To live life with no regrets is no easy task. How many of
you have a dream of a certain animal that you would love to experience pursuing
with your bow? Mine is the majestic mountain goat. This summer I was lucky
enough for two reasons, one was drawing a tag for a goat close to home and two
was making a life change to get into shape to up my odds of harvesting my
dream. So, my journey began by running and lifting weights. With the mountains
in mind and a helpful, loving wife, on cardio days we would drive out to a bush
road. My wife would throw the dogs and I out so we could run 5 to 10 kms (I
think she was laughing at me most of the time) then throw out the targets and do
some shooting.
By the time Sept 9th
came around I was down 30 pounds ,
had done some backpack trips for scouting and was ready. The day before I was
to leave, my cousin called me in a panic to see if I wanted to help him with
his sheep because his partner rolled his ankle and couldn’t go with. Family
first, I was happy to help, he was only going to be out for two days then he
had to go home. So after a 17 km
bike ride up the road closure in the rain we finally got to his little hut and
thank goodness it was there cause it didn’t stop raining for 24 hours. We hunkered
down and lit a fire to dry our gear and got caught up on life.
In the morning we sat there spending our time watching
movies on my Iphone waiting for the rain to quit. At around six pm the rain had quit, but it was too late to make a
move up the mountain. We glassed till dark and had a good night sleep. In the
morning, our gear was dry and we were off, it took three hours of hard hiking
to get up where we would be able to hunt as long as we could. With my cousin
having to go back that day, time was of the essence. Because this area was also
my goat area, I was keeping tabs on all the goats in the area. We found a legal
ram but were unsuccessful on the stock. So after seeing 5 goats and a four and
a half km hike back to camp we packed up and rode our bikes back to the trucks.
After my cousin and I said good bye, I decided to head of to
a different drainage to see if there were any Billy’s back there. This time I
was able to use my quad to cover more ground and save my energy for the hike.
After all morning of not seeing any goats, I decided to go to a look out point
were I could watch three different ridges. After 2 hours and a 20 min cat nap I
noticed something a little different, so I grabbed my spotting scope and took a
look. Bingo! Two goats, three quarters of the way up the mountain, but instead
of going after them I sat back to observe them and make sure they were Billy’s
and weren’t going anywhere. After an hour, both goats stood up out of their
beds and I knew they were mature animals. I land marked a rock I could get to
and my path up to them, then dropped everything but my pack, defender and bow
and was off. On my way up I noticed some fresh bear scat halfway up, but it
looked like the bear was heading off that ridge.
It took 2 hours to get to the bottom of the rock I had picked
from down below. Now it was time to slow down and let my training take over. I
dropped my pack then crawled up to the top of the rock and looked over; to my
surprise the goat was right there. I ranged him at 38 yards . As I was pulling back, the
goat caught movement and looked in disbelief that I was there. But it was too
late, my arrow made a clean pass through and I watched with fulfillment as the
goat ran 150 yard
and fell. On his fall he busted his nose and shattered his front leg, but the
horns were still intact.
Because I knew this was grizzly country, and I was alone, I took
a couple pictures and started to field dress my hard earned prize. It didn’t
take long but just as I finished de-boning the quarters I had a feeling I
should look behind me. This was going to suck. She winded the kill, was the
first thing that came to mind as I seen a young grizzly heading my way across
the hill looking for lunch. My second thought was, grab the gun. At about a hundred
yards I fired my first shot at the ground in front of her, a second at eighty
and the third shot she was at sixty. I hit a rock at her feet which exploded
and caused her to stop then go around a small ridge. So, with the grizzly on
the hill, I grabbed all the meat, threw it in my pack, strapped my bow down and
started down the hill back to my quad. What should have taken me just over an
hour to do, I did in forty min. But there’s nothing like a little motivation
strapped to your back to put some life to your step.
Kyle
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