Travelinghunter
FNG
- Joined
- May 11, 2025
- Messages
- 2
One of my biggest pet peeves are people who come on here, ask for help and information about a hunt and are never seen again without conclusion on how the hunt ended up. For that fact, I will post the story of my once in a lifetime goat hunt.
Once I discovered I was successful in the draw, I did everything I could to research this tag, from calling biologists, contacting previous tag holders and scouring online forums. In my hours of reading I learned where most the goats are harvested and a general area where to begin my search.
Early July was my first scouting trip, and I was solo deep in grizzly country glassing for a day and a half to come up with nothing but large amounts of bighorn sheep. 3 weeks later I convinced the wife to come scout the northern part of the unit with me. After a grueling hike up an abandoned washed out mining road, we got into a basin that looked promising, and again, an entire day of glassing only turned up some ewes and lambs. The next morning, we had a group of 4 rams close to camp, but no goats to be seen. I decided to hike to the next basin over and started glassing. As my wife was filling her pockets with rocks that looked interesting, I heard rocks tumbling down the face of the mountain; finally, a pair of mountain goats. It looked like a pair of young Billies, but a sense of relief came over me after realizing the scouting trips have not been fruitless.
Now came the hunt planning. I had two buddies that agreed to come assist on this once in a lifetime hunt. One is a lifelong friend that has never said no on any of the hunts Ive been on. The other is my cousin, who luck would have it, also drew his once in a lifetime goat tag in Idaho this year. As I am writing this we are headed home from filling his tag with an awesome Billy, But that's a story for a different day. September 13th my hunting group flew into Sheridan Wyoming and arrived at my house in Buffalo. We loaded up an atv, a dirt bike and enough food and supplies to give it an 8 day go in the mountains. We left Buffalo on the 14th, headed towards the Sunlight basin. After a quick stop at the Hi-way bar and cafe in Manderson,(highly recommend the cinnamon rolls there in the breakfast buffet) we arrived at the trailhead around 11am. We hit the trail for about a 15 mile ride to where the road is washed out. On the way there we met an old sheep hunter from Idaho. We exchanged some hunting stories and pictures and we also learned that two billies were already killed on the mountain I scouted and all that was left was Nannie's and kids. Not what we wanted to hear. A little nervous about if we are making the right choice, we continue with our original plan. We make it up the mountain and set up camp around 5pm. Did I mention the water that was there in the end of July was no longer there in mid September? Anyway we split up to go glass opposite basins. I get to the glassing knob looking over where I spotted the goats on my previous trip and we weren't glassing for 5 minutes when my buddy exclaims with a little grin on his face "I found one!" With a Quick Look with the spotter I realized it was a good Billy and I was down by an abandoned mine and easily recoverable. There was just one issue, it was 1634 yards away as a crow flies and it was 6pm. A quick decision was made to dump everything besides a pair of binoculars, a rangefinder a Glock 20 for bear defense and my rifle.This will come back to bite us later. We make it down the mountain and into the basin in a rocketing 35 minutes losing over 1300' in elevation. Once in the basin there is grizzly scat every 10 feet, and have to consciously watch your step so you don't step into it there is that much of it. The thermals and Wyoming wind began ripping through the drainage as we closed the distance. I'm confident to 600 yards with 7saum but I wanted no doubt it my shot with the high winds. We cleared the treeline and we were still 500yds away shooting up at a 34 degree angle with no rest. This isnt going to work. There was a large rock that would work as a rest 150yds ahead of us. We get to the rock and the Billy finally notices us and starts slowly waking up a drainage. My buddy ranges it, 358yards and 28 degrees. I fire my first shot, solid hit and the goat acts like nothing happens. I was slightly confused at first because I've shot several animals with this hand load including a B&C Alaskan Moose and it is not an anemic round by any means. 160 grain bullet moving at 3200 fps should've gotten some reaction but it didn't. 3 hits later and the goat finally is anchored and as luck would have it, it stayed put and did not come tumbling down the mountain. After a short steep hike up, I get up to the goat and my heart sank at first. It appeared it was now missing a horn, but it wasn't. The goat must've had damage to a horn earlier in life and it ended up growing in a a circle, not broken off. Now here comes the difficult part.
If you remember we left everything at the top of the opposite side of the basin to chase this billy down, including our packs. We have a 6/7 year old Billy down, no game bags, just 2 sharp pocket knives and a phone flashlight and it's 7pm. We use our satellite texting to message our other hunting partner to come to this basin and grab both our packs and meet us in the bottom of the next drainage over. He finally arrives around 9pm after hiking the 3 miles from camp to meet us with our gear in the bottom of this drainage. We loaded up our packs, I took the hide, and my partners split the meat and began our hike out in the dark. Now we have 1300' of elevation of gain to get out of the basin in 1.5 miles and then another 1.5 downhill to get to camp. We could make it about 200yds at a time before we were gassed. The 3 mile hike ended up taking 5 hours to get back to camp and we were dead tired when we arrived. But now the water comes into play. We haven't had any water in 5 hours so now another 1/4 mile hike down to a small creek to find water and back to camp. We passed out and woke up at 9am packed camp up quick and scooted out of there because there was a good storm and snow coming. Got back to the truck around 12pm, checked the goat into fish and game where he was aged at 6/7 years old. 8" and around 4" bases. I could not of done it without the help from my friends, my wife for allowing to me hunt 3 months of the year, and all the help from forums like this. If anyone else ever draws a 3-2 tag, feel free to message me on here and I'll help all I can.
