The Ghost Lope

By Jacob Dorn

The following is the official account of how I narrowly escaped death on Jan. 4, 2023 while harvesting the now pending Georgia state-record Jackalope! He weighed in at 22 pounds and was officially scored with a total dry score of 82 3/8 inches off of six scorable points! For all of the haters who have been claiming that I harvested this buck in a high fence preserve, I assure you that he was as free range and wild as they come. And now without further ado, I give to you the tale of the “Ghost Lope!”

The night of Jan. 3, 2023 was going along about like any other night would. My son and I are sprawled out on the floor pouring over large maps that were lit by the fireplace. The air is thick with the smell of pine tar from the Christmas tree that I’ve refused to evict from the living room. My daughter accidentally jostles the Douglas fir too hard while examining the light glistening off of her favorite ornament. The tree protests its remaining presence further by sending another avalanche of brown needles to the ground. I stand up to change my perspective, trying to piece together this puzzle. Maybe with more altitude these highlighted areas of swamps, pine thickets and briar patches circled in red will finally reveal the secret to unlocking the pattern that will be the undoing of the “Ghost Lope.”

The sudden vibration of my phone on the coffee table breaks my concentration and I reluctantly walk away from the map. I see the name of the legend himself, Mr. Trey Mandingo, is on the other end of the line. I answer the call with great anticipation. The Mandingo would only call this late for one of two reasons, it was either my 10-point buck ready for pick up or there had been another sighting of the Ghost Lope.

Turns out it was the latter. Another rabbit hunter had just reported to Trey that one of his best dogs had been badly cut by a smoke gray jackalope that he estimated to be 18 pounds or better and sporting a dark set of pronghorn-shaped antlers. The description fit the Ghost Lope like a glove. It sure sounded like he was full of testosterone and rutting hard. We knew we had to be in that briar patch at dawn. If he was going to make a mistake, it was going to happen while he had fighting and breeding on his mind. While that made him more prone to get caught, it also meant he was as dangerous as he ever could be.

We rolled up to the edge of the briar patch with an hour until sunrise. A barred owl screamed in the distant damp darkness and sent a cold chill up my spine. I consider myself a fella not to be trifled with, but there is a looming dark presence filling the air on this cold morning that I can’t ignore. It’s an uneasy feeling that can only be felt when you know that you’re hunting a critter that can hunt you back. I can tell the dogs sense it too as the whimper and shiver in the dog box. Trey and I discuss the plan again and check our guns and gear as we wait on the sun to shed some light on the situation.

It’s finally go time, and we release the hounds. They hit the ground running and are trailing in no time. We break through the brush and our .410s roll a couple of cottontails. Trey is in his element and after his second rabbit finds its way into his vest, he seems less mission minded. A bright white boyish grin spreads wide across his face as he gives me a thumbs up as he calls the dogs into a smaller nearby patch. I just smile and shake my head. I understand he’s having fun and all but for me this is personal. You see I have a mission, my wife would call it an obsession, and it all started three years ago when I had my first encounter with the Ghost Lope.

Everyone said I was seeing things. They said all of the Jackalopes had migrated out West or were so deep in the swamp that no one ever expected to see them around these parts. Heck, I thought those things myself! That is until I saw his dark gray body jump across a two-lane red dirt road in a single bound while leaving my hunting club in Appling, Ga. Everyone in my hometown called me a fool and said that I was chasing a ghost, but I knew what I saw. I knew that one day I would harvest that stud of a Jackalope and then they would see him, too.

A loud howl ripped through the brush and wrecked my reminiscing! I tried to orient to the dogs as they were clearly being chased inside the brush. I began shoving my way through the briar thicket trying to get there in time to get a shot off. I heard the bark of Trey’s .410 as he screamed out, “He’s on the dogs!” I was tangled like a fly in a web, but I frantically ripped my way through into the fray.

I was a fullback again, powering my way through a pack of defenders with the end zone just a few yards ahead. Then the safety, a vine, joins his teammates, wraps up my legs and pulls them out from underneath me. I fall on my face short of my goal, but the battle isn’t over yet. I’m struggling to free myself from my bondage when I realize that there is a powerful force bulldozing its way toward me! I heard a scream and the world became a blur of dark grey, brown, green and red.

It was the Ghost Lope, he was literally running circles around me. Every time he darted in and out, he gored me again and again while I laid there flat on my back. I hopelessly tried to free myself and my shotgun from the clasp of the angry briars that are ripping away at my flesh as much as my ghostly adversary. I finally freed my head from the thorns and through the blood and the sweat, I saw the Ghost Lope charging in with his antlers lowered. His deadly prongs were aimed at my throat. I was as good as dead, except for one thing, I wasn’t ready to die. I ripped my right arm free and reached my hand to the sky. At the last moment, I gator rolled toward the Ghost Lope and Judo chopped him right on the back of the neck where the spine meets the skull. The Ghost Lope went limp, and the fierce fire that once filled his eyes smoldered out and grew cold.

There I laid just taking him in, face to face on the forest floor. His smoke gray coat, his chocolate antlers and the fierce presence that he bore. This slayer of hounds, this ruler under ground, had bounded his final bound. And I was he, the seeker who seeks, and found that which could not be found.

A special thanks to Trey Mandingo for the beautiful taxidermy work!