I planned to take the entire 2012 fall off of work and dedicate it to hunting, so I put in for everything and in many cases went for the best odds. My Idaho mountain goat application was an example of that, as the chances of drawing this tag had been 25% the previous year (they decreased to about 15% in 2012). I was pretty ecstatic when I drew the tag, though a little worried since I hadn't been in the unit before. This wasn't the first time I'd drawn a unit sight-unseen, but this was the first time that help was so sparse. The unit is so remote that The Huntin' Fool had no previous hunters and the biologist had never even flown for goats; he only had suggestions as to where they 'probably' were. I finally caught a break on a hunting forum when I met a past sheep hunter who'd hunted the unit the year before. He sent me a Google Earth screenshot which included pinpoints where he'd seen goats. The map was great - I could draw an elongated 'S' to show the route I would take to investigate all of the goat hideouts.
I chartered a plane out of McCall to do some aerial scouting both for goats and make a plan of attack. From the plane we only saw two solo goats and a big bunch of nannies/kids, but I had a realization of what goat country really looks like; you can't draw an 'S' on a map and walk it out, at least not without ropes and weeks of food.
I left the next morning to drive as close as I could get to the edge of the wilderness area, then dive in the next day. I packed enough food for ten days and my plan for water was to hope I could find it. An hour after leaving the truck I was side-hilling around a ridge when I came upon seven goats. I studied them closely and found four nannies, two kids, and a small billy. A couple of the nannies were over 10", but my goal was to not shoot a nanny, so I passed. But goats within an hour was encouraging!
Three days later when I still hadn't found a billy but had a nice nanny at 200 yards, I thought how much easier it would've been to shoot one of those nannies next to the truck. But I passed and continued my search, finally striking gold the next evening. I'd descended down a dangerous chute off the spine of a mountain and set up camp in a nice meadow (with water!) in a bowl, then took a walk out the ridge to look off the backside. I glassed across the basin and spotted a white spot on the far side, which turned out to be a billy. It was two hours until dark and I didn't think I could reach him in time so I decided to make a push in the morning.
Initially my goal was to try to kill the oldest billy I could find in the unit, but I'd been pretty humbled by the flight over just a small section of the unit. Also, I was hunting alone. Traversing the mountain tops solo is a fairly dangerous venture. If I'd been able to scout all summer and into the early fall I'm sure I could've found a large goat, but instead I'd been living in Japan until August then hunting pronghorn in Nevada and sheep in Washington. I had a couple weeks allotted to this goat tag, but that wasn't enough to traverse all the corners of the unit, especially since it was already October and snow could be coming anytime.
The next morning I walked out on the viewing ridge to plot my stalk on the billy. But he'd disappeared. No white dots anywhere. I sat on the ridge for 12 hours, waiting for him to come out. The next day I went over to where he'd been, thinking maybe he'd gone around the corner (nope), dropped lower (nope), or doubled back on me (nope). The only remaining option was that he crossed up and out of the basin to the south, so the next morning I broke camp and headed that way.
[nanny]
I filled up on water then ascended a safer, more circuitous route than the precarious chute I'd come down. I knew where I wanted to go but there didn't seem to be a route that would end with me still alive. I opted for the direct, walk-across-a-giant-chute path, which was not a good choice. I crossed a couple hundred yards of hard dirt that, if I'd slipped, certainly would have ended with me sliding to my death. But I made it, thanks to trekking poles. When I topped out on the next ridge I got that sudden "I could've died" realization that leads to heavy breathing and a breakout of sweat. I sat down to appreciate some oxygen and glass the next basin, where I promptly spotted a billy walking through the trees.
[I went across this for a goat.]
With nowhere to set up a base camp, I had no option but to make the 700 yard stalk with everything on my back. I began at 2:20pm but made incredibly slow progress because of the noise. Nearing 6pm, I popped out just above where I'd seen the billy bed in the timber. Nothing. I moved forward, thinking he'd be in the fold ahead. Nothing. It'd been 3 hours and 40 minutes so he really could be anywhere. Or he could be under the one rock I couldn't see below. I went down and peeked around. He was staring at me. It was my sixth day of chasing goats and I didn't want to mess it up, so promptly missed a couple shots at 100 yards. Seeing that he was going to stand there and watch me shoot, I opted to sit down and give myself a more steady rest. The next shot from my Kimber .270 hit him hard and the last shot tumbled him over.
[Where I shot from. The goat can be seen on the far left side beneath the knoll.]
I only had 30 minutes of remaining daylight so I worked quickly to take photos and sort out a camp. The only flat spot I could see on the mountain was the bed the goat had pawed out, so I pawed it out to six feet and pitched my tarp, pad, and sleeping bag. I called my dad on the satellite phone to report the good news, then skinned and boned meat until 11pm.
Returning the way I'd come with meat on my back was out of the question, which meant I'd be taking the river bottom. The upper end looked good, the lower half did not. It took three days to take the goat from 9000' down to 6500' then back up to 8500', but on the ninth day I walked out for the last time.
[the upper end of the river]
The billy's horns were 8 7/8" long with 5.5" bases. The biologist estimated his age at 5.5-6.5 years old. This is only the third billy that's been killed in the unit in the last 5+ years.
