Avalanche Gorge Goat 🐐

[JPhelps]

Waiting for their hair to come on was almost a bad idea. I was able to fight the weather and get it done.

Some memorable quotes from the hunt:
“Have you ever hunted goats on a volcano?”
“Next time you draw a tag don’t invite me”
“This hunt wants you to die way more than a BC sheep hunt”
“I’ve never hunted anywhere that’s this wet”
“At lease the trail doubles as a water source”
“Do we really need to kill a goat this bad?”

It was one of the hardest hunts of my life. The combination of weather and terrain made it difficult. The snow wanted us to fall off the cliffs, the wet brush/heather wanted to send us off of cliffs and the loose slick rocks also wanted us to die. The weather opened up on Thursday and was our only weather window for a while.

Throughout the day we saw 60 goats and even if we wanted to we couldn’t have killed a single one. We were hiking down the ridge and Cory Miller happened to look down and spotted a great billy bedded on the cliff 350 yards below us. We quickly confirmed this was a billy and one we needed to kill. These things are tough. He soaked up every shot and finally on the 4th shot I was able to anchor him to the cliff.  We watched him for 20 minutes and he relaxed and stayed on the cliff. We went to town because we were going to need rope and some help to access the cliff.

Sometime during the night he decided to fall 200’ off the cliff and slide down into the creek below.  It ended up being a god send because we would have had to repel onto the cliff he died on (didn’t look near as bad where we shot from). Couldn’t have did it without Cory, David and Ben there.

[huntnphool]

 

[shmacker]

Congrats, cool story and a great billy!

[jackelope]

Congrats, Phelps. He’s a stud. Let’s hear some measurements.

[Katmai Guy]

 That is a great goat sir! Congratulations.

[JPhelps]

Congrats, Phelps. He’s a stud. Let’s hear some measurements.

Unofficially:
10” long and 5-6/8” bases

[big iron]

Congrats nice billy, I'm having mine head mounted strait taxidermy and will be up in swains general store p.a. when done

[DeerThug]

Nice!

[elkrack]

That’s a dandy! Goats are tough!

[blacktailer]

Great work on a great Billy

[Boss .300 winmag]

Nicely done.👍

[RB]

WOW nice Billy, congratulations! 

[fishngamereaper]

  sweet goat.

[hunterednate]

Yeehaw! That is awesome. Super goat.

[X-Force]

I’m glad you were able to get it done. Hell of a season!

It takes a lot of grit to put up with weather and conditions up there.