Ben Nicholson
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Great info. I’m still waiting to see if any of my buddies want, or are able to go.
Who has done a diy mountain goat hunt in the lower 48?
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I am not very smart. Two solo goat hunts and they are a couple of my most memorable. Embrace the suck.
Gerald Martin
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I’ve been privileged to be part of ten goat hunts in MT. None of them would have been suitable solo.
I second the idea of prioritizing good weather over November hair. Anytime after the middle of September has Montana billys with really good hair. November hair is awesome but snow and ice in cliffy country isn’t my idea of a good time.
This 8 1/2 year old billy was killed on Sept 17
Gerald Martin
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I am not very smart. Two solo goat hunts and they are a couple of my most memorable. Embrace the suck.
Ha! @mtmiller was typing at the same time as I.
If you’re gonna be stupid you better be tough!
One other great thing about having partners is one can carry something for when it’s an appropriate time to celebrate.
Gerald Martin
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I enjoyed reading this book and learning about goats and their behavior. I wish I had read it before I drew my first goat tag. It definitely increased my appreciation for mountain goats after reading it.
Also, please be careful to learn the difference between nannies and billies and don’t shoot a nanny. Shooting a nanny had a lot more impact on populations than shooting a doe deer or cow elk does.
Look for a goat with a “horse face”.
If it’s cute, don’t shoot…
It’s easier to climb up a mountain than it is to climb back down…
I hope you have a great time with your tag. Goats and goat country are spectacular.
Also, please be careful to learn the difference between nannies and billies and don’t shoot a nanny. Shooting a nanny had a lot more impact on populations than shooting a doe deer or cow elk does.
Look for a goat with a “horse face”.
If it’s cute, don’t shoot…
It’s easier to climb up a mountain than it is to climb back down…
I hope you have a great time with your tag. Goats and goat country are spectacular.
Salmonchaser
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Ben I’ve been talking to a couple of folks over here who are completely divided on which unit you should hunt. Odds on are Hells Canyon or the elk horns. Friend of mine says you can see them from her house in Enterprise. Biggest problem with both units is snow later in the season. Figure after November 1 you could be in a pickle getting close.
Rifle Deer season opens early October, Rifle elk early November. Most likely those guys would be wiling to share any information they have.
The hells canyon hunts will certainly test your fitness. Quite a few years ago my youngest brother finished 5th in the NCAA cross country championship. We were sitting on a ridge some distance below the summit hunting elk. He said I’m in better shape than 99.9% of the people in the world. Hunting here is stupid. We were both packing elk that day. Get ready!
I’m still working on getting some recent intel from Bio’s who work the area.
Rifle Deer season opens early October, Rifle elk early November. Most likely those guys would be wiling to share any information they have.
The hells canyon hunts will certainly test your fitness. Quite a few years ago my youngest brother finished 5th in the NCAA cross country championship. We were sitting on a ridge some distance below the summit hunting elk. He said I’m in better shape than 99.9% of the people in the world. Hunting here is stupid. We were both packing elk that day. Get ready!
I’m still working on getting some recent intel from Bio’s who work the area.
Salmonchaser
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Hat point, high point in Hells Canyon is 7K, unfortunately it drops 5000 in feet in a little over a mile.
The elkhorns as well as the Wallowa mountain hunts top out at about 9k. Altitude sickness should not be too big a deal. Depending on when you come out and how lucky I am with my hunt draws, I’ll come be a set of eyes for you. Besides if you elect Hells Canyon or the Wallowas you’ll drive right by the house.
The elkhorns as well as the Wallowa mountain hunts top out at about 9k. Altitude sickness should not be too big a deal. Depending on when you come out and how lucky I am with my hunt draws, I’ll come be a set of eyes for you. Besides if you elect Hells Canyon or the Wallowas you’ll drive right by the house.
BAKPAKR
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I am sure you can do it DIY, but, as others have mentioned, I wouldn’t do it solo. My brother and a friend were with me.
I flew to Montana from West Virginia and shot mine with a 10” single shot 30-30 pistol.
I flew to Montana from West Virginia and shot mine with a 10” single shot 30-30 pistol.
shrapnel
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I would also be one of those to recommend early over late season. An early goat is a much better trophy than a tag. More than a few people, waiting for weather to get a longer haired goat, ended up not getting one because the snow conditions didn’t allow acces to the goats in the late season. This goat was opening day and I don’t think it looks as bad as the ones that weren’t gotten by waiting too late…
Ben Nicholson
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Thanks! Judging them (Billie vs nannie)!is one of my biggest concerns.
Ben Nicholson
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Thanks for the info! I’m in pretty good shape, but Hells Canyon sounds brutal. I’m always up for a challenge though.
