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Cabinets

Well, we have had some pretty nice weather lately, so Fred opened up the cabinet making shop. We are no where near finished but on our way. It is nice to have some storage in the kitchen now. 

Our supervisor

Elk Hunt

A couple of weeks ago I camped out up in the Gates of the Mountains Wilderness area near our place. Got up in the morning and made a short hike. Ran into a big herd of elk and managed to get a nice bull. Took two trips with the horse to get the elk and camping gear out. Nice to have a full freezer!

Mountain Goat Hunt 2017

Note that I made two blog posts today. See the previous post for our Glacier Park trip.

My friend Paul Jagoda drew a goat tag in an area North of Yellowstone- the same unit Matt drew his tag in last year. Paul, his brother Phil and I went on the hunt the first weekend of the season (Sept.1)

Phil wrote a nice story of the adventure so I will copy and paste his words:

Pre-hunt

Paul’s goat hunt actually started sometime in June or July when he notified me that he successfully drew a coveted mountain goat tag in southern Montana, and wanted me to go along. I was looking forward to kicking off the 2017 hunting season acting as his Sherpa and extra set of eyes.

We attempted to scout the hunting area 2 weeks before the season started, and when we arrived at the trailhead the forest service had posted signs stating that the trail was closed due to a grizzly kill site that was on the trail. After Paul placed some phone calls the forest service determined that the trail would be re-opened before the opener.

The hike in

We kicked off the hunt the day before the opener by meeting Fred and picking up a horse on the way. At the trailhead we were met with 3 trucks already parked in the lot, and shortly after another 2 hunters (father/son from Billings) with a packer bringing in their gear. They were hunting the adjacent unit, and camping in the same basin we were headed.

The hike in started to get interesting about half-way in when we crossed a stream and got off the main trail and came across the grizzly kill site that originally closed down the trail.

The Charge

As we proceeded up the trail and were about ¾ of the way to the camp site, the vegetation started to change with the higher elevations, and there were many grouse berry plants covering the forest floor. We noticed that there was a strong smell of sweet berries or something similar to flowers. We started to walk up an incline and I was in the lead, with Paul and then Fred behind him with the horse. I noticed up ahead a log that looked out of place with a different coloration. A few more steps and it was very clear to me that about 60-70 yards ahead was a silver-tipped grizzly with its head down eating berries. I immediately turned and warned paul and Fred, and they both pulled out their bear spray and started yelling at the bear to alert it. Luckily the bear took off away from us and not at us, and we stood there making some noise and figuring out what to do next.

I got a glimpse of 2 bears running through the trees up ahead making a racket. About 30 seconds later it sounded like a locomotive coming through the woods and it was clear it was coming right at us huffing and crashing through the trees. Fred and paul started yelling at the bear and we all had our bear spray out ready. The bear charged to about 40 yards and stopped, and Fred was saying “that’s what you call a bluff charge guys”. We stood our ground and were in a close group, probably for the better as I think the large group of us with the horse kept the bear from coming closer. The sow then turned and ran away.

At some point I pulled out my handgun and switched the bear spray to my left hand, feeling more comfortable with both out, the more weapons the better. Not much time passed and we could hear the sow making another charge, huffing and crashing like a freight train right at us, faster than we could imagine an animal that size could run. At some point Fred tied up the horse around a tree, and told Paul to load up his rifle and get ready. We all had our pepper spray out ready, with my handgun also. This time the bear came even closer, about 30 yards. Sometime during this ordeal, I backed down the slope and scraped up my shin, thinking the bear was coming in on us for good. But the bear turned and ran away again.

But the bear made a third charge, this time closing the distance to about 25 yards, stopping on the top of a bank that dropped off down to us, using it as an advantage. The sow stood there for what seemed like forever, huffing and growling and we could all see the slobber coming out of her mouth. She half stood there up on her hind legs, looking like she was almost ready to jump towards us. Fred raised his arms to look bigger and yelled “go away bear”, and this seemed to irritate the bear even more, probably because she had a cub and was trying to protect it. Fred told Paul that if she came any closer to shoot her, at this point I cocked the hammer on my .357 ready to shoot if Paul did. This was the most tense moment of the encounter, not knowing what the bear was going to do next. Then Fred gave a shot of pepper spray at the bear, and it almost reached the sow. This seemed to have an effect from the noise and spray, then Fred told us to start backing away. The wind was blowing towards us and when Fred used the pepper spray some of it came back in my face and I started coughing. As soon as we started to back away, the grizzly got down on all four and turned away. We then backed down the slope about 40 yards and decided what to do next. Fred then realized he lost his safety cap of his pepper spray and wanted to go back to the scene and get it, because he didn’t want an accidental discharge in the horses face or one of us. Paul and I both thought he was crazy to want to go back to the charge scene, but would not let him go back alone. We very nervously walked back to the charge point yelling the whole way, and found the safety cap and quickly got out of there. 

