Twig-Chaser
09-28-2011, 10:32 PM
10-17-11
Just got him inspected... the guy aged him out at only 3-1/2 years!
He was pretty impressed with the the fast growth and how heavy it was for his age. Maybe he was a future booner???
Well, I am not much of a story teller but I'll try.....
This hunt started the day my LEH goat draw expired last fall! Last year was the first year I attempted to get a goat and after 4 trips I was unsuccessful in getting to where they were with all of the snow, but did learn some in how to locate them and where "They Should Be"
After last year I was obsessed and decided to plan a trip earlier in the year so we would not have do deal so much with the weather. We had the date and location chosen after hours and hours of research and Google earth, but we still decided to do a LEH just incase... well our group was all successful in the draw so we changed our location and studied the new area.
First day was crap weather and low cloud so could not do much glassing, ect.. next morning we went to an area that would be good, but Google earth does not show this years landslides which took out about 500 yards of the road! but we still hiked in about 3 hours on the road and glassed and weather was still a bit crappy so decided to totally change location as even if we did see something in there it would be 2 to 3 hours hiking on the road plus minimum of 6 hours to get to the goat and we were not prepared to stay on the mountain overnight (unless we had too)
Next morning we glassed for about 3 hours and not much for activity, and we were getting antsy to hike, so we chose a spot where I had seen them in the past and knew there would be a good chance...
I tell you when we got to the summit, you realize what is necessary for your pack and what can go! My legs and ass cheeks were burning! I thought hockey camps were tough!
Anyways, we glassed some bluffs and seen a fair amount of recent sign so we did some stealth walking over to the main bluffs, glassed for a while, fresher sign at our feet so we new they were up in the area we were at. We went near the bluffs and did the belly crawl to the edge and sure enough a mature goat was with-in 80 yards! Us being fairly seasoned goat rookies studied it for about 5 minutes and it had its head facing straight away down on the rocks so we could only see the tips.. it finally changed position and we got a side view and were 99% it was a good Billy, now we had to determine the length.. (thanks to some of the field judging threads on here) we got the dark of his ear which was 4-5" according to a post. Then tried to do some math but at this time he had turned away again so kind of tough, but I did know it was decent and guessed at minimum 8" so I chambered a shell to be ready and got my partner to do the same just incase... another felt like 10 minutes passed and he changed position again and he did the double take at us so we got busted! he looked directly at us and I seen the bases and did the math again and knew he was a keeper! Just as he was standing up I took the shot and I knew I hit him good as I seen the fur fly but he still stood up and started to move and I did not want him to slide down the bluffs any further so my partner shot, he still proceeded to keep walking?? so I took one more shot and then he went around the corner. I knew he was a dead goat walking so we left him for about 20 minutes (felt like 2 hours!) we went to where I shot and found a massive amount of blood so it confirmed he was going down (it’s amazing how you can second guess yourself, even know I seen the hit!) anyways followed the blood trail and sure enough he went down right at a rock shoot. So we took the long way around the bluffs to here he should have landed and found blood but NO Goat! then we thought he may have ran down here and not fallen! But searched the hill for about 10 minutes and spotted him! he rolled about 300 feet from the bottom of the bluffs!
Anyways the rest is history and here he is!
Measured out at 9-3/8" length and about 5-1/2" bases
I have hunted and shot allot of game and I would say this hunt was the most rewarding and most adrenalin I have had after a shot, my hands we shaking! or maybe those were just muscle spasms from the hike!!
We glassed another good Billy that eavening on another bowl (at about 7500 feet!) and went for it the next morning but he was no where to be found after about 12 hour hike! but we know the area for the second tag at a later date....
http://i821.photobucket.com/albums/zz138/Jamie_Gervais/Billy/P1030280.jpg
http://i821.photobucket.com/albums/zz138/Jamie_Gervais/Billy/P1030247.jpg
http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/medium/Billy_twigchaser.jpg
http://i821.photobucket.com/albums/zz138/Jamie_Gervais/Billy/P1030256.jpg
http://i821.photobucket.com/albums/zz138/Jamie_Gervais/Billy/P1030252.jpg
Just got him inspected... the guy aged him out at only 3-1/2 years!
