Cool Pics, sounds like an excellent hunt!!

Jim,

Shoot me an email and I can email you the write up that was done on him in the Fbk's daily news miner. Dawn saved it for me to a word file. 17 counts of game violations, and they said there could be more!

I just feel bad for his wife! Both were young, 19-20yrs old if I remember right. What a way to start life out eh!

http://www.geocities.com/tradbow007/...dventures.html

Edited by - Lilhunter on 10/05/2002 23:55:30

Power

I can normally get so close to an animal that I can literally touch them. Generally it takes an arrow or bullet to do this, but it can be done <img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle> Seriously though, I was probably closest at 10-12 yds. It helps that I lug around a pretty good camera too. Some of the goats I encountered were very skittish, while others, such as the ones pictured were very curious. We started out above the goats, and after sitting tight a bit, they eventually came to us. Kinda cool how it all works out...they were very photogenic animals, thats for sure! I probably took close to 30 shots of these critters.

Lil & ABM

This was a registration hunt out of Valdez. Flew out Sat, the 21st on a gorgeous blue skied day. Took my bow, and my buddy took his 7mm. Was dropped off at the beach around 1pm, and by 8pm we were camping out right above treeline. Sunday morning still was quite nice as far as weather was concerned. I stopped counting the amount of goats we were seeing. Black bears were no different. We seen 7 different bears in a single bowl below us that morning, and went on to see three more that day...needless to say they were everywhere. Seen one or two bears that could of gone 7' easy, but we were more interested in getting the goats first. Within a few hours we stumbled upon the nannies and kids you see pictured above. Fifteen minutes later we are working the ridge down, and we come upon this goat (we had spotted it from the air the day before perched up on top of the rock by it's lonesome) straight below us. I range find it at 69 yds, so I go to grab my bow (my buddy and I had already agreed this was my goat while in the plane) and uh-oh we got a turning head, now its looking up at us...I don't think it's gonna work. I give the sign to my partner to take it with his gun. Four shots, all hit, goat jumps...200+ feet it fell. Turns out this isn't no Billy, it's a Nanny (shame on us). What do yah do. We really thought it was a male because of how high she was, and she was a loner. 8 2/8&quot; is all it made out on the long side. Do the photo shoot, I look up and across the valley sitting on the adjacent mountain is two big ol white spots to the left, and two quite a ways farther to the right. Right away I knew what goat I wanted (thank you spotting scope!). I leave Ron (partner) behind to tend to his goat and take off after this Billy. Now the part your dying to know...did I take my bow or my buddy's rifle? I took the gun. I am not kidding you guys when I say there was no way in hell I could of taken this goat with the bow...read on, you will see. I work my way over to the rock these guys are sitting on. My goat is stretched out on a lil knoll, and his brother is up and feeding. Takes me about an hour to climb up to the same elevation. Still working my way upwind (and sidehilling) towards them, I drop my pack right before the last finger where I figure they will once again become visible. Last finger is not really a finger at all, I was working a 65-70 degree slope on unstable dirt and shale, creeping closer I uh-oh loose it, and down the mountain I go...30' spread eagle, nothing slowing me down and the rifle just out of hands reach above me making its way down just as fast. I finally come to a hault, stand up, brush myself off, regain my composure and start the ascent back up. Didn't make it far though, and I was once again sliding down the hill digging my fingers into the soft dirt trying to stop. Didn't work too well, as this time I only fell 70' Spit the rocks out of my mouth and say to hell with this. Go back to my pack (w/o falling) get my instep crampons and give it another whirl. This time I zoom across the side of the mountain. Get about 80 yds, my goat sinces something, he is standing up...I dig my heels into the side of the mountain, contour my entire back to the slope of the mountain and fire away. Took four shots, missing the last shot. I was trying to stop him as he made way for lower ground. Like sheep, his buddy (goat) stood there looking dumbfounded, he however did eventually skip town over the mountain. I do my photo session, and just as I am starting to put my first cut into him, Ron shows up. He finished his goat, and stashed his pack, meat, and cape. Take one more pic with the two of us and the goat, look over where Ron's gut pile is at, and already a decent size blackie is feasting. Fifteen minutes into boning out my goat, I look up and we got us some visitors...a pack of song dogs. Ron busted one of em, and the rest took off. Never expected to see 'yotes down there, but we did. I cape out the entire goat for a lifesize mount. Get all of my stuff over to where Ron had his stashed, which wasn't too far away from the gut pile, thus we had Mr. Black