We did not get these goats in Washington, but I had to post this. My brother (in-law) and I went goat hunting in Cordova in October. Though neither of us had hunted this area before, our mother lives there and gave us some good recommendations on where to go. We left her house before dark and drove out towards the Copper River to a vantage point where we thought we could glass the mountains when the sun came up. No kidding as soon as the sun came up, we spotted two groups of goats, a nanny with two kids, and two larger goats by themselves. After a quick (i mean quick) discussion, we made the decision to go after the pair. We parked the truck at the trail head and started the trek, about 2 miles up a trail where we though we could cross the stream (river) and get to the base of the mountain where they were at. After probing the river for a good crossing point, we finally found a place to cross without getting too wet. We walked another mile to where we thought we were right below them and dropped all our camping gear so we had just empty packs. The next hour was a climb (sometimes on our hands and knees) up the mountain to where we thought we could get a shot. As we crested this shelf, there they were, still bedded down. The range finder had them at 500+; with the wind howling like it was, that was way to far but there was no where to go. We decided to crawl on our bellies for about another 200 yards up the mountain to get level with them and cut some of the distance. Finally (it felt like an eternity) we got into shooting position. We ranged them at 350 and got prepared to shoot. Since my bro had killed a mountain goat already, he let me pick the goat I wanted and take the first shot. About that time, they figured out that we were there and stood up. I let the first round fly and made solid contact, my bro followed up with a shot on the other. Both were solid hits but the goats did not want to drop. With follow up shots both goats dropped and the work began. I will spare you all the details of the rest of the story, but 24 hours later we finally got all the meat, capes, and camping gear back to the truck. Not a bad hunt for a couple of guys on a 4-day weekend.