Ben Nicholson
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I’ve never had an issue with altitude sickness so I’m not too concerned. I’m thinking late September/early October. If you are free and willing, you’re welcome to come join in the fun.
buffybr
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IMO a late season long hair full body Mountain goat mount is one of the prettiest mounts to have. In recent years I had full body mounts of my New Zealand Tahr and of my Aoudad. I like both of these mounts, but they don't even start to compare to a full body goat.
When I shot my goat the tag was good from 9/1-11/30. In August the goats are still shedding their previous winter's hair. I have a picture of a goat that I took one August and she looked like she just got a butch haircut with a 6" clump of winter hair on the end of her tail. That's why I left my goat tag at home when I was scouting and hunting other animals in my goat unit until November.
I'm not a fan of euro mounts, and especially for mountain goats where the horns are 10" or less long. When I had the half mount of my goat, I had the remaining back skin tanned with the hair on. It's been collecting dust on a wall in my reloading room for the last 40+ years.
buffybr
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I had two Montana goat tags in the '70s. I did both hunts DIY solo. I got snowed out on the first hunt and ended up with tag soup. My second goat tag was about 100 miles from home and I went in with a friend and we stayed in his tent camper. But he had a cow elk tag in that unit so he went up one drainage looking for elk, and I went up another mountain looking for my goat.
Earlier in the season and without snow, it took me about an hour to climb that mountain. With the -5* F temperature and knee deep snow it took me almost 3 hours to climb up to where I shot my goat. Like I posted earlier, I completely skinned out my goat, put the hide in my pack, then drug the goat's body to the edge of a cliff, pushed him off, walked down to where he stopped, and repeated the process to the valley floor, then drug him to my truck.
Over the past 50 years, most of my Montana hunts have been solo: my goat, one of my black bears, my 3 Unlimited bighorn rams, one of my Shiras moose, most of my deer and antelope, and at least 20 of my elk. I did have my horses for one of my rams, my moose, and most of my elk.
Gerald Martin
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Reading through different experiences and conclusions about solo vs companions, early vs late it should be apparent that many things about the “best” way are subjective. Take all of our recommendations into consideration and form your own conclusions about how you want to go about your hunt.
Distance and difficulty of terrain can definitely factor into whether a particular hunt is feasible solo. Knowing where @mtmiller killed his goats I can definitively say I would not have been able to do that solo, or would have not enjoyed the experience due to the difficulty of packing that weight for that long by myself.
I don’t know where @buffybr killed his goats but the hearing his description of the hunt tells me I probably am not tough enough to have done that in a day trip and enjoyed it.
Those guys have my respect.
Speaking from my experience I think that many folks underestimate how difficult it is to navigate mountain goat country in bad conditions. Or they overestimate their abilities and are disappointed to find out that what they thought was a good plan is now too difficult when the weather gets bad.
I have pretty strong opinions against shooting a billy in either August or early September if you care at all about hair quality. In my opinion, the sweet spot for shooting a billy is mid-September- mid October. If you want to wait until November you need to either want it really bad, or know that the particular location the billy you are hunting is still accessible with bad conditions.
I don’t know the particulars of goat country in Oregon. My experience is mostly in the mountains of Southwest MT and Northwest MT. I would trust local opinion of accessibility over my concerns of when it’s a good idea to hunt.
I would also recommend that in choosing your hunt partners that you have a mutual understanding of the level of commitment each person brings to the table.
On the only hunt where we didn’t experience success, I was assisting a friend on a backpack trip into the Absaroka Wilderness. Due to my work and family commitments I had told him I would only be able to make one five day trip to help him. We were confident that we could get his goat and be back out but if necessary we would try to adjust schedule and spend another day or two to be successful. When the time for the hunt came he ended up bringing another person who he hadn’t hunted with before but had the tag the year before and coached his daughter in sports. On the way down to the hunt this person informed him that he needed to be back at work on Monday morning rather than the Tuesday evening return date we had planned.
We made the seven mile hike to camp on the first day. Second day the hunter passed up a small 2 1/2 year old billy. Third day was really our last chance to get his goat and make it back in time for his companion to be at work on time. A weather front was coming through and there were 50-60 mph wind gusts most of the day. When we got to the ridge crest trail, his companion informed us that he was scared of heights and couldn’t keep walking the crest. He ended up going back to camp. We saw nearly forty goats that day with several certain billies. Unfortunately for us the solo billies were another two- three miles further from where we were and probably ten plus miles from the trailhead.
We could have made it to the billies and probably killed one at last light but we knew it would require a night out away from camp without our sleeping bags and would mean his companion would be late for work.
Factoring in the worry of coming weather, his companion’s schedule and everything the tag holder made the decision to not pursue the billies and to hike completely back to the trailhead that night.
