rmyoung1
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Can I just interject to say how glad I am that a 316 goat thread finally seems poised to cross the goal line? Is the curse over? Thank you, @samuel_284Win
Montana 316 Mountain Goat - 2022 Mountain Adventure
- Thread starter Dr. samuel_284Win
- Start date
Dr. samuel_284Win
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you are welcome. Sorry I have been slow on posting recently. Elk season and personal stuff have slowed up my writing in the evenings.
rmyoung1
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Take your time. We’ve been waiting for 20 years.
Get a hold of Tessa Fowler on Facebook. She spends a lot of time in that country photographing goats and sheep. She seems to be a great person and enjoys helping hunters.
I had a goat tag last year and one thing I can say is don't expect them to be in the same place one day to the next!! They move around a lot more than I expected. I would find goats in the evenings and think I could locate them the next day or a couple of days later, only to not be able to. Also, they will use both sides of a ridge in good weather but once a good snow hits they will concentrate on a West facing side.
Didn't read the threads so hopefully you already got a goat. If not, good luck!!
Dr. samuel_284Win
Well-known member
Day 3 of Hunting, Day 6 of Trip (Sept 3)
With a game plan in place, we set out for the glassing knob, arriving just after first light. From the position that I had glassed the evening prior we could not be for sure that the group of three goats was not just further up the half-moon bowl that curves towards YNP. (The ridge line to our compass south is the boundary between YNP and FS wilderness) We worked our way through deadfall hell another 350 yards from my evening glassing spot and found a somewhat level spot to glass from and enjoy a morning cup of coffee with our personally preferred Quest or Cliff Bar. After a bit of glassing, we could make out nanny/kid pairs scattered about the north-facing slopes about 1 mile from Cutoff Mtn, which was encouraging but not what we were hoping for in such a prime spot given my conversations with others and FWP biologists. We continued to glass, tinker with gear, snack and make another cup of coffee. I got up to reposition myself about 6ft to my left to get a different glassing angle (really just burning time at this point and trying to keep myself occupied and keep my head in the game) and moved my foam butt pad to a deadfall log and sat down to glass more. Within minutes of changing my glassing position, I see the same group of goats from the evening prior working their way around the mountain back to their gravel slide, exactly the reverse path of how they fed away in the evening. We quickly packed up our gear in case there was indeed a billy. We moved the spotting scope to study the goat that I thought was a billy. After a couple of minutes of watching, I determined that I was 90% sure it was a billy but needed to get closer.
Waiting for the goats to come back to their gravel slide that I had spotted them on the previous evening.
On go the packs, trekking poles at the ready, here we go down the runoff chute to close the distance! We descended 200 ft. elevation in a matter of minutes. Many times it was a controlled ski/slide maneuver as I was jacked up to finally be making a play on a mountain goat! Once we got to the bottom of the chute we crested a small roll in the finger ridge and eased our way up to the next burm, which should be about 200 yards from the goats. We took our packs off about 15 yards from the top, ear plugs in, range finder out, and my Howa 1500 @Big Fin edition in 300 WinMag in hand. I stuffed my puffy in an FHF gear bag for a front shooting bag and had my RuggedRidge rear bipod for rear support. I eased to the top of the burm first to locate the goats and setup prone for a shot. At first, I did not see the goats as they had moved up the slope slightly from where I last spotted them just before diving off the chute. The big nanny spotted me and returned to feeding with the other two goats. I then rolled to my left about 6-8 ft. to a small piece of deadfall to set up my shooting position. I placed my FHF bag on the deadfall, which provided a perfect front rest, and then set up my rear support. Tim moved into position to my right about 10 ft. with the spotting scope to get digiscope footage of the goats and the shot. Regena moved to the tree just behind me to also film.
I ranged the group of goats at 180 yards. I dialed my elevation turret to the MOA hash for 200 yards. Through the scope on 10x power I confirmed that yes, the goat I thought was a billy from the glassing knob is indeed a billy! At this point, I had given up on trying to relocate the big billy that possessed us for the first half of this trip. Who knows, he might already be in YNP, hanging out with his other goat friends. So here I am, on day 6 of the trip, knowing that we have 1.5 days of food left and that whatever happens, we have to be making our way back to the truck probably tomorrow evening or the following morning. Did I want to make a return trip here with an ever-increasing chance of less-than-desirable weather? No, not really! Alright, here we go.
