Ok Bcat,
I'll guess I'll start the ball rolling. Back
in 84, I got drawn for Mtn Goat in Wa in the
Pratt River area by North Bend. I was totally
pumped, and shot a nice long haired billy on
the 3rd day. I was fortunate to have been drawn, but didn't think I would ever draw
again. As luck would have it, I got drawn
for the last time in 99. Its now a once in
a lifetime hunt after 99. I got drawn for the
Castle Mtn. area, which is 30 miles from my
house. I scouted it out all summer, and saw
many nice animals. The season started sep 15, but I waited till the first week in Oct
so the hair would be alittle nicer. My buddy
Jack and I Started at the trail head at 5am,
and climbed up to the Cascade Crest Trail at
daylight. It was foggy, and we made the hike
to the basin above Goat lake. Around 11am, we
jumped a herd of goats on a finger ridge, and
decided to wait on top because of thick fog.
Jack decided to take a short siesta. I was
wanting to look around, so I grabbed my rifle,and went for a nature hike. About a
hour later, in dense fog, I ran into a herd
of 30 goats feeding on a graasy bench. I dropped down on my belly, and watched them
for afew minutes. The wind was at my face, and they were unaware me. I was looking for
a nice billy. I finally found a pretty good
one. I slowly got up on 1 knee, and put my
270 up. The goats suddenly started moving slowly to the cliff line. The billy was about
100 yds, and I shot him in the front shoulder.He did a hiho silver, and ran off with the herd right off the cliff. We searched for blood, but only found afew drops.The cliff was too steep to go down, so we circled around, and found him a couple
of hours later a 1/2 mile down the slope. He
had both lungs blown out. By the ring counts, he was a 7-8 year old billy. We then
snapped afew pictures, and cut him up. Then
we packed him out 8 miles to the truck. We were back at the truck at9 pm. Made for a long day, but it was a hunt I'll never forget. Pictures will be posted when I figure
out how its done.
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