Goat hunt....what do you know?

Hey guys, I’ve been working hard to put aside some money to go on an adventure. I want to do something I can’t easily do in the states. I’ve always had my eye on mountain goats and wondered what people thought that have hunted these creatures. Is it a fun hunt? Worth making my wife super mad? I’ve heard mixed results on the table fare. I’m also wondering if the only way to get a good hide is a late season hunt. Sounds like BC is one of the best places to get one if you don’t draw here in the states, so I have been looking around there. I’m defiantly not experienced enough to do a DIY in Alaska.

I’m hoping when I’m 80 I look back and still think burning $$$ on chasing a goat was better than putting it in the retirement bucket haha.

Mitch,
Goat hunting is easily some of the most enjoyable and potentially brutal hunting I have ever done. I have drawn permits in MT twice. Nothing is worth making your wife super mad. If your wife gets mad at you for prioritzing and pursueing a dream you need to reevaluate alot of things. As for table fare, both of my goats were mature billies taken in late October the first was so tough the hamburger wore out teeth. The second goat was a little more stringy than deer but easily edible. both had a distinct but pleasent taste. In MT goats have a decent coat by october and don't change significantly after mid november from my observations. You cannot hunt Goat in AK without a guide, i believe BC is the same way. Idaho and MT are your best bets for lower 48 goats.
Good luck.

JBS said:

Idaho and MT are your best bets for lower 48 goats.

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Although still have terrible odds, especially for a NR

Thanks for the words on this JBS. I was planning on doing a guided hunt in BC as I would probably die on my own . Too bad the meat isn’t wonderful, but that was my guess. Something that lives that lifestyle can’t taste that good.

Go hunt a goat and then bring it back and cook it for a candle light dinner with the wife. If she is still around after that then you two should be solid for life . All kidding aside, it's a hunt worth pursuing and one I'll never forget. Go chase your dreams but don't bank on it providing delicious steak. You might be better off processing it into summer sausage or pepperoni. Good luck!

Baerman said:

You might be better off processing it into summer sausage or pepperoni.

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Buy a Sous Vide machine, craft up a tasty marinade 135° for 12-14hrs that goat is going to cut like butter and be a perfect main course for a candle light 'Thank you for supporting my goat hunt' dinner.

There is nothing more inedible than a very old mountain goat. Find a raptor center and make a donation.

I would go to kodiak island for goats. no draw, milder terrian, goats have really good coats by oct. alot cheaper than b.c.
very high goat numbers. i can give you names of some quality outfitters

I think you guys have made it very clear that goats are pretty tasty lol. It sounds like my favorite carp recipe where you cook it on a cedar plank in the oven at 350 for 4 hrs. When its done, take it out and throw the carp away and eat the board.

10ptbuck, I'd really appreciate any info you might have, shoot me a PM if you get a min. Thanks!

Can't be any worse than javelina. Everything is good ground into sausage

10ptbuck said:

I would go to kodiak island for goats. no draw, milder terrian, goats have really good coats by oct. alot cheaper than b.c.
very high goat numbers. i can give you names of some quality outfitters

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I drew a tag on Kodiak in 2007. I went with my brother who is a AK resident so I did not need a guide. We went in October for our schedules and the longer hair. We got socked in and on the 8th day the pilot flew in and suggested we go with him if we wanted to leave in the next 10 days. The only goats we saw were flying in and out. But I will do it again soon. Maybe not on Kodiak this time, but in Prince William Sound.

I've drawn and taken three goats in Washington prior to them being OIL. One was a billy and the other two were nannies. The tenderloins on all three were like chewing good tasting rubber to the point you just swallowed as best you could. I ended up grinding all three and it was very tasty as burger and somewhat milder than deer. My wife will deny it now, but 25+ years ago, I remember her saying it was great. These days, she doesn't like deer very much either...go figure! She said "til death do us part"...but I guess that didn't mean eating deer and goats (or chuckars for that matter)!!

I've had good luck with goat meat, but agree it doesn't fry or grill very well. It's my favorite of all the Alaska game species for roasts though, as the fat in the muscle makes it much more likely to come out of a slow cooker moist and tender. Side by side cooked with deer/moose/caribou, and my family preferred goat roasts every time. I also personally preferred the burger texture over dall sheep or caribou for grilling.

I'm planning on a meat hunt for goats this year, just to re-stock on those great roasts and burger.

First things first. My advice as someone married twice with the second marriage at 30 years currently: Fix the wife issue as you should not be desiring a hunt if she is opposed. Lots of ways to fix that but soldiering on without support at home is not a healthy partnership. Not for her. Not for you. Not for your friends. The years will fly by and stress kills so fix points of stress as best you can whether that be financial, health or relationships.

