Thanks for the nice words guys. Bigmoosie - I saw 4 nice bucks one morning just above treeline. Two were brutes. That's the only time I saw them, and then just saw smaller ones here and there.
Here's the story of the hunt. The tag is actually a rifle tag, but I always dreamed of getting a goat with my bow so I brought it along for this first trip. It was tough!! Very tough - the goats were up high in the steep, loose rocky slopes. I saw a bunch of nannies and kids on the first few days, and made a few unsuccessful stalks on them. I was really hoping to get a crack at a big billy I scouted up there in the summer, but I thought if I could get a clean shot at a nice nanny with my bow I might take it.
On the third day, I spotted the big billy and another nice billy. I put in a very hard 4-hour stalk on them. I climbed up high and got to an elevation above them, and then worked my way towards them. The rock was so loose in places, it was hard to walk, much less try to be quiet. I kept taking a peak now and then, and the goats stayed in pretty much the same spot. I had closed the distance to around 150 yards when the clouds started to turn dark behind me. The winds completely switched, and the goats were up and out of there just like that. The thunder started to rumble, so I had to scramble to get lower and into some cover.
After the storm passed, I was out again and spotted a lone goat working its way south just below the ridgeline. I climbed up to the top of the ridge well in front of him, and started working back to try to intercept him. I got myself in a tought spot though, the ridge turned into nearly a knifepoint. It was a 20 ft drop off on one side, and very steep and loose on the other. After trying to find some way through and scaring myself, I decided to backtrack and drop lower in elevation to get around that mess. The goat saw me when I crossed an exposed area. I was about 300 yards away and he just stared at me for about a minute, then turned and headed out of view. I did my best to scramble over there quickly, but he had completely vanished. I spent the rest of that afternoon/evening glassing and didn't see a thing. I was exhausted that night.
The next morning started out the same, no goats. After an hour of glassing, I saw the two billies come up over a ridge. After watching them for a while to see what they were going to do, a bunch of nannies and kids came over the same ridge several hundred yards away. They all stared down the ridge in my general direction for about an hour. The nannies and kids decided it was all clear, and started to traverse across the face of the ridge. The billies started heading down towards the group, which was great because I was pretty sure I knew where they were headed. About two hours later I was in position to try and cut them off. The whole group dipped out of view about 100 yards away, and I made one last quick change of position. I was glad I did, because the wind would have been wrong if I hadn't moved. I spent the next 45 minutes kneeling on the rocks with my legs going numb. I could hear the goats getting closer, but couldn't see them. Then the nannies started filing past. My mind was racing, and I was thinking what if the billies moved off elsewhere? Should I take a shot at the biggest nanny? I decided to hold out, and after what seemed like forever, one of the billies came into view. It was the smaller of the two, and he walked right by at about 30 yards, and was starting to move off to where I wouldn't have a shot. He stopped and looked the other way. I decided it was too perfect and I shouldn't pass up this opportunity because I didn't know if the bigger billy would even offer a shot. I drew, put my 30 yard pin on him and released. The arrow flashed right through him and clanked off the rocks behind him. He actually jumped and stared at where the arrow hit. My shot was a little further back than I had hoped, so I knocked another arrow but couldn't shoot because he was facing away. He walked just over a ridge out of view. After waiting about 5 minutes, I looked up to see what happened. The goat was bedded, but his head was still up. I quickly drew to try and get another shot off when the entire group bolted, including my goat. I thought I was in trouble, I had read stories about how touch goats were. They all started running downhill, and I dropped into a ravine next to them and took off running. All the goats had come out of their ravine and headed up the face of the peak. My goat wasn't in the group, so I snuck over the rise and he was directly across from me, walking up a different route than the other goats. I quickly closed about 20 yards of distance, guessed he was about 45 yards away, quartering away, and took another shot. This one was right on the money. Right behind his front leg. It dropped him and he rolled/slide down about 20 yards and it was over.
I couldn't believe it, I had just taken a nice mountain goat with my bow. Tried getting a few pictures by myself, and then started the work of getting him out of there. Took me the rest of the day to get him back to camp. Weather was getting worse, starting to snow more consistently. The next morning the peaks had a nice coating of snow on them. I spent that whole day getting my goat the rest of the way off the mountain, and packed out my camp the day after that. I ended up messing up my back a bit under the weight. It sounds like I slightly compressed some vertebra and tweaked some nerves in my back. The skin on my right leg is numb from my hip down to just past my knee. The doc said it should go away, and I sure hope so because I still have my ram hunt coming up in 2.5 weeks.
Took some measurements on the horns, and the longest horn was 8 3/4 and the other was 8 5/8. Both were 5 inch bases. So that's the story, sorry it's a bit long, I didn't think I would have that much to write. Guess I'm still just excited.
Pointer
