2013 British Columbia Mountain Goat Hunt Pt.1

[warnniklz]

THE DISCOVERY

After an unsuccessful training run in 2012, I was itching to get back out hunting goats. During the spring, I was making a couple hour drive to work once a week. One early April day, I was cruising home from work. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught something that didn't look right. So I whipped around and pulled off to the side of the road. I spotted a goat on a cliff face. I started glassing and started seeing more goats.

I started taking notes on where I was seeing goats. When I got home, I started putting pins on Google Earth, marking the goat sightings. I downloaded the Limited Entry Hunting zone overlays. The majority of goats were in two different management units. The one zone was 90 degree granite cliffs, the other was 89 degree granite cliffs. Thankfully, according to my pins, the most goats was in the less steep country of the two.

The zone had slightly tougher odds (3:1) with 21 goat tags issued. I applied and later that June I got my notice that I'd be hunting mountain goats that year.

 

[Gerald Martin]

Oh yeah, bring it on...

 

[Reeltime]

Here we go!!

 

[warnniklz]

I happened to be doing the drive by my goat area the day I found out I got the draw. So the drive took me longer than usual. I had to stop at every spot I could.

The area I was drawn for has about 20km access via road. Then two rivers run northward for 30km or so that you can access some of via jetboat. Myself would be limited to road access. Now the road access isn't exactly easy. It's straight up from any spot you can manage to park.

 

[warnniklz]

 

[warnniklz]

Every Tuesday when I had to make that drive to work, I'd spend time watching the goats, taking notes and the odd time... cut a little trail. On the weekends, it was full blown trail cutting.

This mountain was my goal. There was an old trail to the base of the mountain. But no trail from there on. We now refer to this spot as the back channel.

This spot especially caught my eye. Looked like I could see a cave... but this spot was littered with goats.

One of my doodles for taking notes.

 

[warnniklz]

THE FIRST HUNT

There was a guy new to town that posted to another hunting forum. He wanted to get out hunting. Me not really knowing anyone in town as I was fairly new to town myself, I sent him a pm and we got to talking. We had made plans to grab a beer and go over maps. That never happened.

We had discussed that he'd come with me on my goat hunt. But we also picked out a couple spots relatively close with a general open season.

Opening weekend (Aug 1), I drove over to his house. We'll call him QK. I pulled up, introduced myself, tossed my pack into his truck and we were off.

It was a busy road that twisted along the river. Luckily we had a radio to communicate with oncoming logging trucks and other traffic. We knew we were suppose to turn at one road. But there was quite a bit of new development. We ended up coming across a hydro project camp. We headed into the main office and the ssecretary re-drew some roads on our map. We followed her directions and within a half hour, we were at our spot we wanted to park.

 

[warnniklz]

QK, his labradoodle Mountain Molly and myself set off. The trail was pretty east going at first. About half hour into the hike, QK discovered he left the bolt for his rifle back at the truck. QK and Mountain Molly headed back to the truck, while I posted up and set up the spotting scope. I didn't see anything and it wasn't long until QK was back.

We carried on down the trail. The trail came out at a small river and the trail somewhat ended. But there was a weed wacker with a brush blade on it and a gallon of fuel next to it. It was set down nicely, so we figured the operator left it there on purpose.

We broke into the alpine around 6pm. We set-up camp for the night and settled in begind our optics. We started picking apart the crags. We started spotting goats.

I took a break from glassing and started dinner. I was mixing up my mountain house and seen something moving down the mountainside. I quietly said "QK... there's a bear". QK looked up from behind his spotter. I'm Not sure if he didn't really hear me. But I just heard him say "moose". I put my meal down and set up next to him. Qk focused on his moose/my bear... sure enough. A big ass g-bear was working his way down the mountain. We watched him for 20 min before he disappeared into the valley bottom. Probably on his way to do some fishing at the river.

Some pics from the hike in.

 

[warnniklz]

After watching the grizz, we caught some movement coming up the trail. A guy named Brad came into camp. He was the guy clearing the trail. He was getting it cleared for winter. I guess our goat hunting spot is some prime backcountry ski area.

QK and Brad spent quite a bit of time discussing backcountry skiing. In a short break of the ski talk, me and QK both brought our heads up from behind our spotters. We looked at each other. We both knew what each other had just watched. A goat stood up from it's bed and stretched out like a clydesdale.