I took my time to control my breathing and I dry-fired twice as the billy stood broadside feeding with the old nanny and a sub-adult nanny. Now it is for real. Back comes the bolt and in goes a 180-grain Federal. I wait 10-15 seconds for the billy to clear the small nanny. He stops to continue feeding and turns broadside. Boom! He is still standing. Did I miss or did he just soak up that round? The goats are alert but they think a rock just explodes off the mountain on the gravel slide behind them. (Turns out that I must have missed just ~ 2inches high, most likely due to the angle and the illusion that his top line is higher than it is because of the tall hair that runs down his back, should have dialed to 150 yds to compensate for the angle, oops)
Out of habit and quality instruction at the range from Jake and Josh (shooting instructors with the Montana Master Hunter program), another round is already in the chamber and I am still locked in and steady in my prone position. The billy is now facing directly at me, a full-on frontal shot. I am comfortable and I don’t know if he is already hit, so following the direction of other goat hunters, Boom and Smack! Down goes the billy! He rolls about 15 yards down the slope, gives a couple of kicks, and rolls another 15 yards into a small evergreen, dead. I stay on him just in case he decides to get up but he was probably already dead by the time he rolled into the tree. Let's go!!!!! After grinding it out, having a big billy give us the slip, and contending with some serious terrain my first mountain goat is down. Celebration ensues and high-fives are given. This is a really special moment.
A couple of minutes after the shot, getting my things back in order and soaking in the moment that my first goat is less than 200 yards away.
We get our packs and make our way down off the other side of the burm and up the gravel slide to the little patch of trees he rolled into. We moved him down the slope about 25 yards to a nice boulder for the required pictures and to notch my tag. A patch of 10 ft. tall evergreens paired with the afternoon shade of the mountain made a workable spot to carry out the full-body skinning process and quartering. We had a gentle afternoon breeze that quickly cooled the meat and hides. While letting the hide continue to cool in the shade we made short work of de-boning all quarters to lessen the load for the pack out. We strapped on the quarters and loaded up the hide into our packs and slowly picked our way back through deadfall hell. We rigged up some paracord to hang all the game bags from over Lost Creek to keep everything cool for the night.
Time to celebrate some. The remaining airplane bottles of bourbon are opened up after consuming one of the highest-calorie Peak Refuel meals after splitting some Mountain House lasagna as an appetizer. We went to bed with full bellies and full hearts.
With a game plan in place, we set out for the glassing knob, arriving just after first light. From the position that I had glassed the evening prior we could not be for sure that the group of three goats was not just further up the half-moon bowl that curves towards YNP. (The ridge line to our compass south is the boundary between YNP and FS wilderness) We worked our way through deadfall hell another 350 yards from my evening glassing spot and found a somewhat level spot to glass from and enjoy a morning cup of coffee with our personally preferred Quest or Cliff Bar. After a bit of glassing, we could make out nanny/kid pairs scattered about the north-facing slopes about 1 mile from Cutoff Mtn, which was encouraging but not what we were hoping for in such a prime spot given my conversations with others and FWP biologists. We continued to glass, tinker with gear, snack and make another cup of coffee. I got up to reposition myself about 6ft to my left to get a different glassing angle (really just burning time at this point and trying to keep myself occupied and keep my head in the game) and moved my foam butt pad to a deadfall log and sat down to glass more. Within minutes of changing my glassing position, I see the same group of goats from the evening prior working their way around the mountain back to their gravel slide, exactly the reverse path of how they fed away in the evening. We quickly packed up our gear in case there was indeed a billy. We moved the spotting scope to study the goat that I thought was a billy. After a couple of minutes of watching, I determined that I was 90% sure it was a billy but needed to get closer.
Waiting for the goats to come back to their gravel slide that I had spotted them on the previous evening.
On go the packs, trekking poles at the ready, here we go down the runoff chute to close the distance! We descended 200 ft. elevation in a matter of minutes. Many times it was a controlled ski/slide maneuver as I was jacked up to finally be making a play on a mountain goat! Once we got to the bottom of the chute we crested a small roll in the finger ridge and eased our way up to the next burm, which should be about 200 yards from the goats. We took our packs off about 15 yards from the top, ear plugs in, range finder out, and my Howa 1500 @Big Fin edition in 300 WinMag in hand. I stuffed my puffy in an FHF gear bag for a front shooting bag and had my RuggedRidge rear bipod for rear support. I eased to the top of the burm first to locate the goats and setup prone for a shot. At first, I did not see the goats as they had moved up the slope slightly from where I last spotted them just before diving off the chute. The big nanny spotted me and returned to feeding with the other two goats. I then rolled to my left about 6-8 ft. to a small piece of deadfall to set up my shooting position. I placed my FHF bag on the deadfall, which provided a perfect front rest, and then set up my rear support. Tim moved into position to my right about 10 ft. with the spotting scope to get digiscope footage of the goats and the shot. Regena moved to the tree just behind me to also film.
