Last week my good friend and me took a whole week off of work to go hunting. We decided earlier in the year to try for mountain goats in 7-05 and maybe roll in a mule deer hunt at the same time. Headed out of town on Sept. 13 for our destination. We got there late morning and geared up to go. The first spot we picked out to try was a absolute gonger. THICK THICK alder almost ate us. We made it about halfway up the mountain before it was time for camp setup. Setup camp, ate dinner and looked forward to the next day.
The next morning i was awoken to the sound of something touching our pack frames outside the tent as we had covered them in poly to keep the frost off. It sounded like something licking the plastic. I made it out in time to see fresh deer tracks and to hear the sound of a bouncing deer leaving the country. At least we know there was game around now. Our attempt to climb the mountain ended up failing that day as we reached cliffs and timber we did not see in previous scouts, so we headed back for the truck to spot #2.
We poked our nose into our next spot and actually bumped into an old university friend of mine coming down the mountain with a nice little 4x4 muley in his truck that he took in the alpine earlier that day. We chatted a bit and headed on. We decided to wait until the next morning to ascend the mountain as it was almost dark. The next day we started our ascent up this sweet looking area.
We made the ridge and set up camp, then we headed up the mountain for some glassing.
No goats so far, but some amazing country anyways. That evening we decided to sit above a nice looking basin in the hopes of seeing some deer. On the way to our sitting spot I jumped a medium sized VERY blonde grizz at about twenty feet who just stared at me and then disappeared before i could grab the ole camera. Sitting above the basin that evening we were trested to a show by a big grizz chasing marmots for dinner. We saw him dig one out actually, which was quite impressive. I got a few shots of him through my binoculars with my camera. Kinda junky quality but he was probably about 800 yards away when i took these.
The next couple of days were fairly uneventful. Saw the same bear the next day in the next basin, but that was about all. No goats to be found it would seem. Only taking pictures of hunting partners on ridges.
After a few days we decided to completely relocate to another part of 7-05 to try anew. Poking up a few roads unfamiliar to the both of us we bump into a nice wolf that hung around long enough for me to get a bead on and drop. I have been looking for a wolf for many years and finally have had success. The first animal with my new rifle couldn't have been much sweeter.
We roughly guessed her to way just over a hundred pounds and she was completely alone.
The last couple of days produced no goats and only a few does and a lot of black bears. The very final day found us wasting a few hours right before lunch and heading home when we bumped into a 2 point whitetail buck. My first impression was that he had a stick hanging from his head, but it turned out that he actually looked like something damaged his one antler and it was going straight down compared to the other side. The new Browning had its second animal as i always could use a meat deer. The strange part was the antler was still movable as it was healing, something must have hit him or something. Craziest thing i have seen in a while.
If you look in the second picture you can see that the top of his skull is actually pushed over. He couldn't have felt good at all.
Then about twenty minutes after catching up to my whitetail we bumped into a spiker muley that my partner took as he was looking for some freezer filler as well. Quite the finish to a marathon trip. We put a lot of miles on our boots and saw tons of amazing country. New leads will have me looking for these elsuive goats next year. And to new mule deer spots as well.
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