Our oldest drew a goat tag this year but due to prior commitments (basic training and AIT) we didn't get much scouting in. Fortunately the unit is only an hours drive from home and he has plenty of time to hunt this fall. We went out for this past weekend with the intent watching some billies, seeing how well their fur is growing in and enjoying a weekend in the mountains.View attachment IMG_1515 (1).JPG
We found plenty of goats including several billies and but my son decided that he wanted to prolong his season since it will be a while before he gets the chance to hunt goats again.
After watching this guy for a while we did try to get within bow range but he winded us at about 75 yards.
Then we found this guy:
sorry for the bad picture but I didn't really feel like getting much closer. He was about 1000 yards down the ridge from our tent and slowly working his way up the ridge feeding. My wife was at the tent (which was well above timberline so we had no way of hanging food) so we got her up on the ridge and spent about half an hour watching him turn rocks and dig up roots. Finally when he got about 300 yards away (still 800 yards from the tent) we stood up and let him know we were there, assuming he would leave the country. He stood up, looked at us and went right back to feeding. It was a little humbling how indiferent he was to three people standing up, shouting and waving at him. TO make a long story short, over the next half hour, despite a lot of hollering , rock rolling and two shots fired (one in the air, one ten feet off his nose) he preceded to feed his way to within 200 yards of camp. At that point my wife mentioned that she probably wasn't going to get a very restful night sleep under those circumstances. We all agreed, packed up camp and walked out in the dark.
We found plenty of goats including several billies and but my son decided that he wanted to prolong his season since it will be a while before he gets the chance to hunt goats again.
After watching this guy for a while we did try to get within bow range but he winded us at about 75 yards.
Then we found this guy:
sorry for the bad picture but I didn't really feel like getting much closer. He was about 1000 yards down the ridge from our tent and slowly working his way up the ridge feeding. My wife was at the tent (which was well above timberline so we had no way of hanging food) so we got her up on the ridge and spent about half an hour watching him turn rocks and dig up roots. Finally when he got about 300 yards away (still 800 yards from the tent) we stood up and let him know we were there, assuming he would leave the country. He stood up, looked at us and went right back to feeding. It was a little humbling how indiferent he was to three people standing up, shouting and waving at him. TO make a long story short, over the next half hour, despite a lot of hollering , rock rolling and two shots fired (one in the air, one ten feet off his nose) he preceded to feed his way to within 200 yards of camp. At that point my wife mentioned that she probably wasn't going to get a very restful night sleep under those circumstances. We all agreed, packed up camp and walked out in the dark.