I ranged the group of goats at 180 yards. I dialed my elevation turret to the MOA hash for 200 yards. Through the scope on 10x power I confirmed that yes, the goat I thought was a billy from the glassing knob is indeed a billy! At this point, I had given up on trying to relocate the big billy that possessed us for the first half of this trip. Who knows, he might already be in YNP, hanging out with his other goat friends. So here I am, on day 6 of the trip, knowing that we have 1.5 days of food left and that whatever happens, we have to be making our way back to the truck probably tomorrow evening or the following morning. Did I want to make a return trip here with an ever-increasing chance of less-than-desirable weather? No, not really! Alright, here we go.
I took my time to control my breathing and I dry-fired twice as the billy stood broadside feeding with the old nanny and a sub-adult nanny. Now it is for real. Back comes the bolt and in goes a 180-grain Federal. I wait 10-15 seconds for the billy to clear the small nanny. He stops to continue feeding and turns broadside. Boom! He is still standing. Did I miss or did he just soak up that round? The goats are alert but they think a rock just explodes off the mountain on the gravel slide behind them. (Turns out that I must have missed just ~ 2inches high, most likely due to the angle and the illusion that his top line is higher than it is because of the tall hair that runs down his back, should have dialed to 150 yds to compensate for the angle, oops)
Out of habit and quality instruction at the range from Jake and Josh (shooting instructors with the Montana Master Hunter program), another round is already in the chamber and I am still locked in and steady in my prone position. The billy is now facing directly at me, a full-on frontal shot. I am comfortable and I don’t know if he is already hit, so following the direction of other goat hunters, Boom and Smack! Down goes the billy! He rolls about 15 yards down the slope, gives a couple of kicks, and rolls another 15 yards into a small evergreen, dead. I stay on him just in case he decides to get up but he was probably already dead by the time he rolled into the tree. Let's go!!!!! After grinding it out, having a big billy give us the slip, and contending with some serious terrain my first mountain goat is down. Celebration ensues and high-fives are given. This is a really special moment.
A couple of minutes after the shot, getting my things back in order and soaking in the moment that my first goat is less than 200 yards away.
We get our packs and make our way down off the other side of the burm and up the gravel slide to the little patch of trees he rolled into. We moved him down the slope about 25 yards to a nice boulder for the required pictures and to notch my tag. A patch of 10 ft. tall evergreens paired with the afternoon shade of the mountain made a workable spot to carry out the full-body skinning process and quartering. We had a gentle afternoon breeze that quickly cooled the meat and hides. While letting the hide continue to cool in the shade we made short work of de-boning all quarters to lessen the load for the pack out. We strapped on the quarters and loaded up the hide into our packs and slowly picked our way back through deadfall hell. We rigged up some paracord to hang all the game bags from over Lost Creek to keep everything cool for the night.
Time to celebrate some. The remaining airplane bottles of bourbon are opened up after consuming one of the highest-calorie Peak Refuel meals after splitting some Mountain House lasagna as an appetizer. We went to bed with full bellies and full hearts.
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CPAjeff
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Congrats on the great goat - quite the adventure!! Thanks for sharing!
Bluffgruff
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Story well told! Congrats on the goat!
tystash
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Congrats on a great hunt!
BigHornRam
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Congrats on your goat! Getting to do a hunt like that with your parents is pretty neat. "Deadfall hell" is a great description for much of that country.
Dr. samuel_284Win
Well-known member
Day 7 of Trip, The Packout (Sept 4)
We started our day at 5 am to break down camp, retrieve the meat and hide from our paracord system over Lost Creek, load up the game bags, and get somewhat up the drainage before the sun started to warm everything up. Even though we didn’t have a long trek to get past all the deadfall, damn it sure was a mental game of embracing the suck for all of us, especially with a goat enjoying a scenic ride in the pack. We picked our way up one of the finger ridges (gaining about 600 to 800 ft. of elevation from our campsite) to the head of Lost Creek drainage. When we got to the ridge we ran into a fellow tag holder. We spoke for about 10 minutes and then went our separate ways. We took a break before navigating the 1000-yard “ridge of death” goat trail back to Wolverine Peak saddle and the hunter's trail.
After learning to stick exactly to the goat trail on the ridge from our pack-in to Lost Creek our pack-out was much easier than expected but still sketchy. My OnX tracker said we navigated the ridge line at about 0.5 mph, which made sense as there were sections we sat on our butt and used our hands and feet to crawl across the scary parts. Ahhh, at last, the Wolverine Peak saddle! The last difficult thing to do is descend about 600 ft. of elevation down the primitive hunter's trail to Wolverine Pass (which FYI is filled with ultra crap rock and would be borderline dangerous to walk if wet or snow was present). We make it back down to our gear cache and take a final pack-off break to filter some water and eat a snack before hiking the final miles to the trucks. Crossing the final creek about 50 yards from the trucks after living in the wilderness for a whole week and coming back with a goat on our backs was one of the most satisfying things I have done yet.
