PoleX
Well-known member
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2025
- Messages
- 367
My first trip out West was a visit to my grandparents’ cabin in Creede, Colorado, when I was 11 years old.
At 18, I packed my S-10 with everything I owned and made the 24-hour drive from Ohio to Montana. The plan was to work on a ranch that summer, get settled in, and start the fall semester at Montana State. Somewhere around 15 hours into the drive, in the Dakotas, I was beginning to question my life decision that had led me there.
Then the Absarokas, Crazies, and Gallatins came into view.
I remember feeling an almost physical weight lift off my shoulders. I’ll never forget rolling down Main Street in Bozeman on a picture-perfect summer morning and stopping at the Western Cafe for breakfast. Back then, downtown was still a sleepy little place. Montana felt like home before I even really knew what home meant.
Fifteen years later, I find myself holding a tag I never expected to draw—the one I wanted more than any other. A coveted once-in-a-lifetime mountain goat tag basically in my backyard. I'm experiencing a baseline depression from the thought of not having this tag again and the hunts not even done yet....I have to pinch myself thinking of what a blessing this opportunity is.
The place they call home is like a drug I can't quite get enough of. More than any animal I've been fortunate enough to hunt, I find myself having a difficult time reasoning with the idea of taking such a cool animal out of the beautiful landscape they call home.
I know that if everything goes right, eventually I’ll have to make a decision that will bring the hunt to an end....till then I'll keep soaking it in and enjoying the experience.
Here's some video's from all the scouting thus far:
I'll try and do a post hunt write up if it all works out. Happy hunting this fall!
At 18, I packed my S-10 with everything I owned and made the 24-hour drive from Ohio to Montana. The plan was to work on a ranch that summer, get settled in, and start the fall semester at Montana State. Somewhere around 15 hours into the drive, in the Dakotas, I was beginning to question my life decision that had led me there.
Then the Absarokas, Crazies, and Gallatins came into view.
I remember feeling an almost physical weight lift off my shoulders. I’ll never forget rolling down Main Street in Bozeman on a picture-perfect summer morning and stopping at the Western Cafe for breakfast. Back then, downtown was still a sleepy little place. Montana felt like home before I even really knew what home meant.
Fifteen years later, I find myself holding a tag I never expected to draw—the one I wanted more than any other. A coveted once-in-a-lifetime mountain goat tag basically in my backyard. I'm experiencing a baseline depression from the thought of not having this tag again and the hunts not even done yet....I have to pinch myself thinking of what a blessing this opportunity is.
The place they call home is like a drug I can't quite get enough of. More than any animal I've been fortunate enough to hunt, I find myself having a difficult time reasoning with the idea of taking such a cool animal out of the beautiful landscape they call home.
I know that if everything goes right, eventually I’ll have to make a decision that will bring the hunt to an end....till then I'll keep soaking it in and enjoying the experience.
Here's some video's from all the scouting thus far:
I'll try and do a post hunt write up if it all works out. Happy hunting this fall!