He was pretty impressed with the the fast growth and how heavy it was for his age. Maybe he was a future booner???
Well, I am not much of a story teller but I'll try.....
This hunt started the day my LEH goat draw expired last fall! Last year was the first year I attempted to get a goat and after 4 trips I was unsuccessful in getting to where they were with all of the snow, but did learn some in how to locate them and where "They Should Be"
After last year I was obsessed and decided to plan a trip earlier in the year so we would not have do deal so much with the weather. We had the date and location chosen after hours and hours of research and Google earth, but we still decided to do a LEH just incase... well our group was all successful in the draw so we changed our location and studied the new area.
First day was crap weather and low cloud so could not do much glassing, ect.. next morning we went to an area that would be good, but Google earth does not show this years landslides which took out about 500 yards of the road! but we still hiked in about 3 hours on the road and glassed and weather was still a bit crappy so decided to totally change location as even if we did see something in there it would be 2 to 3 hours hiking on the road plus minimum of 6 hours to get to the goat and we were not prepared to stay on the mountain overnight (unless we had too)
Next morning we glassed for about 3 hours and not much for activity, and we were getting antsy to hike, so we chose a spot where I had seen them in the past and knew there would be a good chance...
I tell you when we got to the summit, you realize what is necessary for your pack and what can go! My legs and ass cheeks were burning! I thought hockey camps were tough!
Anyways, we glassed some bluffs and seen a fair amount of recent sign so we did some stealth walking over to the main bluffs, glassed for a while, fresher sign at our feet so we new they were up in the area we were at. We went near the bluffs and did the belly crawl to the edge and sure enough a mature goat was with-in 80 yards! Us being fairly seasoned goat rookies studied it for about 5 minutes and it had its head facing straight away down on the rocks so we could only see the tips.. it finally changed position and we got a side view and were 99% it was a good Billy, now we had to determine the length.. (thanks to some of the field judging threads on here) we got the dark of his ear which was 4-5" according to a post. Then tried to do some math but at this time he had turned away again so kind of tough, but I did know it was decent and guessed at minimum 8" so I chambered a shell to be ready and got my partner to do the same just incase... another felt like 10 minutes passed and he changed position again and he did the double take at us so we got busted! he looked directly at us and I seen the bases and did the math again and knew he was a keeper! Just as he was standing up I took the shot and I knew I hit him good as I seen the fur fly but he still stood up and started to move and I did not want him to slide down the bluffs any further so my partner shot, he still proceeded to keep walking?? so I took one more shot and then he went around the corner. I knew he was a dead goat walking so we left him for about 20 minutes (felt like 2 hours!) we went to where I shot and found a massive amount of blood so it confirmed he was going down (it’s amazing how you can second guess yourself, even know I seen the hit!) anyways followed the blood trail and sure enough he went down right at a rock shoot. So we took the long way around the bluffs to here he should have landed and found blood but NO Goat! then we thought he may have ran down here and not fallen! But searched the hill for about 10 minutes and spotted him! he rolled about 300 feet from the bottom of the bluffs!
Anyways the rest is history and here he is!
Measured out at 9-3/8" length and about 5-1/2" bases
I have hunted and shot allot of game and I would say this hunt was the most rewarding and most adrenalin I have had after a shot, my hands we shaking! or maybe those were just muscle spasms from the hike!!
We glassed another good Billy that eavening on another bowl (at about 7500 feet!) and went for it the next morning but he was no where to be found after about 12 hour hike! but we know the area for the second tag at a later date....
http://i821.photobucket.com/albums/zz138/Jamie_Gervais/Billy/P1030280.jpg
http://i821.photobucket.com/albums/zz138/Jamie_Gervais/Billy/P1030247.jpg
http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/medium/Billy_twigchaser.jpg
http://i821.photobucket.com/albums/zz138/Jamie_Gervais/Billy/P1030256.jpg
http://i821.photobucket.com/albums/zz138/Jamie_Gervais/Billy/P1030252.jpg