Well I feel like a bit of a goof posting this story but I always appreciate everyone sharing their stories so I will share mine...it's also an nice journal entry for me so I can look back on this hunt.
Why do I feel like a goof? Well the few huntingbc goat stories shared from this season have been backcountry epics with a huge amount of effort. My hunt did not feel like that. Thanks to my hunting partner, an LEH draw and some pre-work my hunt ended up being more straightforward than most.
I've been hunting for 3 full seasons now, and I have always seen myself as a 'meat hunter' and I guess that helped me rationalize killing an animal. This goat hunt made it clear to me that I love the challenge of the hunt. Obviously we all like the full freezer after a hunt, but one situation I found myself in this November definitely opened my eyes to what I really love about hunting.
The LEH:
I screwed up the entire application process from the start and in the end it's the only reason I got a goat. I applied for the wrong zone. My old hunting partner is a jaded LEH applier and figures that draw is rigged and he has no hope of drawing anything so he'll apply for hunts with the highest odds for animals that most don't want to chase or eat. That was my intro to the LEH so I too applied for turkey in 2019 and won the draw but I really didn't want to run around in the snow to chase a turkey, but hey 'I won the draw'. This 2020 draw, I put in for goat because the odds were good, but I think deep down I wanted to have the option to hunt a goat. Well the draw was made and I won. Looked at the map and realized I had screwed up on the location...dumbass. I decided I wasn't going to hunt it because it was in the middle of nowhere and I didn't know the spot. I was more focused on elk.
Fast Forward to September:
My old hunting partner connected me with a younger guy from his work. Randomly we both shared the same hunting spot so it was the perfect neutral ground to go hunt together. We had one previous hell hike/scouting mission together to see if we could hunt together and it worked out great. We went into our spot and killed a big ol' bull. (I'll likely share that story too at some point). During the pack out I brought up my LEH win and that I had no plan to hunt it because I didn't know the area and I didn't want to interrupt my elk hunting. ... he informed me that he never hunts goats in September and that he and his family are hardcore goat hunters.
At this point I feel obligated to hunt the goat because I applied for the LEH and have now found out that people really like hunting goats, which was news to me. I felt like a dick for applying with really no intention to hunt the animal and I won't ever be doing that again.
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