Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Be Careful What You Wish For...

After last year's Austrian adventure with Ready, I was hanknerin' for another mountain hunt. I booked my 5th go-around with the BC outfitter I've used for years, this time for a goat. It seemed like a good idea at the time...

In the Flathead valley, they're known for their population of Interior Grizzlies, but this time I found they've had a new alpha predator move in:





I definitely had my guard up.


The summer's wildfires hadn't been kind to the game population, and the outfitter admitted the hunting had been awfully slow. Though his territory was only slightly affected by fires, the surrounding area had suffered significant damage, and the whole region had been smoky for a long time. We spent a couple days glassing throughout the valley, and didn't come up with any sightings. Like, of mammals. At all. Not even a squirrel.

Well, actually, there was a squirrel. On day 3, the outfitter made a spectacular shot on a squirrel trying to raid the pantry. Alas, there were no trophy pictures taken.

Also on day 3, we located our first goats in the main valley, so I knew we'd be OK if we just kept after it. The guide and I loaded up our organic ATV's





and headed to the back bowl of a side creek where some billies had been seen on earlier hunts. After settling in to the spike cabin, we did a bit of glassing, and came up with a nice looking billy:





Yup, right there





OK, if you look at that last pic, and imagine those rock cliffs as a pair o' boobs, zoom in as far as your computer will let you, and look where the nipple would be on the left. That off-white smudge at the base of the cliff is our guy. And yes, that's how the guide and I would describe to one another what we were looking at. We both seemed to be conversational in such terminology.

A word about my guide. Graysin is a strapping young lad of [underage in the US], and might give a goat a good run for its money in a race up the mountain. One of the many reasons I keep using this outfitter is that he can keep finding such sharp guys, with good skills, and most importantly, who still have cartilage. The kid has a really good head on his shoulders, and knows his way around the mountain, the game, and even the clients. He's already a good one, and he's only gonna get better.

Knowing where the billy would be overnighting, we headed to bed to ready an assault for the morning.

Back in our glassing spot at first light, we found the billy tracing the underwire of the brassiere on the right boob of that part of the mountain. We watched him feed for a while, and settle into what looked like a pretty decent spot here.





This one's a gimme. You'll notice there's only 1 yellow (larch?) tree in the whole damned picture, and he bedded down right next to it. Even I couldn't screw this one up.


The plan would be to shimmy up the hill to get to a glassing spot near his level. About the base of the cliff in the middle of this picture, right where the snowy talus slope meets the rock face.





This is one of those ideas that sounds really good in theory, and proves more... challenging... in practice. I can climb hills somewhat decently, but the ones covered in small loose rock stink, and adding greasy, melting snow on top of that really [performs fellatio]. I regaled Graysin with more than a li'l school bus language on my way up, not to mention the sweating, wheezing, gastrointestinal utterances, etc.

Still, we eventually got to our spot

(cont.)