Early Season Goat Hunt
The Fall hunting season is off to a great start. I drew an LEH goat tag in my usual zone this year and decided to make a quick weekend trip up to the cabin to prepare things for my upcoming moose hunt in November and see if I could bag a goat as well. I managed to do both. My brother, myself and our friend who was coming on his first hunt(completed his CORE this spring) took off from Vancouver around noon on Friday excited about what the long weekend would have in store for us.
We got to the cabin around 9pm and after a few glasses of scotch and a bit of storytelling we headed for bed. We awoke on Saturday ready to put in a few hours of work and head for the alpine. Stopping at a nice open meadow we fired off a couple of rounds to ensure everything was still sighted in properly. All was well and we continued our drive to the alpine. The zone that I put in for has some easy access and some much harder access. There are goats throughout the area and given our limited timeframe we were heading for the rocks as fast as we could.
After pitching the tents in our usual spot we set up for glassing and checked out what was moving in our basin. 30 minutes between the three of us turned up nothing, but it was the middle of the day and it was 26 celsius so this was not really surprising. My brother moved his attention to the ridge between two of the mountains and saw a single goat coming over, a further inspection with the spotting scope showed our goat to be a billy. Not too bad, one hour after stepping foot from the truck and we were planning a stalk. The goat was moving through the pass towards the mountain we were camped on. We decided that if we were to get our butts moving we could cut him off in a decent area. We made the play and hurried to a natural choke point along the ridge. Nothing to see when we got to our location and being impatient on the first hunting day in a long time we rushed things. We move towards where we had last seen the goat covering both sides of the ridge between the three of us. There was no way we could miss seeing him unless he turned tail and went back to where he had come from. Turns out we were spending too much time looking down the slopes instead of the one spot higher than us along the ridge. Our billy was bedded right at the top of the world and he was looking straight at us by the time we noticed him.
284 yards was farther than I wanted to shoot with my new .300 Win Mag Sako since I had only fired it at 100 yards so far. I decided to get out of sight and narrow the gap. I made it to 200 yards before the terrain stopped me in my tracks. At this point the billy had risen from his bed. He was completely broadside and the crosshairs were on his shoulder blade, but two steps from where he was standing was a long drop down. I have seen enough goats shot to know where a good spot to shoot is and where it isn’t. I decided to pass on the shot and the three of us watched the billy drop down the mountain and make a break for it 150 yards downhill from us. We watched him cover terrain in five minutes that had just taken us an hour to move through. We were a little disappointed, but we also realized we were standing above a beautiful alpine basin with a 360 degree view and there were far worse places to be. We did some more glassing for deer and then headed back to camp. We glassed some more at camp as the daylight faded and found three does, three fawns, and a little two point buck trailing along with one of the does. After a delicious Mountain House dinner and a couple of beers we hit the sack in anticipation of the following day.
Nothing beats sunrise in the mountains as far as I’m concerned and this morning was no exception to that rule. I was sipping a delicious cup of coffee and watching a nice four point mule deer across the basin. I was ready to make a play on him, but when he headed for bed in the biggest patch of timber on his side of the hill I changed my mind. The chances of flushing him out and getting a shot were slim to none. Instead my brother and I decided to take our friend to the top of the hill. Two hours of hiking later we were looking down some seriously steep terrain to the river below. I have often seen goat in this area, but there is no possibility of shooting one unless you carry 500 feet of rope and some serious mountain climbing equipment with you. We followed the height of land south towards an open slope that is known to hold goat. As we neared this slope we moved more and more cautiously. In the past I have seen goat everywhere along this slope so patience was key in our approach. We moved closer and closer into view when I sighted movement directly below us about 200 yards. We stopped in our tracks and had a closer look at what was indeed another billy goat. He was just getting ready to bed down when I had spotted him and as luck would have it, he was just below a five foot ledge. He had disappeared out of sight from us, but we could see everything around him. The wind was blowing straight uphill at us so as long as we didn’t stomp down the mountain like a herd of elephants we would have an easy stalk. We made it to 115 yards from the goat when we found a perfect set up spot. Packs came off as we settled down to wait for the billy to feed again.
It was only 30 minutes before the goat decided to rise and he got us a bit off guard. My brother hurried to get the camera on him as I prepared for the shot. The billy was quartered towards me when I put the crosshairs on his shoulders. We were all ready for the shot except the goat. BOOM. In my excitement I fired 2 inches higher then I had planned so instead of ploughing through the goats shoulder and on into his vitals my 180 grain TSX went smack through his spine and came out midway down the ribcage. He dropped instantly and rolled 20 yards down the slope. He came to a rest momentarily while I reloaded and put an insurance shot through him.
We made our way down to the goat and had a photo session before we got to work. We skinned and de-boned him in a little over an hour. Midway through the process another billy made his way towards us along the slope. We stopped what we were doing and watched him to see what he would do. We still had two more goat tags and it was early enough in the day to make another stalk. As it turned out goat #2 decided to head up hill and out of sight. We were happy to let him walk off as we got some nice video footage of him.
After getting my goat packed up we headed back for camp. We re-lived the days events over a few beers and goat tenderloins on the fire and went to bed. Monday saw us headed back for the big smoke unfortunately. Besides the odd weekend deer trip we won’t get much hunting in until early November when we will be chasing moose. I’m counting the days until we are back at it.
WSSBC Monarch Silver Member
WSF Summit Life Member
RMGA Life Member
The mountains are calling and I must go - John Muir
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