Bear eyeballing us the entire time. It is now getting late, and I tell Ron there is no way in hell I'll be able to get my meat, cape, and pack back to camp that night. I leave the cape and horns, along with Ron's yote. I take my meat and we start working our way around the mountain back to camp. Get to the face of the mountain and it is now pitch black and we are still 3/4 mile from camp. Lay the meat on some rocks, cover it up with an emergency blanket (the el cheapo $1 pocket size), and start humping back to camp. I had already made up my mind I was spending the night under the stars with very little (a jacket, and one of those expensive emergency blankets). For whatever reason, I continued on around the mountain. Long story short, if it wasn't for a GPS and headlamp we would of never made it back to camp that night...who cares if climbed through some muck we didn't have to, but that's besides the point...we made it back at 11pm. Monday a.m. we pack camp and move it to the same face where we stashed the meat. I go back around the mountain for my goat, and Ron makes two trips for both, his and my meat. I make it back to where we dropped our gear, Ron and I drop down the mountain 20-30 yds to find a nice level place to pitch the tent, walk back uphill to get it and low and behold, the bear that was on Ron's gut pile (the same one that eyeballed me when I went back for my cape and got a little close to his grub) followed me back around the mountain and had we not been any sooner was going to make a feast out of our meat and camping equipment. We tried like hell to get him to run off, but it didn't happen. Ron dropped him. So much for waiting until we got back to the beach to bust a bear. He capes out his bear, while I set up camp, and during the process of hanging the meat, I hear this &quot;thump, thump&quot; and catch a quick blur out of the corner of my eye. Here we go again, I thought I had another bear in camp, but when I look a little close, a beautiful blacktail doe is standing right in front of me just checking out what I was. We stared each other down for a few moments, and like a flash, she leaped back into the alpine...pretty cool as the numbers of deer on the main land are nothing compared to the islands. We sleep good that night, and the next morning we wake up, I'm thinking I want to get all of this gear and game out in one trip, so I cut the rear end off to my goat, and the front legs, right below the knickers. Reality sinks in, and because of the bear, it just isn't gonna happen...we gotta do 2 trips. The first trip out was hell on the knees, we went down some pretty steep crud, thank goodness for the trees, my crampons, and my trekking pole, cause otherwise I would of been better off jumping. Make it back to the drop off point. Race for the dry bag and dig into the goodies...cigars, cold beer, MRE's (vs. the mountain houses we had been eating on). Next morning get up and pack back up the mountain totally empty. The climb up wasn't bad, but let me tell you the trip down was dreadful...it was down right horrid. We screwed up somewhere, but we ended up dropping into a gourge where we were surrounded by those beautiful PWS waterfalls...you know the ones the dropp off for 1000's of feet. (Let me tell you they aren't so beautiful when your carrying a loaded pack and you got one way out...up) Well we ended up having to wade through the falls, and climbing out on our hands and knees. Many cuss words later, we get back into flat land and eventually make our way back to camp...mission accomplished. Did I mentioned it rained? Well it did, the first 24 hours on the mountain was splendid, after that it went to hell in a hand basket. It didn't stop raining until the morning we were picked up (the following Sat.). Everything and anything was soaked. We were hoping to get picked up early (we were ready to go Thursday) but the cell phones would not work, and it was too foggy for the pilot to see that we were ready for a pickup (He flew over several times to check on us, but visibility was pretty nasty). Turns out we didn't see any bears down low. They were all up high munching on them high bush blueberries. I'm lucky I didn't end up with the runs from all the berries I ate. Between the blueberries and the raspberries (the size of 50 cent pieces) I stuffed myself. Well, that was the trip in a nutshell (not really kinda lengthy, but hey, what else you gonna do?)

Oh yah, my goat was 10' on the long side and 9 2/8 on the short. I don't remember for sure on the bases, I want to say 5 5/8. I thought it would of gone B&C, but it ended up just missing the all time book, it might make awards though.

ABM

Your absolutely right on the quality of the coat. The first thing that caught my eye on that goat was the beard...just look how long and full it is compared to the other goats pictured. He was really grown out all over, and I tried to show how long his knickers were in the pic above. Forget the horn length, I love the coat, and I was fortunate enough not to get many blood stains. I haven't decided yet, but I think I would like an entended shoulder mount, but on a pedestal. I think this guy deserves a little extra treatment, and I know Rich would come up with a heck of a mount.