As we walked down the slope the father/son hunters heard us and yelled to us. I walked down to them and talked with them and they informed me that shortly after their packer dropped them off the bear charged them to within 40 yards. I informed them that we encountered the bear only about 80-100 yards from where they were, and if they wanted to camp near us for safety they could (Fred and Paul said to let them know they could). They said there was no way they could haul all their stuff up that way since the packer left, and they would stay there. Unfortunately they did not look very well prepared to be camping in the wilderness area, and their camp site was not in a good open location.

Once we finally reached our camp site, we set up camp and that night was pretty tense and nervous. Fred put a bell around the horse and setup the horse outside of camp as a watchdog, set up the electric fence around our tents, and we kept the solar lights on all night for an added deterent. Unfortunately, every time the horse jingled the bell, or neighed or blew it jolted me awake. Not sure we got much sleep that night, with the exception of Fred, I think he started snoring as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Hunt Day 1

The first hunt day started bright and early, with a goat bedded above camp about 400 yards away, unfortunately it was in the wrong hunting district. We climbed up to the top of the ridge to the NE, at which point Fred showed us the “goat trail” that we would be using to get over into the hunting district. At times the trail got very narrow, and other times you did not want to look down as the slope below disappeared very quickly. As we neared the end of the pass, we could see a lot of goats bedded down in a grassy slope.   

We could see about 20 nannies and kids bedded, and it didn’t appear there were any billies or nannies without kids. We decided to creep closer and look them over more, so we belly crawled to a clump of trees about 300 yards away. 

Once we determined none of the goats were “shootable”, we slowly got up to get them to ease out of the area. After the goats went down the slope, we started hiking to the NW to look at other areas, and we could see the goats down on the vertical slopes running, jumping up and down on the cliffs, looking like they were trying to commit suicide. It was hard to believe none of them fell off the cliffs as they ran in panic.

The rest of the hunt day was mostly uneventful with the exception of the beautiful scenery. There were many more goats down on the cliffs and at the bottom, so we made a mental note for tomorrow.

 Our hike back we decided to go straight up and over instead of following the goat trail, and it got a little dicey going down with rocks falling from our feet displacing them, and a very strong wind blowing up through the narrow pass. We finally made it back to camp with another beautiful sunset to greet us that evening.

Hunt Day 2

The plan for the second day was to get Paul his goat! As we went up to the goat trail to get over into the hunting district, it seemed a little more slippery/unstable then the day before for some reason, both Paul and I commented on that. Could have been because some of the adrenaline wore off from the first day of the hunt, we started to question the sanity of making the crossing. Either way, we made it over into the hunt area and did not see any goats in the immediate area.

So we decided to hike down near the bottom, and see if we could catch some goats near the bottom of the cliffs we saw them the day before. About ¾ of the way down, we decided to stop and do some glassing. We saw a bunch of goats up in the cliffs pretty high up and inaccessible, a lot of goats. I figured we would just wait it out and see if any came down closer and was about to take a nap when I heard Fred and Paul discussing how to go get the goats. Fred was picking apart the slope piece by piece and figuring out how we could climb up to get closer, and he determined that since there were trees growing on the slope near the goats it was “doable”. The shade on that side of the mountain made it hard to see all the detail, and we discussed later in the hunt if it was in full sun we would not have gone after them, so it was a good thing it was shaded and hid some of the finer details of the terrain.

It was around 11:00 when we started down into the valley to go after the goats, and as we neared the bottom it became very clear we were in serious bear country (Dark timber and remote wilderness area) I saw a bed that appeared to be from a bear as we hiked down, and we walked through areas that were absolutely torn up from bears digging up rotten logs and stumps looking for food, and a pile of very large bear scat that was entirely pine cone nuts. So we made some noise as we walked through this area, including Fred singing some Marty Robbins cowboy songs. Once we reached the other side of the valley, we could then tell that the vertical climb up the other side to the goats was going to be very steep.