@Elkoholic was along on this trip as a packer and helper and he and I were willing to do whatever we could to help him experience success. However, we had to come to the realization that we couldn’t want success more than the tag holder. We hiked out from his hunt a day and a half early, life got in the way of him going back into the wilderness and he didn’t kill a goat.
IMO, it was inexcusable for the companion he brought along to not clearly communicate how long he could hunt and what he was willing to do on the hunt before he joined in. IMO, it was not respectful of the tag holder or the rest of us who were committed to doing whatever we could to help the tag holder succeed.
Distance and difficulty of terrain can definitely factor into whether a particular hunt is feasible solo. Knowing where @mtmiller killed his goats I can definitively say I would not have been able to do that solo, or would have not enjoyed the experience due to the difficulty of packing that weight for that long by myself.
I don’t know where @buffybr killed his goats but the hearing his description of the hunt tells me I probably am not tough enough to have done that in a day trip and enjoyed it.
Those guys have my respect.
Speaking from my experience I think that many folks underestimate how difficult it is to navigate mountain goat country in bad conditions. Or they overestimate their abilities and are disappointed to find out that what they thought was a good plan is now too difficult when the weather gets bad.
I have pretty strong opinions against shooting a billy in either August or early September if you care at all about hair quality. In my opinion, the sweet spot for shooting a billy is mid-September- mid October. If you want to wait until November you need to either want it really bad, or know that the particular location the billy you are hunting is still accessible with bad conditions.
I don’t know the particulars of goat country in Oregon. My experience is mostly in the mountains of Southwest MT and Northwest MT. I would trust local opinion of accessibility over my concerns of when it’s a good idea to hunt.
I would also recommend that in choosing your hunt partners that you have a mutual understanding of the level of commitment each person brings to the table.
On the only hunt where we didn’t experience success, I was assisting a friend on a backpack trip into the Absaroka Wilderness. Due to my work and family commitments I had told him I would only be able to make one five day trip to help him. We were confident that we could get his goat and be back out but if necessary we would try to adjust schedule and spend another day or two to be successful. When the time for the hunt came he ended up bringing another person who he hadn’t hunted with before but had the tag the year before and coached his daughter in sports. On the way down to the hunt this person informed him that he needed to be back at work on Monday morning rather than the Tuesday evening return date we had planned.
We made the seven mile hike to camp on the first day. Second day the hunter passed up a small 2 1/2 year old billy. Third day was really our last chance to get his goat and make it back in time for his companion to be at work on time. A weather front was coming through and there were 50-60 mph wind gusts most of the day. When we got to the ridge crest trail, his companion informed us that he was scared of heights and couldn’t keep walking the crest. He ended up going back to camp. We saw nearly forty goats that day with several certain billies. Unfortunately for us the solo billies were another two- three miles further from where we were and probably ten plus miles from the trailhead.
We could have made it to the billies and probably killed one at last light but we knew it would require a night out away from camp without our sleeping bags and would mean his companion would be late for work.
Factoring in the worry of coming weather, his companion’s schedule and everything the tag holder made the decision to not pursue the billies and to hike completely back to the trailhead that night.
@Elkoholic was along on this trip as a packer and helper and he and I were willing to do whatever we could to help him experience success. However, we had to come to the realization that we couldn’t want success more than the tag holder. We hiked out from his hunt a day and a half early, life got in the way of him going back into the wilderness and he didn’t kill a goat.
IMO, it was inexcusable for the companion he brought along to not clearly communicate how long he could hunt and what he was willing to do on the hunt before he joined in. IMO, it was not respectful of the tag holder or the rest of us who were committed to doing whatever we could to help the tag holder succeed.
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Gerald Martin
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That experience was the only time where I didn’t see total commitment to do whatever was physically possible to experience success on a hunt.
I’ve gotten to experience helping a tag holder who was undergoing testicular cancer procedures and hiked in to kill his Billy while wearing depends. He had made a six mile round trip hike the day before and was up for another try the following day. When totally exhausted and unable to go further, he summoned the will power to go another several hundred yards after we found the Billy we were stalking.
Just last year I had my second goat tag and was humbled to experience the support of this great group of guys who took off work and hiked with me to kill my Billy. They did the nine hour hike in the rain to camp with smiles on their faces and were nothing but committed and encouraging through the whole experience.
This is the epitome of a goat hunting experience in my mind and I hope everyone who is fortunate to hold a goat tag comes back with as good of memories as I have of my hunt.
I’ve gotten to experience helping a tag holder who was undergoing testicular cancer procedures and hiked in to kill his Billy while wearing depends. He had made a six mile round trip hike the day before and was up for another try the following day. When totally exhausted and unable to go further, he summoned the will power to go another several hundred yards after we found the Billy we were stalking.
