Pictures for goat hunters
Mountain Goat
As I mentioned in the previous goat thread my wife has drawn a goat tag for Kodiak this fall. Since she has never done any goat or sheep hunting before I decided to take her and my 14yo grandson who has never been on a mountain for a little trial run out west for our vacation. I felt this would give us a great chance to test out some new packs and other equipment, help my wife see where she is at in her training program, and most importantly familiarize her with her quarry and be a little confidence builder for her.
With some help from some awesome friends who live in goat country and who graciously pointed us in the right direction we headed out for a great adventure.
The following posts will contain some pictures to help you mountain hunting addicts pass some time until hunting season gets here. Keep in mind all of these pictures were taken with a point and shoot so excuse some of quality of the shots. I would also like to add this was not in a protected area and these goats do get hunted.
Hope you enjoy Mike
Making some last minute adjustments to a new Stone Glacier pack in the parking area. This is a pack that I had chose from reading some of the great reviews on this site. This is such a great improvement over the 30yo Camp Trails moose pack I have used for years I can hardly believe it!! Money well spent and great knowledgeable people to talk to.
Still full of excitement and having fun!!! A lot of big smiles yet!!
Always fun for a flatlander to walk in snow when you can do it in short sleeves.
No facial pictures but you can bet the smiles are starting to fade quickly when they see how much hard gained altitude has to be lost and then how much steeper the next pull is going to be. Good thing no one can see this before leaving the truck or it might not ever happen. LOL!
Always a little unnerving for a flatlander to look over the edge for the first day or two
Once you get on the ridges life gets easier!
First goat sighting. was a billy with 4 buddies. After we got to within 20yds he and his friends moved off over the ridge and disappeared.
Now that's what we want to see!
Took along this Esbit stove for a backup to a new Jetboil I bought. I have had it forever but never used it till now. Found it to be a simple lightweight easy tool to use that would be hard to make fail. I will use this a lot more in the future especially for short overnighters. I love simplicity as most bowhunters do.
Hard to believe that someone who you have to force to eat anything besides ice cream and snickers bars will WILLINGLY eat MH stroganoff after a hard day of hiking in the fresh air...... no questions asked and love it to boot.
Outstanding! Keep the pics coming.
Next morning we had this young guy walk into camp (almost)got within 20yds anyway.
After that pre breakfast excitement (my wife is getting pretty pumped by now. She figures we just sit around camp and eat bon bons and the goats will just come to us easy peasy!!! right you goat hunters?) we leave and take another look around.
It is close to lunch by now so we sit down for a cliff bar and some elk jerky. Just getting sleepy when all of the sudden a goat pops over the ridge and is headed our way!! This is turning out to be a very entertaining day to say the least.
Congrats to your bride on the tag! Love the pics, next best thing to a hunt story!
He slowly worked his way closer. It actually looked like the same goat as had visited our camp in the morning but we were a couple miles away and he had been headed in the opposite direction down the mountain range last we saw him. As I looked around I noticed our lunch spot we had chosen because it was protected by the wind was full of goat beds and a lot of shed hair was around. It seems that by sheer luck we had stumbled into this goats camp just as he had stumbled into ours. We got a good laugh out of that. All this time he kept working in closer to us still unaware we were there.
It pretty much looked like he was going to join us for lunch at this point.
This a great thread DH...
At this point my wife and grandson decided to sharpen up their stalking skills!!
Sorry guys. I have to get to bed I am still a little tired out from the trip and it is back to work in the AM. Will try to finish story tomorrow. Thanks for taking the time to look at this thread.
Very cool thread!
Thanks for sharing
Good luck, Robb
Busted!!! Wife gets a super confidence builder on stalking goats and learns that one of the hardest parts of goat hunting is getting to the goats.
The goat gains a little altitude and checks us out. Lucky for him there is no bow this time!! Wife does get next best thing and gets multiple close up photos.
Awesome! Great practice and hope you share just as many pics of the Kodiak hunt this fall. Good luck to your wife!
a couple of close ups of the goat. These are done with a point and shoot remember.
One last close up before we back out and let this guy get back to making a living.
We back out slowly giggling like a bunch of school girls because we had so much fun with this goat. We made a big circle to get back to our packs so as not to disturb our new friend any further. Guess what we found when we come over the hill?
Great pics! Thanks for sharing.
Very cool adventure. What State are you in?
Thanks for taking the time to look at the pictures guys. I don't care to put a lot of my hunts out in the public for scrutiny but this one was just to cool not to share. Some things you just can't make up!! I apologize this is so lengthy but I did not want to leave anything out. I have to go to work today but I will finish tonight. There are only a few pictures left I promise. This adventure took place in Montana.
Mike
Thanks Mike for posting. Great pics!
Thanks for the time.
I'm envious of the experience you got to share with your family.