Now my perspective. I have been fortunate to harvest a lot of critters and several different species in North America. Three hunts stand out to me above the many. My AK mountain goat (about $22K door to door with a lot of new gear that I have used for many years, was a draw tag, guided with super cub transport), my CO mountain goat (about $4500 door to door with about half that the tag, was a draw tag, not guided but had 3 helpers) and my WY mule deer (about $4500 door to door, was a draw tag, guided with pack string into the Shoshone). All three were mountain hunts with some dangerous terrain and injuries arose from slips and tumbles.

Things can go badly quickly at altitude and goat season can overlap when the summer's vegetation is turning to slime on the steep ridges you need to navigate. You may encounter ice. Likely will encounter snow. Maybe barren rocky avalanche chutes. Afternoon lightning while you are the tallest thing on the ridge. Rotten rock that pulls loose as you attempt to climb up ledges. I grew up in the Midwest and have no issue with the steep sides of gullies and rooftops around the farm. I discovered about two hours into the AK hunt that my version of steep was not steep for a mountain. I was climbing up ridges so steep that if you paused your footholds would begin to slide out from you and if you tumbled then slid on your back then your pack would cause you to launch head over heels. A rock knocked loose would slide and tumble for 1000 feet or more, perhaps flying over a ledge. You could face away from the ridge and walk down the ridge as if was an escalator as each footfall would slide under your heel. Streams of milky water to cross using the pick axe to probe the water depth/find a foothold and sometimes reluctantly using your rifle butt to stay upright. I told my wife after the first goat hunt that never again as at one point was hanging about 30' above SUV-sized boulder with my gloved left hand the only thing keeping me on the cliff. At another point was leaping a quite deep, double crevasse by springing up off the center sliver of ice at a point in the pack out when the satellite phone's display had failed. I had the SPOT locator and thankfully was not needed. I performed badly on the CO hunt with very poor marksmanship and was very fortunate to recover the billy. I changed my rifle set-up after that hunt and have become a much better hunter as a result of that trainwreck.

As for table fare, I had jerky made out of the two goats. Both goats shot after hair reached good length in early October.

I have shot aoudad rams and bighorn ewes. I have heard the hardest part of a bighorn ram hunt is drawing the tag. That is the easiest part of both of my mountain goat hunts. Perhaps is sour grapes for me to note that because I am 0 for 150 on my bighorn ram draws. I like to think a goat hunt measured me more against the mountain that a ram hunt would. Or a bison hunt which I still am patiently waiting to draw.

If was told could only do one more hunt then would be for one more mountain goat up on a mountain ridge, hopefully far from hikers with granola and pools of salty urine that will have altered the goat behavior. I would eat fresh steaks on the mountainside with my sour grapes.

LopeHunter said:

If was told could only do one more hunt then would be for one more mountain goat up on a mountain ridge,

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Amen brotha.

LopeHunter said:

My AK mountain goat (about $22K door to door with a lot of new gear that I have used for many years, was a draw tag, guided with super cub transport), my CO mountain goat (about $4500 door to door with about half that the tag, was a draw tag, not guided but had 3 helpers) and my WY mule deer (about $4500 door to door, was a draw tag, guided with pack string into the Shoshone).

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Good God. 22K for a goat hunt? 32K for 2 goats and a deer. Oh man, I live on a shoe string budget compared to that when it comes to hunting.

But not to deter from the original posts, goat hunting is as fun as anything you'll ever do. Regardless of the divorce settlement.

I've killed one goat and helped on five other successful goat hunts. I think they are the coolest animal to hunt in the lower 48. Almost all goat hunts are more physically demanding than sheep(bighorns) and everyone is earned. On most hunts, seeing goats is not the problem. Finding a big billy in an area that you can stalk him and then recover him can be a challenge. If you can do it without causing major relationship problems with your wife, it will be one the best hunts you can do. As far as table fare, every goat I've eaten has had plenty of texture, but good flavor. As was said before, the flavor is distictive but not unpleasant. I'd MUCH rather eat a goat than a bighorn ram in the rut. Those suckers take some real enthusiasm to enjoy that meat.

I'm not sure how an AK goat hunt could cost 22k...would like to see the break-down.

I bet I didn't have $250 in my Montana goat hunt...tag was $50 and I don't think I spent $200 in fuel, food, etc.

Gerald Martin said:

On most hunts, seeing goats is not the problem. Finding a big billy in an area that you can stalk him and then recover him can be a challenge.

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This has been my experience. Although I have spent plenty of time hunting the Alaskan mountains for sheep and caribou, the goat hunts were certainly different. Both times I had no problem locating animals, and they weren't hard to stalk from an alertness standpoint (we actually shot two billies right from camp on Kodiak), but beyond that things got sketchy fast. I'm sure when a guy gets lucky there are some easy goat harvests, but there are far more wild stories from goat hunts than sheep. It was a bit touch and go if it was the goats or the hunter that was going to carry the day on my trips.

It's also my experience that you typically cover less ground on a goat hunt than with other mountain species. With sheep you can run long ridges and valleys and end up with a fair number of miles in a weeks time and/or long pack outs. The terrain I goat hunted was fairly cut up and it was more about the climb than the miles.