Just last year I had my second goat tag and was humbled to experience the support of this great group of guys who took off work and hiked with me to kill my Billy. They did the nine hour hike in the rain to camp with smiles on their faces and were nothing but committed and encouraging through the whole experience.
This is the epitome of a goat hunting experience in my mind and I hope everyone who is fortunate to hold a goat tag comes back with as good of memories as I have of my hunt.
Fishnride
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I’ve been lucky enough to do 2 DIY goat hunts in the last 5 years. I would say that for the most part a DIY hunt is quite doable as far as the kill is concerned.
I think the most important aspect of determining if it’s an appropriate option for you would be to be honest with yourself about your experience and comfort level in Goat terrain. Obviously, If you have a background in mountaineering or climbing or something you are gonna be way more likely to succeed then if you hunt elk every now and again.
I think another, often not talked about factor to doing a hunt like that in hazardous terrain is how you handle stress and critical decision making. If your one to get a bad case of buck fever or make rash decisions in general, a guide may be beneficial just to be a voice of reason when your all amped up and ready to go balls out after a goat in a terrible spot. If you stay calm and collected in high stress situations then then that will be a major plus.
Also, remember that the most dangerous time during the hunt is the pack out. Take your time and don’t rush or take shortcuts. I packed an entire goat out with a full body cape and camp in one trip last year about 6 miles. This was a horrible idea and I just kinda doubled down on dumb and kept walking. I got lucky and didn’t get hurt but basically “know when to say when.”
That said, a DIY goat hunt can be a rewarding experience on a different level, but the logistics, effort and risk involved in such an undertaking can not be understated.
Both of my Mtn Goat hunts were Solo DIY backpack style hunts in Colorado. The first was with a bow in 2018 and I killed my Billy at 13,925ft. The other was last year at over 13,000ft in a range known worldwide for technical mountaineering. I would certainly not recommend that everyone attempts a DIY goat hunt, but for the right person it can not only be possible but incredibly rewarding.
Whatever you decide, enjoy every minute. These are special experiences in special places and your gonna create some unique memories along the way.
Keith
I think the most important aspect of determining if it’s an appropriate option for you would be to be honest with yourself about your experience and comfort level in Goat terrain. Obviously, If you have a background in mountaineering or climbing or something you are gonna be way more likely to succeed then if you hunt elk every now and again.
I think another, often not talked about factor to doing a hunt like that in hazardous terrain is how you handle stress and critical decision making. If your one to get a bad case of buck fever or make rash decisions in general, a guide may be beneficial just to be a voice of reason when your all amped up and ready to go balls out after a goat in a terrible spot. If you stay calm and collected in high stress situations then then that will be a major plus.
Also, remember that the most dangerous time during the hunt is the pack out. Take your time and don’t rush or take shortcuts. I packed an entire goat out with a full body cape and camp in one trip last year about 6 miles. This was a horrible idea and I just kinda doubled down on dumb and kept walking. I got lucky and didn’t get hurt but basically “know when to say when.”
That said, a DIY goat hunt can be a rewarding experience on a different level, but the logistics, effort and risk involved in such an undertaking can not be understated.
Both of my Mtn Goat hunts were Solo DIY backpack style hunts in Colorado. The first was with a bow in 2018 and I killed my Billy at 13,925ft. The other was last year at over 13,000ft in a range known worldwide for technical mountaineering. I would certainly not recommend that everyone attempts a DIY goat hunt, but for the right person it can not only be possible but incredibly rewarding.
Whatever you decide, enjoy every minute. These are special experiences in special places and your gonna create some unique memories along the way.
Keith
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ashersdad
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Congratulations on the tag! That will be an epic adventure. I've done one DIY goat hunt with my brother and it was great.
Having hunted the Hell's Canyon area for elk for 15+ years I'd agree with @Salmonchaser. After Nov. 1st weather could be an issue. Are you driving your own rig from Iowa? You'll definitely want chains just in case if hunting in November. I personally wouldn't hunt that country without horses but with a buddy or two, the load would be manageable. Good luck!
Having hunted the Hell's Canyon area for elk for 15+ years I'd agree with @Salmonchaser. After Nov. 1st weather could be an issue. Are you driving your own rig from Iowa? You'll definitely want chains just in case if hunting in November. I personally wouldn't hunt that country without horses but with a buddy or two, the load would be manageable. Good luck!
Salmonchaser
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I’m a maybe on two antelope tags and a long shot on deer. I’m betting I’ll be around if you go late sept into early October. Better half has me booked in early September if I don’t draw an antelope tag. Got a call into a buddy who worked for US fish and Wildlife in the area for quite a few years and the forest service before that. We‘re betting he’ll have some good intel. He is also a maniacal hunter and may wan’t to come along as well.
You should also get a cougar tag, lot of cats in the goat country. Bears too for that matter.
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