So up we went, one step at a time, and slowly made our way closer to the goats. It was very steep, easily greater than 45% I’m guessing. As we neared the cliffs and grassy benches that the goats were on, we could see them through the trees about 280-300 yards away. We discussed waiting there and Paul possibly getting a shot at that distance, but it was pushing the max. distance and Paul and Fred decided to try and get closer. There were about 10-12 goats scattered on the slope, bedded and feeding and doing what goats do. So we crept up closer to the next strip of trees, trying to close the distance. The three of us spread out next to each other, Paul trying to find a good rest for the near vertical shot. Fred and I were glassing the goats, trying to figure out a shootable one. It didn’t appear the goats knew we were there. At that point, the shot was around 225 yards I think. Some of the goats started moving around and going to the left, and Fred and I were able to see that one of them was a billy (male) by the way he urinated. Paul was scrambling from place to place trying to get a solid rest, and for the life of him could not get a spot that would allow him to take a steady shot. As the goats started moving, it started getting tense because we were calling out goats to Paul to shoot and the yardage and he either didn’t have a solid rest or his view was different than ours because the distance we were from eachother, it started to get a little chaotic and I think Paul was getting some serious goat fever and feel the pressure to get a shot off before the goats high-tailed it out of there.

There was about 8-12 goats that eventually went up and out of range, including the Billy, and we thought our chance was blown to get a shot off, disappointment started creeping in. But then Fred noticed a single goat still bedding on the rocks on a small cliff, so I scrambled real quick right down next to Paul. The goat turned and hopped up on the edge of a small cliff, I think the range was around 250 yards, very steep angle. I think at this time Paul had a solid rest on a big deadfall. Paul’s first shot looked like it hit the goat, as it appeared to hunch, but later as we discussed I think it was just stretching. I could see the bullet stream to the goat as the sun reflected off the projectile, weirdest thing ever. Paul took a second shot, and I also saw the path of that bullet and it was high and right and hit the rocks. The goat didn’t seem too alarmed, and jumped up higher and started moving left.

A few tense moments went by not knowing if the goat went down or was just walking to the left. Then we were able to see it walking up where the other goats had gone, the range was about 280 yards at this point I think. After some tense discussion to determine if it was the same goat, Paul lined up for another shot. “Goat fever” had really set in at this point and I could see he was breathing hard and having a tough time keeping steady. He took another shot as the goat stood on a small cliff, and it went high and right behind the goat. I told him to control his breathing and slow down, and his second shot drilled the goat in the boiler room. The goat stopped and slumped on a rock at the edge, then slowly rolled over into a small depression out of site. High fives and congratulations started at that point.

We slowly made the vertical climb up to where the goat had fell, and found it in a steep rocky chute and it had stopped before going further down and getting stuck in a spot that we might not have been able to retrieve it from. So Fred jumped down into the area and tied a rope onto the hind legs, and we hauled it out of the spot up to the grassy bench to skin and debone it.

Once we started skinning, it became apparent to us how truly steep and difficult this area really was. The hike out was pretty tough, as we had to go down to the valley, back through the dark timber bear country, then back up the other side, through the goat pass, and back down to camp. The hike back through the dark timber was a little interesting since we had goat meat and the hide in our packs, keeping an eye out for bears and making noise to alert any nearby. Fred left a little blood trail from his bloody nose that kept recurring and small cuts on his hands, so if the bears didn’t smell the goat they could at least blood trail us from what Fred was leaving behind. (LOL)

We made it up to the goat pass just before dark, and for Paul and I it was a pretty dicey experience, I had to fully concentrate on just looking straight ahead and where I was putting my hands and feet. Fred just seemed to walk right on through like it was no big deal. To kill the goat and come back to camp, it was a total of about 7.4+ round trip miles, camp elevation was at 9,450 ft and we climbed up to the pass at 10,200 ft. Then went down into the valley at elevation 8,750 ft., then up to kill the goat at 9,600 ft. On the way back we got to do it all over again, so it was around 3,050 feet of vertical elevation change twice.

That night in camp we all slept pretty good being worn out from all the hiking the day of the kill. However during the night I heard what sounded like rocks being moved around from the dry stream bed nearby. Of course feeling like the camp watch dog I alerted everybody that there was something down in the stream bed so we all scrambled awake with lights, bear spray and guns ready in case it was a nearby bear. I’m a pretty light sleeper anyway, but I’m sure Paul and Fred thought I was scared out of my wits from the possibility of bears around since we had goat meat hanging in the trees 100 yards away….. In the morning there was a goat in the cliffs above camp, so quite possibly the noise I heard was the goat coming down for drink during the night.

What a great experience and adventure, I would say to summarize the goat hunt, or any goat hunt a couple sayings come to mind: “How bad do you want it”, and “how much misery can you put up with”. I’d say we did both pretty well, and I’m glad the three of us were together during the bear charge, it certainly helped the outcome of the charge. 

(by Phil Jagoda)