Once I discovered I was successful in the draw, I did everything I could to research this tag, from calling biologists, contacting previous tag holders and scouring online forums. In my hours of reading I learned where most the goats are harvested and a general area where to begin my search.
Early July was my first scouting trip, and I was solo deep in grizzly country glassing for a day and a half to come up with nothing but large amounts of bighorn sheep. 3 weeks later I convinced the wife to come scout the northern part of the unit with me. After a grueling hike up an abandoned washed out mining road, we got into a basin that looked promising, and again, an entire day of glassing only turned up some ewes and lambs. The next morning, we had a group of 4 rams close to camp, but no goats to be seen. I decided to hike to the next basin over and started glassing. As my wife was filling her pockets with rocks that looked interesting, I heard rocks tumbling down the face of the mountain; finally, a pair of mountain goats. It looked like a pair of young Billies, but a sense of relief came over me after realizing the scouting trips have not been fruitless.
Now came the hunt planning. I had two buddies that agreed to come assist on this once in a lifetime hunt. One is a lifelong friend that has never said no on any of the hunts Ive been on. The other is my cousin, who luck would have it, also drew his once in a lifetime goat tag in Idaho this year. As I am writing this we are headed home from filling his tag with an awesome Billy, But that's a story for a different day. September 13th my hunting group flew into Sheridan Wyoming and arrived at my house in Buffalo. We loaded up an atv, a dirt bike and enough food and supplies to give it an 8 day go in the mountains. We left Buffalo on the 14th, headed towards the Sunlight basin. After a quick stop at the Hi-way bar and cafe in Manderson,(highly recommend the cinnamon rolls there in the breakfast buffet) we arrived at the trailhead around 11am. We hit the trail for about a 15 mile ride to where the road is washed out. On the way there we met an old sheep hunter from Idaho. We exchanged some hunting stories and pictures and we also learned that two billies were already killed on the mountain I scouted and all that was left was Nannie's and kids. Not what we wanted to hear. A little nervous about if we are making the right choice, we continue with our original plan. We make it up the mountain and set up camp around 5pm. Did I mention the water that was there in the end of July was no longer there in mid September? Anyway we split up to go glass opposite basins. I get to the glassing knob looking over where I spotted the goats on my previous trip and we weren't glassing for 5 minutes when my buddy exclaims with a little grin on his face "I found one!" With a Quick Look with the spotter I realized it was a good Billy and I was down by an abandoned mine and easily recoverable. There was just one issue, it was 1634 yards away as a crow flies and it was 6pm. A quick decision was made to dump everything besides a pair of binoculars, a rangefinder a Glock 20 for bear defense and my rifle.This will come back to bite us later. We make it down the mountain and into the basin in a rocketing 35 minutes losing over 1300' in elevation. Once in the basin there is grizzly scat every 10 feet, and have to consciously watch your step so you don't step into it there is that much of it. The thermals and Wyoming wind began ripping through the drainage as we closed the distance. I'm confident to 600 yards with 7saum but I wanted no doubt it my shot with the high winds. We cleared the treeline and we were still 500yds away shooting up at a 34 degree angle with no rest. This isnt going to work. There was a large rock that would work as a rest 150yds ahead of us. We get to the rock and the Billy finally notices us and starts slowly waking up a drainage. My buddy ranges it, 358yards and 28 degrees. I fire my first shot, solid hit and the goat acts like nothing happens. I was slightly confused at first because I've shot several animals with this hand load including a B&C Alaskan Moose and it is not an anemic round by any means. 160 grain bullet moving at 3200 fps should've gotten some reaction but it didn't. 3 hits later and the goat finally is anchored and as luck would have it, it stayed put and did not come tumbling down the mountain. After a short steep hike up, I get up to the goat and my heart sank at first. It appeared it was now missing a horn, but it wasn't. The goat must've had damage to a horn earlier in life and it ended up growing in a a circle, not broken off. Now here comes the difficult part.
If you remember we left everything at the top of the opposite side of the basin to chase this billy down, including our packs. We have a 6/7 year old Billy down, no game bags, just 2 sharp pocket knives and a phone flashlight and it's 7pm. We use our satellite texting to message our other hunting partner to come to this basin and grab both our packs and meet us in the bottom of the next drainage over. He finally arrives around 9pm after hiking the 3 miles from camp to meet us with our gear in the bottom of this drainage. We loaded up our packs, I took the hide, and my partners split the meat and began our hike out in the dark. Now we have 1300' of elevation of gain to get out of the basin in 1.5 miles and then another 1.5 downhill to get to camp. We could make it about 200yds at a time before we were gassed. The 3 mile hike ended up taking 5 hours to get back to camp and we were dead tired when we arrived. But now the water comes into play. We haven't had any water in 5 hours so now another 1/4 mile hike down to a small creek to find water and back to camp. We passed out and woke up at 9am packed camp up quick and scooted out of there because there was a good storm and snow coming. Got back to the truck around 12pm, checked the goat into fish and game where he was aged at 6/7 years old. 8" and around 4" bases. I could not of done it without the help from my friends, my wife for allowing to me hunt 3 months of the year, and all the help from forums like this. If anyone else ever draws a 3-2 tag, feel free to message me on here and I'll help all I can.
