Alaska Bucket List Hunt #1

[ShaneTyTrey]

Alaska, what can you say about that place, it can make dreams come true.  I was fortunate enough to go up there and hunt Mountain Goat in 2018, just got back from a Brown Bear hunt and have a Moose Hunt scheduled for 2022 and a Dall Sheep hunt scheduled for 2023, so I thought I would record each trip and tell the stories, at least I have 2 of the 4 in the memory bank now.

Mountain Goats are beautiful creatures and OIL tags in just about every state other than Alaska.  That white hair is about as  gorgeous of a feature as any animal has.  For years, I have tried to draw a tag in many states and always gotten back the dreaded not selected.  It was time for that to change, I wanted to hunt these majestic critters and I wanted the time to be soon.  I started researching options and outfitters in both Canada and Alaska.  After months of research I decided to book a boat based hunt in Coastal Alaska.

At the time I booked this hunt, I was way out of shape and knew that physically I needed to start training to better my odds of success.  Also, being in Alaska in September, I knew that weather could be a big factor on my hunt, in fact, the prior season the outfitter was actually only able to hunt 6 days all year as the weather kept them on the boat tucked in a bay the rest of the time.

If you don't know, there is a reason that most Alaskan hunts are long in duration, you will likely lose a few days to the weather, and the long time slot still allows you a solid opportunity to harvest your trophy.

My hunt was scheduled for September 12-18 of 2018.  Not wanting to fly on September 11th, I flew to Homer Alaska on September 10th and stayed in a hotel for a couple nights prior to boarding the boat on September 12th.  Once on the boat, we had a 3 hour ride to a native village to pick up our permits and then another 3 hours to arrive in the bay where we would call home.  Once we were anchored in, we rode a skiff boat to shore to site in our rifles and make sure they hadn't been deviated from zero on the flight.  After that business had been taken care of, we got back on the boat for some fishing, very distant scouting and some dinner.  The excitement was high and surprisingly the weather was beautiful and forecasted to stay that way for at least the first two days of the hunt. 

Here are a couple pictures of the surrounding mountains we would start climbing the next day.

[ShaneTyTrey]

It was hard to sleep that first night with the excitement of the next day pounding in my head.  It was finally time to pursue my first Alaskan bucket list animal.  We awoke at 6:00, had a nice breakfast and then loaded the skiff for a ride to shore to begin our climb.  We hit the shore about 7:00 am and started our accent to the top.  The peak I was sent to, would require about a 2,500 vertical climb to where we thought the goats would be.  The cool thing about this area, is once you break through tree line, you can start seeing goats and know that you aren't climbing blindly.  I had known I didn't lose as much weight or get in as good of shape as I had hoped prior to the hunt and it didn't take long for this fact to really start to become a reality.  I got through the tree line with minimal effort, but once we started climbing, the shear steepness of the terrain and weight of my rifle, pack and gear started to take its toll, and I was having to stop pretty frequently as we climbed, seemingly straight up hill.  After what seemed like forever and a day, we made it almost to the top of the ridge we would have to climb over about 12:00 and had our lunch and soaked in the beautiful scenery.

Here are a few pictures of the trek up the mountain after getting through tree line and the beautiful scenery all around it.

[ShaneTyTrey]

After finishing up lunch, we completed the rest of our hike up and got into location of where we wanted to sit for the evening about 2:00.  We were all pretty dang tired after the climb and took a quick hour long power nap in the sun and drank some more water.  We were pretty sure the goats would start coming out of the high country rocks and being to feed out into the grassy basins in the early evening.

As luck would have it, the goats started feeding out about 4:00 and about 4:30 we spotted a solid Billy laying on a ledge about 500 yards away.  After about an hour of watching them, the billy got up and started working towards us.  Within a few minutes he was now inside 300 yards and was getting closer.  In my haste I ended up shooting him while he was still walking at 238 yards instead of waiting for a likely closer and standing still broad side shot.  I hit him, and killed him instantly as he went sliding down the steep green slope another 800 yards. 

I had just realized my dream, but my bad shot hit him in the throat and made field photos less than desirable, I was had accomplished my goal and harvested a respectable Billy on the first day of my hunt.

After caping the goat it took us another 3 1/2 hours to navigate the steep terrain back to shore on the other side for the skiff ride back to our base camp boat.  It was an awesome date that I will never forget and the taxidermy came out great.

[Fl0und3rz]

God's country.  Congratulations.

[Karl Blanchard]

Fantastic sir! Thanks for sharing!

[Bob33]

That's a gorgeous animal and a well-earned trophy.

[ganghis]

Great write up and pics!  Congrats.

[Dan-o]

What a beauty!

Thanks for sharing.

[Alex4200]

Thanks for sharing

[bearpaw]

Nice story, photos, and a great looking mount! 

[ShaneTyTrey]

Thanks Dale.

[pianoman9701]

Great mount and animal.

[trophyhunt]

Great hunt, very beautiful goat!!! Congrats!

[Pathfinder101]

Gorgeous

[jstone]

That is an awesome adventure
Great mount

Thank You for sharing