After dealing with meat bags and the hide, jump-starting a truck, and changing into fresh clothes we opened up a 4/5ths pint bottle of House of Lords blended scotch that was bottled in the late 1960s that a friend had given me this spring, which I saved as the killing bottle for this trip. We all took big swigs straight out of the bottle, then promptly realized we hadn’t eaten much that day as the whiskey went straight to our heads.
We drove down Daisy pass road and went straight to the Soda Butte creek day-use area, fired up the portable propane grill, slapped on some burgers, and cracked a Rainer. We all ate 3 cheeseburgers a piece and the first beer didn’t last long. After relaxing for a bit, we got on the road and drove the Chief Joseph Hwy over the mountain to get us back to Montana. The next day we relaxed near a feeder stream that dumps into the Gallatin with our camp chairs in the water, smoked cigars, drank some red ale, and enjoyed more cheeseburgers. What a wonderful way to rest the body and finish off my first mountain goat trip.
Thank you to @LopeHunter @EYJONAS! @Gerald Martin for sharing information and things to consider when hunting goats. Thank you to fellow HT members for following this story. Hopefully, I have broken the 316 goat story curse for those of you that have been deprived of 316 stories in the past. I look forward to my next goat hunt and the opportunities I get to help others fill such a special tag.
“Never lose the ridgeline” – Tim Koeshall
We started our day at 5 am to break down camp, retrieve the meat and hide from our paracord system over Lost Creek, load up the game bags, and get somewhat up the drainage before the sun started to warm everything up. Even though we didn’t have a long trek to get past all the deadfall, damn it sure was a mental game of embracing the suck for all of us, especially with a goat enjoying a scenic ride in the pack. We picked our way up one of the finger ridges (gaining about 600 to 800 ft. of elevation from our campsite) to the head of Lost Creek drainage. When we got to the ridge we ran into a fellow tag holder. We spoke for about 10 minutes and then went our separate ways. We took a break before navigating the 1000-yard “ridge of death” goat trail back to Wolverine Peak saddle and the hunter's trail.
After learning to stick exactly to the goat trail on the ridge from our pack-in to Lost Creek our pack-out was much easier than expected but still sketchy. My OnX tracker said we navigated the ridge line at about 0.5 mph, which made sense as there were sections we sat on our butt and used our hands and feet to crawl across the scary parts. Ahhh, at last, the Wolverine Peak saddle! The last difficult thing to do is descend about 600 ft. of elevation down the primitive hunter's trail to Wolverine Pass (which FYI is filled with ultra crap rock and would be borderline dangerous to walk if wet or snow was present). We make it back down to our gear cache and take a final pack-off break to filter some water and eat a snack before hiking the final miles to the trucks. Crossing the final creek about 50 yards from the trucks after living in the wilderness for a whole week and coming back with a goat on our backs was one of the most satisfying things I have done yet.
After dealing with meat bags and the hide, jump-starting a truck, and changing into fresh clothes we opened up a 4/5ths pint bottle of House of Lords blended scotch that was bottled in the late 1960s that a friend had given me this spring, which I saved as the killing bottle for this trip. We all took big swigs straight out of the bottle, then promptly realized we hadn’t eaten much that day as the whiskey went straight to our heads.
We drove down Daisy pass road and went straight to the Soda Butte creek day-use area, fired up the portable propane grill, slapped on some burgers, and cracked a Rainer. We all ate 3 cheeseburgers a piece and the first beer didn’t last long. After relaxing for a bit, we got on the road and drove the Chief Joseph Hwy over the mountain to get us back to Montana. The next day we relaxed near a feeder stream that dumps into the Gallatin with our camp chairs in the water, smoked cigars, drank some red ale, and enjoyed more cheeseburgers. What a wonderful way to rest the body and finish off my first mountain goat trip.
Thank you to @LopeHunter @EYJONAS! @Gerald Martin for sharing information and things to consider when hunting goats. Thank you to fellow HT members for following this story. Hopefully, I have broken the 316 goat story curse for those of you that have been deprived of 316 stories in the past. I look forward to my next goat hunt and the opportunities I get to help others fill such a special tag.
“Never lose the ridgeline” – Tim Koeshall
Gerald Martin
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Congratulations on your Billy! That looked like a great hunt!
PaulRevere
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Hellllll yeah.
Firehead117
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Congrats! Loved following along. Thanks for sharing
Sask hunter
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Congrats!
Dr. samuel_284Win
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Thank you all for following along. I sure hope I can repay the favor to another 316er or anyone else that needs a sufferfest buddy for a MT goat tag
BradA
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This is so awesome! Congratulations! This is the unit I apply for and hope to draw one day.
WNC2500
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@samuel_284Win Thanks for sharing the story and the pictures. I thoroughly enjoyed following along
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