Our Reg 4 Goat/Elk Trip

[Ron.C]

My buddy Duckbuster drew a goat tag in the area we hunt so we went out this year with the intention of hunting some remote area. The spring floods relocated some bridges and forced us to adjust our plans. We backpacked into an area we'd looked at. High hopes at first but the weather quickly messed with out plans. http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/spikecamp.jpg

http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/overnight_snow.jpg

http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/basecamp.jpg We did manage to spot some goats before the weather really hit us and got into shooting range of a billy, unfortunately he was in an un-accessible position like this Nanny and kid
http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/nanny_and_kid1.jpg

[Ron.C]

We had a good time trying to get close but quickly learned the country is steep and dangerous and you need to watch where you walk http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/goat_stalk.jpg

We kept at it, but the weather was too much and spotting goats was impossible. So we headed back to basecamp and focussed on elk. We did get within 7 good bulls and I had my chance, but lets say I screwed it up royally. But we kept at it. At one point we had a beauty clean 5x5 bull 200 yards out and he had a monster Mule deer buck feeding about 4o yards past him. But we'd seen a big 6pt with this 5 point and never gave the big deer a second though in fear of screwing it up on the big bull. But the way it turned out, we never got him either. The day was one I'll never forget though. When the thermals started to ruin our position, we used a combination of cow calls and my Elk decoy "AKA SLUT COW" as we now call her, to sneak to the opposite side of the slide while in full view of the big bulls cows. It was allot of fun that spanned several hours and taught us allot about what we can and cannot get away with. Anyway, a couple more picshttp://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/incomming_weather.jpg

http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/another_goat_stalk.jpg

http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/Break_in_the_weather.jpg

[The Hermit]

Great looking forward to the rest of the thread!!

[Ron.C]

We kept hunting hard and saw good numbers of elk, and had several bugling. Saw lots of goats and spotted a couple absolute trophy Billy's on the last day. But the weather was such that we were not left with enough daylight to give it a final go. Also saw a couple decent size family groups that were entertaining to watch
http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/more_goats.jpg
We ended the hunt by filling our Whitetail tags with some good eats . We managed to get three does and lucked into a decent little buck.
http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/doe5.jpg

http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/last_minute_buck.jpg

nice Find!!!!

http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/cool_find.jpg

[HarryToolips]

Wicked pics man way to go on the deer, better than nothin!

["No Choke"Lord Walsingham]

By the looks of things, an excellent time was had!

Congratulations on those wonderful Whitetails. Nothing wrong in the least with leaving a couple or few tags unfilled. Personally, I would feel poorly about the lack of getting a Goat here where I live as of this writing. Of course, this is mostly to do with the fact that a Goat tag here is a once in a lifetime opportunity (literaly. If a person draws Goat once, they are ineligible in all future draws).

[MOUNTAIN MAN - TOYOTA/ATV]

Beautiful country and nice photos.

Good work on the whitetail deer.

[ydouask]

Good call on your not shooting a Billy you couldn't get to. Liked your pictures too !:)

[warnniklz]

pretty knarly looking country there... good job all the way around. Sucks you didn't get your goat, but that's the way she goes sometimes

[Ron.C]

Good call on your not shooting a Billy you couldn't get to. Liked your pictures too !:)

Was not even an option for us. The Billy was within my buddy's shooting range where we spotted him. And he is a good enough shot to have done it but we hadn't been up that particular slide so we had no idea what the odds were of getting in to where he was. As we got higher and closer we discovered there was never any real chance of us getting to him. But we had to try to get closer to confirm that. We did find a couple new spots to focus on next fall and knowing what we know no, can plan better routes up to the goats. One area will require a mtn spike out as it took us hours to climb to the goats. Hopefully weather will permit more next time ;)

[ElliotMoose]

Beautiful country and great pictures! Thanks for sharing

[markt308]

Very nice photos. Nicely done

[Duck Buster]

This trip was absolutely awesome. Although not all tags were filled I would not change any of the trip if I was able do it again tomorrow. We learned some good lessons, some hard lessons, and had an absolute hoot of a time climbing mountains and exhausting ourselves. We managed to get into every species that we came to hunt and at least glassed trophy caliber animals of each type, Elk, Goats, Mule Deer, White tails, and even a few that we were not hunting with the Grizzly bears, black bears, and wolves. Everyday we were into some sort of game and although there were a few surprise sightings our planed animals of the day were the ones that we were able to find and get in close to. The weather did us no favors through the trip but you can't change that, we were not even home from this trip and the plans are already started for next years adventure.......