Where are the Mountain Goat stories?

Silverado

Silverado

CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Rating - 98.6%
143   2   1
Sheep get all the press, and they are an incredible hunt and trophy to be sure.

But where are the goats? The closest I've been was coming across a group of them at about 200 yards while deer hunting near Radium BC in 2004. I didn't have a tag of course, and was in an area I certainly didn't expect goats to be; it was a series of benches in a low valley leading down to a small river. I thought goats only lived above the clouds? LOL

Stories and pics of your goat adventures please!

Title edited for clarity!
 
Last edited:
Around Radium the sheep and goats are more like animals in a zoo than they are like wild animals in their own habitat.
Mountain goats have a better knowledge of nature than probably any other wild animal. All bands of goats have a home mountain, where they go to escape danger and to winter. In order to have a wintering area, the mountain must have a slope where the snow blows off of, making feed like lichen, moss and grasses available to them. In BC such a mountain will have a south westerly facing slope.
In the spring, about June, they will wander, sometimes a long distance from their home mountain. I have seen them twenty to twenty five miles from any mountain. But, they always want to be on their home mountain during a storm, so when they are considerable distance away, they will start for their home mountain two to three days before a storm, in order to be safely ensconced in their home surroundings when the storm hits!
Many of their home mountains will have escape terrain so rugged that no predator, including hunters, will be able to get into it. Virtually their only worry here is eagles getting their young.
If you are in the bush and brush below timberline of a mountain with goats on it, you will see the scrub willows and tree limbs with great amounts of mountain goat wool hanging on them. June is also the month when they go through these willows and limbs, to comb the shedding wool from them.
 
Find an inaccessible cliff and glass it. :) They also have an unusual habit of sometimes going Walkabout and turn up in the strangest places, outfitter friend had one turn up in his camp, quite a ways from the rocks.

Grizz
 
Thanks Grizz,

I didn't mean "Where can I find goats?", I meant "Where are the goat hunters and their stories?"

I realize goats aren't pursued as often as sheep, elk, certainly moose and deer, but we have some pretty hardcore mountain hunters in our midst here, and I wanted a good dose of goat hunting tales this weekend!
 
Alberta at least, the season was off and on, then closed for a number of years and now very restricted so stories are pretty limited. Doesn't seem to be as adventuresome a hunt, find your goat and hope like hell he doesn't self destruct or end up where you can't get at him. Not an impressive trophy either. Buddy got the AF&G high point one year with a score of 45 B&C. Chances of getting drawn are up there with 6/49 but, I keep applying. :)
 
Hope to have one to tell in a couple weeks! For those that have hunted them....they realize what an impressive trophy they really are.
 
I think goats are a handsome trophy indeed. I spent many moments admiring the one my (2 or 3 ex's ago) ex's father had on the wall in his East Kootenay home. He had shot many elk and deer over the years, as well as a few moose and a sheep or two, but kept the goat on the wall. There's probably a lesson in there somewhere.
 
sheephunter said:
Hope to have one to tell in a couple weeks! For those that have hunted them....they realize what an impressive trophy they really are.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more!!! they are awesome animals! the biggest adventure I ever had was a goat hunt! I lost 35 lbs. in two and a half weeks hunting them!!!
what they go through is unbelievable! The country they life in is awe inspiring! The goat may not seem as regal as a sheep, but they are every bit as valuable of a trophy!

This is my goat
 
Last edited:
14 goats sighted, One billy about three hours further than my feet were willing to move that day. Put in a 30k round trip and had a wonderful time in the mountains. Saw 2 nannies with kids within stalking range but let them roam. These critters are simply awesome and the coats this time of year are spectacular. Be sure to skin em out as a throw rug or shoulder mount.

A few years ago I took a fine 9 1/4 inch billy but had to choose life over limb to cut the horns before sending the goat to the scree from a cliff. Had the most beautiful coat (Oct coat) and could not manage to haul the animal off a squeeze between rocks as its hind dangled off the cliff. Spent from dawn to dusk on that one day hunt and left everything I had in the tank on the mountain. Now that is goat hunting....

Elky....
 
Ardent said:
I've seen lots, while working, often in unimaginable places and running no less. Haven't hunted them yet unfortunately.
Click to expand...

All they saw was the biggest eagle they could ever imagine!! Helicopters above a goat tend to produce severe panic. :) Makes doing aerial counts a tad tricky too.

I do love hunting goats- their home is a big slice of awesome that just a few days of being there lasts forever.
 
Dogleg said:
I'm still working out which parts of the mountain goat hunt memory to repress.;)
Click to expand...

Those are the best ones. Like the time we somehow ALL forgot to bring water on the way up. I was lapping water up out of a little depression in a rock ledge, and wasn't concerned at all about "germs" and such. Then coming down that afternoon through the brush and deadfalls with a pack full of goat....I can't tell you how much lake water I drank the minute I hit the shore but it was a lot!
 