Dan

My temp email address is [email protected] Shoot me a line anytime you want. I'll be back up in AK at least once, if not twice a year. You know me, I'll be planning for sheep soon, and will be trying to decide on one more hunt (coastal brownies again or a float trip out west for moose). The same goes for you too, you got an open invatation to my house anytime your in the neighborhood (Jerry this goes for you too). I have a hunch I'll be out and about next month for elk. Let me get a grasp of things here first before you go hitting me up for free guide services

As far as Rich (BT) is concerned, I think he is gonna have his work cut out for him this year (that's what he wanted though). If I am not mistaken, he got 4 or 5 sets of ram's horns in, the biggest set is nice, but far from full curl. A very heavy horned ram, but I think your horns will take the cake on all of them he has this year. The same guy who took that heavy dall, also took a Billy that is slightly larger than mine as far as horns are concerned, but I don't believe it was near as pretty, as his was an early season goat. You'll have to check my horns out when you drop in there, he'll probably have the coat still too, as he is planning a trip to Anchorage in a few weeks to drop off all of the capes at the tannery.

As a side note, I'm happy to announce that all of the fans of the big 12.5', 1600 lb brown bear will most likely get an opportunity to see it this spring at the outdoor show. Ol Ted has asked Rich for a lifesize (cha-chingo...$4K). Rich would like to take it to the show, so keep your eyes peeled.

It doesn't suprise me what some of them yahoo's around there do. Serves this guy right...anybody that stupid should fry! I'll see if I can't dig the article up from the newsminer, but go ahead and shoot it to me just in case. I'd love to read it.

Hot damn! Look at the time. Man did I ramble or what? Well, you asked for the story.



Edited by - dalliwacker on 10/06/2002 03:12:41

sweet stuff! again congrats.

Free guide services, ha <img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle>!

I am still waiting for word on Rich's return. Can't wait to drewl in the shop.

email's on the way!

http://www.geocities.com/tradbow007/...dventures.html

Great story Dalli, thanks for the extended version. <img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle>

Those crampons are more than worth their weight in gold, ain't they? We would of been limited on our goat hunt without them. We did our goat hunt last year in the middle of October since we were going for nice coats like yours has. We paid the price though with the downfall of snow though, but what can you do? We didn't take rifles along, so we came home empty handed.

Congrats again and good luck in Idaho. I'll be about 400 miles south of you next year.
ArcticBowMan's Hunting Photo's

Yes the crampons were well worth the $45. Ron was slipping and sliding all over the mountain without them. The snot grass likes to collect between the lugs in your boot, and eventually you have nothing but a slick sole, so you can see where the crampons would help. You do need to stop every so often to clean the crampons out as well, but it only takes a second. I don't think I would of ever got the goat w/o them. I would of been at the base of the mountain had I not put them on for the final stalk.

Say what you want about the bow. I'm not proud, and consider myself a switch hitter. I would of liked to take a goat with the bow (and I could of, but passed because of the sex issue), but at the same time I weighed my options with the goat I took and it just wasn't gonna be possible.

Maybe next time, eh?

Dan, I would expect Rich home soon, he has been out a week now. When I left his house last Sat. he had a 3/4 bear mount and a shoulder mount of a goat completed. The goat belongs to the guy he is hunting with now, so it might not be there when you show. Definitely ask to see his ram he has crated up in the garage...you'll love it.

Jerry

You chasing after elk again next year? If possible, I am all for trying to hook up. You guys just try and save some game for me there. I'm already missing the state, and am counting the days for my return.

I'm going to Oregon next year for elk with the guys that came up this year to go caribou hunting with us. I'll only be going for a week next year, so hopefully that will be enough. I'll probably be about 2 hours from Boise where I'll be hunting, but not exactly sure where since this is there spot they are taking me to. I'll be driving up from Vegas for the hunt.

I meant no disrespect about you taking the goat with the rifle. I would of given my buddies left arm for a 300 win mag while we were chasing goats. We got to within 80 yards, but like you were saying, there was no way to get any closer. Our problem was avalanches due to all the snow and changing weather. I'd like to get a goat under my belt, and then focus on going after them with bow only. I'm sure I'll find myself in the mountains again rifleless though, it always seems to work out that way.

No disrespect taken Jerry <img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle><img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle><img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle>