Caribou Gear

BC Mountain Goat - Semi Live Hunt

It’s 2:25am. I’m awake. I don’t want to be, but I am. I have a really regular schedule at home and my body isn’t enjoying the time difference, lol. Anyway, I’ll work it out.

My first day was pretty great. My guide (Chad) and I started the day by seeing a pretty decent black bear while driving. It was smoky out so it limited our options a little bit. There is an area that Chad always likes to go first day because he usually sees goats. We parked the truck and began glassing and Chad immediately picked up a goat. It was all the way up in the stratosphere on the side of an incredibly sheer cliff. It was unhuntable. It looked like it was probably a pretty good Billy but in that location there was just no option to hunt him. It was still great to see a goat so quickly. After spending about 30 to 45 minutes glassing that area Chad said he wanted to hike into an area that has been good over the years. We drove a little ways parked the truck and hiked about 3 miles back into a bowl that wasn’t very smoky and allowed us to glass. We sat down for lunch and settled in for the afternoon. After about 90 minutes Chad picked up another goat bedded high up on a mountain side. We both agreed this was not a shooter goat (later determined it was a nanny)and it was also incredibly high once again. About an hour after this I picked up another goat on the other side of the bowl. This turned into 2 goats and then 4 goats. One of these goats was a small Billy, but also not something I was interested in going after. They were in an unhuntable location as well. As the day wore on that group of goats fed and worked their way down pretty close to an area that could be hunted but there was not a shooter Billy in that group.

Around 5:30 after 5 1/2 hours of glassing the bowl we decided to work our way out back to the truck glassing the different avalanche chutes as we went. The goal was to get back to the truck and then head back to the giant face where we had seen what we felt like was a good Billy that morning. We did not see anything on the way out, but when we got back to the big face we found that goat again. He had dropped down 1000 to 1500 feet and was in a lot lot better location. We watched him go over the backside of the ridge. We were watching him from a little over a mile away, but he was definitely the best goat we’d seen thus far. Our plan is to go in this morning and try to find him and see how good he is. If he’s a shooter goat we’re gonna try to kill him, if not will hunt another bowl that is in the area he went towards.

It looks like there’s some bad weather coming in later today and tomorrow. If I don’t kill a goat today our plan is after that weather passes to backpack into some deeper areas to spend a few days in there looking for a good Billy.

We saw 6 goats total. Watching goats all afternoon was really awesome. They are so cool. It also helped me get a lot better grasp on what I was looking for and the characteristics of Billies and Nannies. It was a great first day.
 

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Yesterday was another great day. We saw 14 goats. A black bear and a grizzly. The grizzly was really awesome to see. Digging up marmots and just doing big bear things. He was XL. I’d never seen a grizzly before so this was definitely a highlight.

We weren’t able to find the big billy that was in that area the evening before. We hiked a ways up to a big bowl. We did find 2 smaller billies and a bunch of nannies and kids. I could have killed either of the billies, but I decided to pass on both of them. While up on top we had a nanny and a kid walk up to about 80 yard. She couldn’t figure out what we were. That was a really cool experience and the kid was super cute.

The weather is supposed to get poor today so we are just glassing some areas close to roads. Tomorrow the plan is to hike into a deeper area over a couple ridges and camp up on top. Some big billies have come out of this area in the past. It also has some potential for a nice muley.

I took some great pictures, but I can’t upload them because Verizon doesn’t always cooperate as well up here.
 

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BC mountain goat is bucket list stuff. Looking forward to hearing the rest.
 
Thursday we hiked up into some brutal country gaining over 2500’ of elevation in about 2 miles. The hike in took 4.5 hours. The majority of that was straight up a grown up avalanche chute. That night we saw 10 goats (one big billy), 5 deer, a couple black bears and a big grizzly. There was grizzly sign absolutely everywhere! One of the bucks was a decent 4x4, but I decided to pass in hopes of finding a bigger buck or going after one of the goats. All the goats were in an unhuntable location that night and we didn’t have enough time left to do anything but glass before
getting some sleep. Friday was not enjoyable. We were fogged in all day and it was rainy and windy. We got a one hour break in the fog around 1pm. We actually found a group of goats with a nice billy and we were in a shooting location. We thought the goats would come up over the edge of the ridge and I was going to shoot the billy, but instead they went off the steep edge. We attempted to follow but the fog reappeared and killed that plan. Friday night the wind blew hard and a thunder storm with very hard rain came through. That was a wild experience camping on top of the mountain that night. On Saturday morning the weather was nice, but the goats were no where to be found. Around 9am Chad spotted a big a buck with a few other bucks (including the smaller 4x4). I hadn’t gotten my spotter set up yet and I asked him if he was a shooter. He said “I think one side has 6 points!” I replied with “WHAT?!?!” The buck bedded down in a timber patch before I could shoot. We sat and waited and finally after 4 hours he got up and offered me a shot. I hammered him at 470yds. I shot him 2 more times at 495yds. All 3 shots were kill shots and exactly where I wanted them, but he was still standing so I kept shooting. He’s a great buck with matching double forks. He had a massive body that we guesstimated at 350lbs live weight.

Today was the slowest day yet. I still have 3 days left to get my goat.

Service out here is tough to upload pics. I’ll try to upload some more in the morning when we drive through town otw to hunt.


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