Montana Billy

Fire_9

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 25, 2015
Messages
1,200
Location
Lewistown, MT
Once I figured out I didn't draw any primo tags this year I started sending the usual texts and making calls trying to figure out who drew what. A guy I used to work with, Shayne, ended up drawing the same goat tag I had in '15. Having an obsession for hunting goats, I immediately offered up a weekend of my fall to help. I wasn't really sure what his plans were for the hunt but just wanted him to know the offer was on the table.

Shayne kept me updated though his scouting trips and let me know that he had seen lot of nannies and kids and few nice billies. Not wanting a really short haired goat or deal with the wildfire smoke, he decided to chase elk for a few weekends and let the smoke clear out. As most of you know that's about the time we got our first storm of the year which dumped a lot of snow in the mountains. Talking with Shayne, I could tell he was getting a little nervous about the potential of not being about to get into where he needed to be but I tried to assure him we could get it done. Looking at the forecast we saw it was going to warm up for a week which gave us a little confidence.

The weekend prior to our trip, he made a trip in with his dad. Visibility was poor and they were in a foot of snow a mile into their hike. Needless to say that was not the best weekend to kill a goat. After giving me an update of their trip, we started to hash out our plans for the following weekend. We planned on a four day trip and had a rough idea where we wanted to camp. He also mentioned that one of my good hunting buddies and HT member, Brandon or Easternmt, would be joining us on the hunt. Everything was starting to come together and I knew it was going to be a great weekend.

We hit the trail at about 8:30 Thursday morning and knew most of the day would be devoted to the hike in and setting up camp. Three miles in, half of which was straight up through snow and deadfall, and 2000 vertical feet later we finally decided on a campsite which would leave us a short but steep 1000' climb to the top. We cleared a spot in the 8" of snow for the tipi and let it melt out since the sun was out. In the meantime we found a less than ideal glassing spot and tried to find a goat in the snow and decide on a route for the following morning. I told Brandon and Shayne where I wanted to go and neither one expressed confidence in my route planning abilities. I assured them 'if trees can grow there, we can go there'. I got to listen to that phrase the rest of the weekend in a sarcastic tone as it's not true 100% of the time. With no goats to be seen, we decided we better get camp setup and wood cut for the stove. Once all the chores were done we boiled water for dinner and ate while we glassed until dark. It was a long day with no goat sightings but I had high hopes for the following day as the snow was starting to melt and expose some of the south facing hillsides.

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We woke up early Friday morning and started our trek to the top. It was steeper than we thought and we had to fight crusty knee deep snow which never helps. An hour and 45 mins later, we were standing on top of the ridge at almost 9900'. The sun was shining and it was a great day to be in goat country

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We moved a little further up the ridge and found a decent spot to do some glassing. We weren't there 5 minutes and Shayne spotted a goat bedded quartering away from us perched on top of a knob 700 yards away. At first it looked like a nanny bedded with a kid nestled right up next to it since it looked so big. Once we got the spotters on it, we realized that it was a mature billy. We watched him stand up and stretch and bed back down facing us.

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We knew he was worth pursuing and began to plan our stalk down the ridge. Brandon cautioned that the route looked a little rough but I wasn't too concerned. Once the billy got up to feed, Shayne and I started making our way down the ridge. Come to find out, Brandon was right and it was the worst rock climbing I've had to do while hunting.

We finally made it to pile of rocks we had planned to shoot from. As we peeked over the rocks we could see he bedded again at the top of the knob facing us. We slowly crept up to the edge of the rocks and got Shayne set up for the shot. He was quartering away slightly with a small rock that came to a point near his vitals. We didn't think anything of the rock as he was only 175 yards away and Shayne could easily shoot around it. I finally got the spotter set up on him and knew he was a great billy. I told Shayne I was on him, to take his time, and make it count. As I heard the crack of the rifle, I watched in disbelief as the rock near his vitals exploded and the goat quickly made his way to the back side of the ridge out of sight.

We both sat there in silence as reality set it. We had worked our butts off to get into position only to watch his dream of a beautiful billy disappear...
 
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Once we gathered our thoughts and his tears dried, we made our way over to where he was bedded. We followed his tracks off the back side and they disappeared in a steep, nasty, rocky mess. We were satisfied that he wasn't wounded so we headed back to the ridge to try and find another candidate.

Once we were convinced there weren't any other goats on the ridge we were on, we decided to start our rock climbing excursion back to where we left Brandon. Before we took off though we took a look his way through the binos. To our amazement we saw him sprawled out, face down, napping...

About half way back we noticed he had come out of hibernation and now had the spotter out. We had high hopes that the billy we were after had looped around us and made his way towards Brandon. This gave Shayne a little hope and lifted his spirits slightly. Once we made it to Brandon he quickly came crashing back down as it was only a 2 year old billy perched in a spot that we couldn't shoot him even if we wanted to.

We both felt bad for Shayne as he missed a chip shot, if there is such a thing, on a trophy of a lifetime but it didn't stop us from capturing the moment of him staring up the canyon in a mood that most of us know all too well...

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As we made our way back towards camp we stopped at the edge of the ridge to take another look at the young billy Brandon had spotted. We all agreed that he wasn't worth shooting and were getting ready to head down the hill when Brandon spotted the billy Shayne missed earlier in the day. He was on a rocky face but was making his way towards the bottom where we could get to him.

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As we watched him feed closer and closer we got Shayne setup for a shot. We knew he would be a little shaky from the miss earlier in the day so we took 5 mins to get him settled in and calmed down. He dry fired on him 5 or 6 times before he was ready to take the shot. We had the video camera setup and Brandon and I were both on spotters waiting for Shayne to let us know he was ready. Once he was ready, we confirmed we had eyes on him told him to take his time.

The shot rang out across the canyon and I saw the goat kick and turn up the hill. The shot was a touch far back but still a good hit. He made it about 15 yards and bedded quartering away. We gave Shayne a slight correction and he sent another one right behind the shoulder. We watched as his head started to sway and he rolled over on his back, perched on a ledge, hooves in the air!

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He went from poopy pants to high fiving in a matter of minutes. It always amazes me how quick a hunt can turn from bad to great.

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Since it was going to be dark soon we decided to head back to camp and retrieve him in the morning. We took note of the landmarks around him and headed back to camp.

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Once back at camp the grizzly bear took his shirt off to let it dry and revealed a pretty hilarious sunburn. I'm sure a lot of you will recognize that pattern but for those of you that don't, that's what happens when you glass without a shirt while you're wearing your FHF harness

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We got up early the next morning to make the 2.5 mile trip around to the goat. It wasn't as easy as we thought due to the cliffs and snow. We got cliffed out once and had to lose about 400' of elevation only to gain it right back and had to post hole through knee deep snow about the last mile.

On the bright side, I did get my first grouse with a rock. I thought Big Fin would be proud of this one

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We finally made our way over to our landmarks and found that he had rolled off his perch and through the rocks. Fortunately he made it through the rocks with nothing more than a couple cuts on his face. To say we were excited to finally put our hands on him would be an understatement

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We only had one butchering accident but it wasn't anything a little snow, a bandaid, and a few tears couldn't fix...

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Congrats on a great hunt! Something about goats gets in a man's blood. They are the coolest animal Montana has to hunt.
 
Thanks for taking the time for that write up. Awesome. As Gerald mentioned, coolest MT has to offer....and that says a lot.
 
Nice write up and congratulations to the successful goat hunter! Thanks for taking the time to share with us.
 
Great write up and pictures to go along. Quite the adventure and mindset to not give up due to the snow and topography. That goat does look big in the pictures .... nicely done.
 
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