i hope you guys like pictures and goat stories
link to "Evan and Brooklyn's 2022 goat hunt" https://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/threads/evan-and-brooklyns-2022-goat-hunt.2473738/
This year i brought the same daughter as i did on my first mountain goat hunt i did in 2022. she was 11 years old on the last hunt and 13 on this one. I also used the same rifle this trip. the first rifle I ever owned. sporterized Lee Enfield. the scope didn't frigg off on this trip though so that was good as i couldn't get nearly as close
The trip up to Iskut was a longer adventure then the hunt itself was. The whole trip should have been 21 days. 7 days driving north, 12 days hunting and 3 days driving home.
On the driving part of the trip, we drove a little over 5000kms and my Rav4 averaged 7.1l per 100kms so that’s not bad considering how many trucks/rv's we passed over the 10 days of driving.
Brooklyn and I (Brooklyn is my 13 year old daughter) stayed at BC rec sites all the nights but 3, on the way up we got a hotel in Hudson’s hope due to the amount of rain, Boya lake provincial park and on the way back we got a hotel in Stewart so we could get cleaned up after our hunting trip.
We added 4 hours onto our drive so we could stop into the NWT. We saw bison on the road just before the border.
We stopped at Laird River hot springs, that was neat, the hot side was 52c (125f) and the “cold” side was down to 42c (107f) well worth the stop in.
We stopped for lunch in the Yukon at a little restaurant in Watson lake.
We saw lots of animals on the trip the list of fur bearing animals is Rabbits, Deer, Fox, Beavers, Coyote, Moose, Bison, Bears, Sheep, Caribou, Squirrels, Porcupine and Goats.
(we saw all of those animals but the goats and 1 of the bears on the drive)
The eastern side of the province is beautiful, I loved drive from summit lake into Watson lake
Hunting Part
Day 1- we woke up at 4am from camping at Boya Lake to drive 3 hours to Iskut, we were set to fly at 730am, we got into the lake before 830am it was 3* so he warmed the plane up for a while, the flight went well although I don’t like heights at all. We stayed at the lake for the day, setup our base camp, made supper, went fishing and carved our initials into an old table that had other initials and dates at camp site a on a different part of the lake (ED/BD- ‘22/’24). Then slept down at the lake planning on hiking the next day.
Day 2- It was windy at the lake when we woke up. We decided to hike up to above the trees to camp for 4 or 5 days (based off amount of food we carried up), it took us 4 hours to get up to the top. We took the long way up trying to avoid devils club, it wasn’t the best idea. Adding 1.5 hours to the hike wasn’t worth not pushing through 100m of devil’s club. We made camp on some of the lumpiest, slanted ground I’ve ever slept on, hiked another 30 minutes to find water (730pm at this point) and just sat around the rest of the night watching goats on the other side of the valley.
Day 3- we (well, I) woke up very early from wind that I would have guessed was from a tornado, it was insane, I had to hold the wall of my tent from 3:30 am to 7:30am to allow Brooklyn to sleep and to stop it from blowing down flat and bending the poles, I finally woke Brooklyn up at 730 we had to take the tent down and pile some rocks on it to make sure it was still there when we got back. Today we planned on going for a big hike to a few other drainages and I wanted to get to the back of the one we were staying in. we hiked around for about 10 hours, we only seen one new goat that we weren’t already watching from the first day up there. He was a billy we watched for an hour before making our move on him, he spotted us as we got into position, Brooklyn was shooting so I wanted her within 100m. but when he saw us he walked over the edge heading down into the valley we were staying in, so once we get back to camp we can see him a lone goat on the same side we were on, we figured we would find him in the morning.
Day 4- The wind had died down and it was calm so the first time I woke up was just after 9am, we were just planning a little trip to look for the goat we were watching the night before. After about 20 minutes we spotted the goat, we seen the day before just resting on a ridge line, by him self and we could account for the other 7 goats we had been watching. it was about a km away and less then 50m were we saw him the night before.
so we started hiking to it trying to stay out of its vision. I left my backpack at the bottom of the hill by our tent site so it was easier to hike up, then after we got within 300m we couldn’t get any closer. So, I ended up taking the shot from there taking out the scapula shooting through the spine and into the back side of the other scapula. The goat laid down for a minute, tried to stand up but 3 of its legs were locked up so it rolled about 100’
After 40 minutes of hiking down to get my backpack and back up to the goat, I roll it over and 95% of the excitement is gone and a sinking feeling came over me. It either wasn’t the same goat as the night before or I had been mistaken on what we were looking at the night before. Either way it was very disappointing, It was early in the trip and we were watching billy’s already at this point, it wasn’t what we had planned. After that, with spirits low we start cutting it up. At this point its about 1:30 in the afternoon, we deboned all the meat and kept the head and hide, then hiked back down to our tent so we could pack it up, then continue our hike down to the lake. we decided against burying the goat in snow and going after Brooklyn's goat. We were just bummed out at this point.
It was about 5pm when we had out tent site all packed up and we were ready to head to the lake since I had to carry 80 pounds of goat, I left almost all our gear at our tent site to comeback up and get the next day. I carried goat, Brooklyn carried sleeping bags and a tent. I had left our clothes, food, camera, charging block, binos, sleeping pads, range finder and my rifle to save on weight.
Well were stand up to start hiking with a can a bear spay on Brooklyn’s hip since we are leaving the rifle up top for the night (I had a second rifle down at the lake anyway), as we turn around to start walking there is a huffing sound and we see a black bear about 50’ away quite upset that we were there, he turned to run once he realized we were people and not a pile of goat meat though so I was glad about that. After that I figured I was already carrying 80 pounds, what’s another 10 pounds when I’m hiking in grizzly country with a backpack soaked in goat blood and filled with goat meat so I carried the rifle down that night. It only took us 2 hours and 10 minutes, the bear in the same woods as us kept us motivated and we didn’t want to get stuck in the woods after dark if it took us too on got get down. That night we setup camp on the lake a few hundred meters from the goat and our food, then cooked some goat back straps over the fire while recapping the hunt and just relaxing
Day 5- we woke up after a great night sleep, to see all out meat was still there, so that was great but we still had to hike back up to get all our gear we left behind the day before. The hike up without any gear and empty backpacks went really well. It took us 5 hours to go up, get our gear and hike back down, on the way down we had to make a choice, and that was to risk the meat and stay or leave 7 days early. After a bit of thinking, other then pay for a flight to come pick up the goat and put it in cold storage ($1150) the only option was to leave, it was sunny and 25* in the days. (the pilot wasn’t doing any fly overs in the next few days)
So we left the lake on day 5 (Aug 13) when we should have been staying until today (Aug 20), the way back we drove to Stewart and got a hotel for the night then we drove 18 hours over the next 2 days to get back on Aug 15.
The whole trip went really well but I’m pretty disappointed about he nanny, she was a big girl for sure and defiantly dry but still, I wish I would have took more time the second day and not assumed, I guess you could say it was a mix of lack of experience and excitement, I cant see it happening again though.
It seemed like it was a very short trip and was over before it started but I guess we went for a goat and got it so it was a successful trip.
i got it inspected and she was 8 year old and the horns were 8 1/2"
link to "Evan and Brooklyn's 2022 goat hunt" https://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/threads/evan-and-brooklyns-2022-goat-hunt.2473738/
This year i brought the same daughter as i did on my first mountain goat hunt i did in 2022. she was 11 years old on the last hunt and 13 on this one. I also used the same rifle this trip. the first rifle I ever owned. sporterized Lee Enfield. the scope didn't frigg off on this trip though so that was good as i couldn't get nearly as close
The trip up to Iskut was a longer adventure then the hunt itself was. The whole trip should have been 21 days. 7 days driving north, 12 days hunting and 3 days driving home.
On the driving part of the trip, we drove a little over 5000kms and my Rav4 averaged 7.1l per 100kms so that’s not bad considering how many trucks/rv's we passed over the 10 days of driving.
Brooklyn and I (Brooklyn is my 13 year old daughter) stayed at BC rec sites all the nights but 3, on the way up we got a hotel in Hudson’s hope due to the amount of rain, Boya lake provincial park and on the way back we got a hotel in Stewart so we could get cleaned up after our hunting trip.
We added 4 hours onto our drive so we could stop into the NWT. We saw bison on the road just before the border.
We stopped at Laird River hot springs, that was neat, the hot side was 52c (125f) and the “cold” side was down to 42c (107f) well worth the stop in.
We stopped for lunch in the Yukon at a little restaurant in Watson lake.
We saw lots of animals on the trip the list of fur bearing animals is Rabbits, Deer, Fox, Beavers, Coyote, Moose, Bison, Bears, Sheep, Caribou, Squirrels, Porcupine and Goats.
(we saw all of those animals but the goats and 1 of the bears on the drive)
The eastern side of the province is beautiful, I loved drive from summit lake into Watson lake
Hunting Part
Day 1- we woke up at 4am from camping at Boya Lake to drive 3 hours to Iskut, we were set to fly at 730am, we got into the lake before 830am it was 3* so he warmed the plane up for a while, the flight went well although I don’t like heights at all. We stayed at the lake for the day, setup our base camp, made supper, went fishing and carved our initials into an old table that had other initials and dates at camp site a on a different part of the lake (ED/BD- ‘22/’24). Then slept down at the lake planning on hiking the next day.
Day 2- It was windy at the lake when we woke up. We decided to hike up to above the trees to camp for 4 or 5 days (based off amount of food we carried up), it took us 4 hours to get up to the top. We took the long way up trying to avoid devils club, it wasn’t the best idea. Adding 1.5 hours to the hike wasn’t worth not pushing through 100m of devil’s club. We made camp on some of the lumpiest, slanted ground I’ve ever slept on, hiked another 30 minutes to find water (730pm at this point) and just sat around the rest of the night watching goats on the other side of the valley.
Day 3- we (well, I) woke up very early from wind that I would have guessed was from a tornado, it was insane, I had to hold the wall of my tent from 3:30 am to 7:30am to allow Brooklyn to sleep and to stop it from blowing down flat and bending the poles, I finally woke Brooklyn up at 730 we had to take the tent down and pile some rocks on it to make sure it was still there when we got back. Today we planned on going for a big hike to a few other drainages and I wanted to get to the back of the one we were staying in. we hiked around for about 10 hours, we only seen one new goat that we weren’t already watching from the first day up there. He was a billy we watched for an hour before making our move on him, he spotted us as we got into position, Brooklyn was shooting so I wanted her within 100m. but when he saw us he walked over the edge heading down into the valley we were staying in, so once we get back to camp we can see him a lone goat on the same side we were on, we figured we would find him in the morning.
Day 4- The wind had died down and it was calm so the first time I woke up was just after 9am, we were just planning a little trip to look for the goat we were watching the night before. After about 20 minutes we spotted the goat, we seen the day before just resting on a ridge line, by him self and we could account for the other 7 goats we had been watching. it was about a km away and less then 50m were we saw him the night before.
so we started hiking to it trying to stay out of its vision. I left my backpack at the bottom of the hill by our tent site so it was easier to hike up, then after we got within 300m we couldn’t get any closer. So, I ended up taking the shot from there taking out the scapula shooting through the spine and into the back side of the other scapula. The goat laid down for a minute, tried to stand up but 3 of its legs were locked up so it rolled about 100’
After 40 minutes of hiking down to get my backpack and back up to the goat, I roll it over and 95% of the excitement is gone and a sinking feeling came over me. It either wasn’t the same goat as the night before or I had been mistaken on what we were looking at the night before. Either way it was very disappointing, It was early in the trip and we were watching billy’s already at this point, it wasn’t what we had planned. After that, with spirits low we start cutting it up. At this point its about 1:30 in the afternoon, we deboned all the meat and kept the head and hide, then hiked back down to our tent so we could pack it up, then continue our hike down to the lake. we decided against burying the goat in snow and going after Brooklyn's goat. We were just bummed out at this point.
It was about 5pm when we had out tent site all packed up and we were ready to head to the lake since I had to carry 80 pounds of goat, I left almost all our gear at our tent site to comeback up and get the next day. I carried goat, Brooklyn carried sleeping bags and a tent. I had left our clothes, food, camera, charging block, binos, sleeping pads, range finder and my rifle to save on weight.
Well were stand up to start hiking with a can a bear spay on Brooklyn’s hip since we are leaving the rifle up top for the night (I had a second rifle down at the lake anyway), as we turn around to start walking there is a huffing sound and we see a black bear about 50’ away quite upset that we were there, he turned to run once he realized we were people and not a pile of goat meat though so I was glad about that. After that I figured I was already carrying 80 pounds, what’s another 10 pounds when I’m hiking in grizzly country with a backpack soaked in goat blood and filled with goat meat so I carried the rifle down that night. It only took us 2 hours and 10 minutes, the bear in the same woods as us kept us motivated and we didn’t want to get stuck in the woods after dark if it took us too on got get down. That night we setup camp on the lake a few hundred meters from the goat and our food, then cooked some goat back straps over the fire while recapping the hunt and just relaxing
Day 5- we woke up after a great night sleep, to see all out meat was still there, so that was great but we still had to hike back up to get all our gear we left behind the day before. The hike up without any gear and empty backpacks went really well. It took us 5 hours to go up, get our gear and hike back down, on the way down we had to make a choice, and that was to risk the meat and stay or leave 7 days early. After a bit of thinking, other then pay for a flight to come pick up the goat and put it in cold storage ($1150) the only option was to leave, it was sunny and 25* in the days. (the pilot wasn’t doing any fly overs in the next few days)
So we left the lake on day 5 (Aug 13) when we should have been staying until today (Aug 20), the way back we drove to Stewart and got a hotel for the night then we drove 18 hours over the next 2 days to get back on Aug 15.
The whole trip went really well but I’m pretty disappointed about he nanny, she was a big girl for sure and defiantly dry but still, I wish I would have took more time the second day and not assumed, I guess you could say it was a mix of lack of experience and excitement, I cant see it happening again though.
It seemed like it was a very short trip and was over before it started but I guess we went for a goat and got it so it was a successful trip.
i got it inspected and she was 8 year old and the horns were 8 1/2"
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