1899 said:
Those are the best ones. Like the time we somehow ALL forgot to bring water on the way up. I was lapping water up out of a little depression in a rock ledge, and wasn't concerned at all about "germs" and such. Then coming down that afternoon through the brush and deadfalls with a pack full of goat....I can't tell you how much lake water I drank the minute I hit the shore but it was a lot![/QUOTE

My god does that ever sound like my hunt!
I ran out of water on the way up to my goat, then became dehydrated getting him! By the time I got back to the tree line with a wet butchered goat, I was desperate for water! I was loosing coordination and starting to go hypothermic! My hunt nearly ended bad! It was all I could muster to get back to camp! When I got back, I got my wet clothes off and climbed into my sleeping bag in hopes of getting my body temp up. I got some terrible cramps!!!

Thankfully, One of my hunting partners cooked up some hot noodles, and some hot chocolate for me! It seemed like it took hours to get my body to start warming up! It was a brutal physical test for me! I was hugely fortunate to get my goat that day, but I will never have the chance to hunt them like that again! My knees will never carry me up those mountains again.

I lost 35lbs on that hunt, and nearly got into "REAL" trouble with hypothermia! Great memories though!
Click to expand...
 
jaydog said:
All they saw was the biggest eagle they could ever imagine!! Helicopters above a goat tend to produce severe panic. :) Makes doing aerial counts a tad tricky too.

I do love hunting goats- their home is a big slice of awesome that just a few days of being there lasts forever.
Click to expand...

You know the game sounds like. :) One day I'll hunt them, just because they're one of our cornerstone trophy species in BC, but for now despite being literally an easy drive to the hunting areas just not catching me. I really, really want a Stone Sheep first.
 
When I was a young man I could hunt goats about every five years because it took that long to forget how ugly a hunt it is and convince myself it wasn't REALLY all that bad. I have 3 goats now and will never hunt them again, but yearn for the days when I could. Sheep hunting is a Sunday walk compared to goat hunting..........like Dogleg I am still trying to repress memories of trying to get into frozen jeans, hours without water, sleeping in a rock outcrop in freezing rain too scared to try to move in the dark, getting back to the canoe with my pants hanging in tatters from the waist band, the gashes in my legs from a slip in the rocks still bleeding after 3 days because every single dead and broken buckbrush stick managed to find those gashes and keep them very open and painful. Watching my goat hurl himself into the wild blue yonder and freefall over 1000 feet before hitting the slide below and cartwheeling all the way down to the spruce about 2000 feet below.
Oh ya goat hunting is a hoot...........it is actually very easy, all you need is a very low IQ, a high tolerance for pain, lungs the size of a moose and cajones to match and zero fear of heights, after that it is actually quite simple, just climb up to where they live and shoot one. Then you get to load 200 lbs of inedible meat in your pack and 100lbs of cape, horns and hide and twinkle toes your way back down to non vertical ground. Nothing to it really if you say it fast............





These are a couple of my goats, don't have a lot of pics from those days...............mount is my first goat, don't have photos of #2 (gave it to the guy who was hunting with me) and the last pic was my last goat.
 
c-fbmi said:
When I was a young man I could hunt goats about every five years because it took that long to forget how ugly a hunt it is and convince myself it wasn't REALLY all that bad. I have 3 goats now and will never hunt them again, but yearn for the days when I could. Sheep hunting is a Sunday walk compared to goat hunting..........like Dogleg I am still trying to repress memories of trying to get into frozen jeans, hours without water, sleeping in a rock outcrop in freezing rain too scared to try to move in the dark, getting back to the canoe with my pants hanging in tatters from the waist band, the gashes in my legs from a slip in the rocks still bleeding after 3 days because every single dead and broken buckbrush stick managed to find those gashes and keep them very open and painful. Watching my goat hurl himself into the wild blue yonder and freefall over 1000 feet before hitting the slide below and cartwheeling all the way down to the spruce about 2000 feet below.
Oh ya goat hunting is a hoot...........it is actually very easy, all you need is a very low IQ, a high tolerance for pain, lungs the size of a moose and cajones to match and zero fear of heights, after that it is actually quite simple, just climb up to where they live and shoot one. Then you get to load 200 lbs of inedible meat in your pack and 100lbs of cape, horns and hide and twinkle toes your way back down to non vertical ground. Nothing to it really if you say it fast............





These are a couple of my goats, don't have a lot of pics from those days...............mount is my first goat, don't have photos of #2 (gave it to the guy who was hunting with me) and the last pic was my last goat.
Click to expand...


Douglas,

Don't sugar-coat it for the folks, it might encourage people to try it if you just describe the walk in the park trips and the good parts. OK, you did mention or at least hint at fearing for your life, but not a single mention of feeling like lieing down and dieing. That could lead to unrealistic expectations of surviving it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom