (state of the art in those days) settle on the bitch’s left shoulder. As soon as she turned to look to see what her offspring were doing, the Remington 25-06 Varmint Special went off. The 77-grain Hornady hollow-point fl ew across the bowl and she vaulted up into the air from the impact and never moved … dead when she hit the ground. I loaded another round into the
rifle and found that the pups had frozen in their tracks. I focused on the second coyote and the Remington went off again. Hitting the pup with a 25-06 was a lot like swatting fl ies with a baseball bat. With the second shot pandemonium set in and sheep and coyotes were running in all directions. The coyote pups at that point were
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