Super cool! How come goats don't do that when I am trying to kill one?
All right finally got home from work so I can finish this up tonight. Thank you for your patience.
So after we watch the goat sniff our packs and move off into the boulders we went over to gather our gear. After the 2 hours of adrenaline rush fooling with the goat everyone was exhausted. I suggested a little nap to recharge. Everyone agreed and it was not long until we all were sleeping hard. You goat and sheep hunters know what I am talking about. It was the deep kind of exhausted sleep where you snore and dream and wake up with droll on yourself. Most peaceful sleep I ever get.
Well I woke up first and guess what I see? The goat actually had moved back and bedded down 20yds away! He must have been exhausted also but he bedded down on a little mound just above us where he could keep an eye on us.
Shortly after some weather started to move in so we eased out and back to camp before we got soaked and had to cross a wet shale slide to get back.
Next day we had to head back. Funny how when you are climbing the mountain you always think once I get to the top everything will be downhill and SOOOO much easier than climbing. When it is time to go down you start to remember the beating your knees take going down and you start to hate the thought of what is ahead of you.
I might add I was worrying about my knees. By the time I had a minute to think about it I looked up to see my 14yo, welter weight, soccer playing grandson had fully developed his mountain legs and he was charging down the mountain like a young billy.
last of the snow we will walk on till next winter.
Finally within sight of the truck. That same big smile was on my wife's face as 3 days ago when we left it. This time it was there mostly because she now knew now she could handle most anything the mountain could throw at her and that goats were not mystical impossible animals to hunt. I was smiling because I knew she was right about the mountain part, but not so sure about the mystical animal part. We will see in August.
One last picture. I would love to tell you this was taken on the way down the mountain but it was not. We had to swing through Yellowstone on the way home since the grandson had never been there. I just want to say between the goat, the bull elk, and 3 very nice bull moose feeding together in the bighorns on the way home I am pretty sure we have just added a dedicated new bowhunter to our ranks. We are already making plans to go to the local archery shop for a new bow in return for helping on our farm this summer.
Thanks to anyone that had the stamina to stick with this thread and good luck this fall and more importantly have fun and stay safe. Make some bowhunting memories as my good friend Tom H says!
Mike
Great Pics my friend!! Especially of the sleeping nannie!! ????
Mike,
Very nicely done!!! What an awesome family adventure! Your wife is a trooper!!!
Mark
Classic pic of the bedded goat! Thanks for sharing Mike!
Awesome experience for you!
Thanks for sharing it & we look forward the the thread this Fall on your wife's hunt. Good luck!
Location, location, location....
Pretty cool, thanks for taking us along on the trip. Great pics!
Good luck on your wife's hunt. Hope we get to tag along on that one too....
That was one of the coolest scouting threads I've ever read. Thank you for sharing and I hope the bug has bit your grandson. What an awesome experience.
Well done, Thanks for posting! C
Thanks for posting. Love that country. Hope you can draw a tag in there sometime. Hunt
Great pictures Mike! Best of luck on Kodiak this fall. I hope your wife shoots a dandy!
Very cool!!! Thanks for sharing!
Great thread! Looks like a great trip and confidence builder. Look forward to seeing a recap of the successful Kodiak trip this fall.
Great pictures Mike. Thanks for sharing. Good Luck to Dawn on Kodiak!!!!!!!!!!
Epic. Best of luck come August!
Congrats on the tag! Lookin forward to the hunt!
Great thread and pictures Mike! Good luck to Dawn on Kodiak - she's in for a treat! I'm headed there in Nov. myself, but for deer instead. Sure wish I had a goat tag. They are beautiful animals!
I am guessing you were in Wyoming or Colorado. But what a great read. Thanks.
Bridger Mountains near Bozeman? The 8th picture down in this thread look familiar :) I had that tag in 2013
Mike thanks for the post awesome pics one cannot put a price on this trip ! best of luck with the tag
you should have brought some carrots and hand fed those goats, never though they would alloy you to get so near.
Thanks again for the kind comments on this thread. In a short 2 weeks we will be on our way to AK. It is hard to believe.
r-man I will tell wife about carrots but she has to pack em up the mountain.
Kyle not sure who looks more beat up you or the goat. LOL!
deerhaven,
Scoped myself! NEVER let your face get too close to your scope, which is easy to do when you're shooting uphill, esp. with a .300 Win. Mag!
OTOH, it was an adventure of a lifetime. It took us 7 1/2 hours to pack him back to the truck, arriving at 2:00 AM with the last two hours being in a steady rain.
I love it!
The red line is the route we took up. The yellow line is the route we took on the way down.
Basic rule of mountain hunting, which we broke on the way down:
"If you can hear the creek you're too damned low!"
After the first hour, we got into a nasty alder patch and it took us two hours to get through it. I bet we didn't cover more than 1/4 mile in those two hours.
