Searching For The Mountain Spirits - A Mountain Goat Kinda' Night

Mr. Weatherby Does It Again On A Colorado Mountain Goat Hunt

And I Lived To Tell About It…

Sometimes in life it is much better to be lucky than good, and that applies to big game hunts too. I was lucky enough to draw a Colorado Mountain goat tag in 2015, and that’s plenty enough to celebrate. I was lucky in the hunt too, in many more ways than one.

And I did get my billy. And I did live to tell about it.

I made the shot with very little legal shooting light remaining in the long, end of summer day. The good news is that my hunting partner was prescient enough to snap a photograph just after we found him. My camera had decided to quit working, and I would have probably forgotten anyway had it not. I was much too preoccupied with trying to stay upright.

The not so good news is that this is the only photo taken before it was caped and quartered and stowed in our packs.

One Happy Hunter, With A Hard-Won Wilderness Prize

Don’t get me wrong. I am quite grateful to have it. After all, it is not an easy task to take any kind of photo while balancing upon the slick rocks of an extreme slope in a cold and driving rain. That was the easy part too, compared with the dangerous, almost death-defying hike back down to our spike camp.

We had not planned to be caught on the face of a mountain such as this, far above timberline in the deep black night. Extreme hunts can call for extreme measures, and a mountain goat is nothing if not an extreme animal. Still, I would not recommend such a predicament to anyone, except perhaps another goat hunter. Only another goat or sheep hunter would understand the beauty of it all.

When Night Turns Into Day. I Took This Billy On The Cliffs Just Above The Snowfields

It was, however, the perfect ending to a grueling and treacherous adventure. Adventure and grand pursuit before breakfast I say, or in this case, a long overdue dinner. It was a mountain goat hunt, after all, and I got all that I could have bargained for, and more. I would not have had it any other way.

No Complaints Here! Ready To Go With A Heavy Load of Goat and Gear. Just 4 More Miles To Go...

I don’t mind saying that I could not have pulled this hunt off without my friends and brothers from another mother. You know who you are, and I owe you big. Very, Very big…

May you draw a tag soon – so I can return the favor, God, and screaming leg muscles willing! And for all of my friends that I have not yet met still waiting for a tag, please let us know when you do.

We can’t wait to hear about your encounters with the peaks and your mountain goat success. With luck, you will get the job done much earlier in the day!

*My ultimate goal on this hunt was to harvest a Mountain Goat with archery tackle, but I can only say that the bowhunting gods did not smile upon that pursuit. My damaged and compromised knee was a constant worry, and the terrain nearly impossible for any type of close range stalk. The closest I ever got to a shootable and recoverable billy was 340 yards, which is the one I killed.

It was not for lack of trying. I spent more than one night by myself in a bivy sack on the side of a mountain so steep that I could not find a flat spot large enough for my behind. I nearIy wore my boots out in a land where almost every footstep needed to be put down carefully, lest you suffer the bodily consequences. Before it was over I had more than one go at a goat that I felt would have been a new state record, though it became obvious quite quickly how he had managed to grow so large.

I switched to this 30.378 Weatherby Magnum rifle midway through my hunt, and I was glad that I did. It is a big game cartridge of impeccable credentials, but that, is another story...

As you can see, I just barely beat the weather too!

By Michael Patrick McCarty

This post first appeared at:

http://throughahunterseyes.com/a-hard-won-prize/

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"One does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary, one kills in order to have hunted". From Meditations on Hunting by José Ortega y Gasset

My Hero Fred Bear, with "The Spirits of the High Places" - Quote Taken From An Old Fred Bear Bowhunting Film

P.S. You can read Part I at https://steemit.com/hunting/@huntbook/the-improbable-white-beast-of-another-big-adventure

Part II at https://steemit.com/hunting/@huntbook/impossible-colors-searching-for-the-mountain-spirits

Part III at https://steemit.com/hunting/@huntbook/searching-for-the-mountain-spirits-careless-for-a-second-can-get-you-killed