Re: why not one more goat story to get us through COVID... from the past
Could this have been the luckiest day ever? Quite possible. Four point mule deer virginity gone!
After initial inspections of my animal I went over to where my bothers prize fell. A quick bro hug, and more shit eatin grins, followed by a few photo’s (which I need to get better at taking) and then the work began. How do we get these much bigger deer than we are used to off the hill… well, it was steep and the road was WAY down below…. Tumble time! It was a long night, but they were dealt with.
Re: why not one more goat story to get us through COVID... from the past
We were definitely getting more comfortable and confident in what we were doing after spotting a few elk, none worthy of making a play on, by that I mean not legal… After paying more attention we actually notice many goat trails in the mountain top snow, following them up and down the mountain to many snow covered rocks that were looked at very intensely. “No goats, still no goats”. Many things played out in our minds as to why we were not seeing goats… maybe it was too early, maybe there aren’t that many goats in these ranges, maybe our buddy is full of ...”.
The last evening before our buddy was to show up and give us a hand we spotted goats. So obvious shining in the sun on the high cliffs across the valley.
Re: why not one more goat story to get us through COVID... from the past
We had a bit of excitement at the spotting of our first goats. We scoured the maps looking at the area they were in… those goats were pretty much safe from us.
Re: why not one more goat story to get us through COVID... from the past
By the time we got back to camp our buddy was already there. Crushed a few brews and discussed a plan for the morning… that plan entailed looking for elk. Having low confidence in even seeing another goat I was all for targeting elk, but the logging companies helped change our decision in the morning… smoked filled valleys from burning slash piles pretty much made glassing impossible. This put a monkey wrench in the system… now what… can’t see shit!
As a group we pour over the maps… maybe take a side valley?… that we did. It didn’t take long to clear the fog like smoke and we were able to see cuts and mountain tops again. The area looked promising, but roads were slicker than goose shit. As we came to a fork in the road we stopped to glass. High, low, middle… nothing. We were just about to hop back in the truck and keep looking when I decided to glass the mountain tops one last time…. GOAT! Within seconds there were three sets of goggles pined on newly acquired target. Change of plans boys… were goat hunting today. The bro and I being pretty much rookie anything hunters, but especially any mountain animal hunters relied heavily on what our buddies experience was. Plan formulated, gear organized… operation goat commenced.