We spent what was left of daylight watching the billy and discussing a game plan. After it was too dark to watch the goats, the conversation slowly slid back to skiing.

5am rolled around as I pulled my boots on. QK was already behind the spotter watching our billy. We had a quick bite to eat and a discussion on the game plan.

We dropped into the valley where we last seen the g-bear. Then it was up a morraine. I know how efficient bears are. But after seeing the size of the boulders and climbing up, over snd around them. It reminds you how powerful bears are.

The morning was cool and damp... which meant we were going to have a burner. About an hour in, we were a third of the way up the mountain. It was still early and it was already getting hot out.

Two hours later we were where we wanted to be. But our billy wasn't to be seen. The plus 32 degree celcius weather didn't help.

Our grizzly/goat mountain from camp

Should be able to pick out some goats In this picture

Spot our billy was hanging out at. He's in this picture... may be able to pick him out.

 

[warnniklz]

We started hunting around to try and figure out where our billy went. We figured we'd ascend the saddle and post up. Then wait him out. At this point we took a moment to kick off the boots and maybe check out the back of our eye lids a bit.

QK and Mountain Molly

at some point in time I bunged up my camera... so went full cheese whiz on panorama mode

Dry feet are happy feet

 

[warnniklz]

 

[warnniklz]

After a few hours of trying to wait out the goats in the heat, we decided that maybe they could hold out until it cooled off. Since neither of us had been in the area before, we figured it would be a good time to do some exploring. We were also hoping that we could ditch the bugs...

Mountain Molly taking in the view

 

[warnniklz]

We checked out where we seen the goats the night before. We figured "worst case scenario, we jump a goat and make a new game plan". There was plenty of beds amongst the rocks.

But we couldn't bump a goat for the life of us.

 

[warnniklz]

We only had one more day of hunting, so we decided that for the rest of the day we'd split up and cover more ground. QK and Mountain Molly went over the back side of the mountain. It was decided that I'd head up the valley to see if I couldn't find something hiding in the shadows.

Neither of us seen anything the rest of the day and we made it back towards camp for the night.

 

[warnniklz]

5am the next morning I didn't need an alarm. Well I had what I call "the indian alarm". Went out to drain the main vein and QK was already perched behind the spotting scope with Mountain Molly snoring beside him. QK didn't even move from the scope and just quietly said "goats". Without saying any more we scrambled our gear and it was a forced march up the mountain.

We made it up the mountain quicker than the day before

Selina, my Weatherby Vanguard chambered in 30_06, topped with a weaver 40/44 3-9x40

 

[warnniklz]

We were a lot more careful about being quiet and getting a better angle on where we seen the goats. We even tried getting above and coming down on them... but once again they gave us the slip.

Waiting out goats wasn't in our plan today. I had spotted a well used trail that went up to the base of some cliffs.

I didn't check it out the day before, but it seemed shaded and worth a look. The trail was steeper at the mid point compared to the bottom. Funny how that works. Luckily there was enough roots and brush to get a good hold on to pull ourselves up.

The trail was leading to some nice green shady area. We were confident we'd come across the Serengeti of goats.

We kind of got cliffed out. Our option was to go straight up the face or around the base and see what was around the corner.

 

[warnniklz]

Going straight up actually looked easier than going around the corner... and in reality... it probably was. We made our way across the foliage. As we crossed, it seemed to crumble under our feet. If we did go down, our next stop was boulders.

looking back at what we came across

 

[warnniklz]

We didn't come across any goats, but they definitely had been there at some point. We came across plenty of goat hair hanging from the scrub brush.

With no goat sightings and it being early after in the blazing sun, the lake was looking pretty fine.

looking off the back side of the lake from where we came up.

 

[warnniklz]

After cooling off with a swim, we discussed the evening game plan. We were going to wait these guys out until dark. We cooked up some eats to keep the hanger at bay.

samples from work

We found a draw with some spruce trees to hide out of sight a bit.

Then the sun started to descend...

 

[warnniklz]

Just as the sun started to drop, the temperature finally went with it. I was busy trying to get to the bottom of my meal while QK tapped me on the shoulder. I knew right away... I slowly got lower and turned around. Up on a knob was a goat skylined all majestic.

Goat was perched on this knob here.

We broke out the spotting scope and started picking apart the goats features...