Well well where to start? I really enjoy this forum from the vast amount of information on various subject to the great hunting stories and the many friendly people. I decided to share my sheep and goat hunt with you guys this year since its fun to read mountain hunting stories all year and many members enjoy them also. I'm not trying to compete just sharing my adventure and if I can stimulate guys dreaming to hunt sheep to get out sheep hunting that would be great because that was my case for years.
A little of history first, back in the day in Ontario as a kid I dreamed from time to time of "one day" going hunting for wild sheep but I somewhat knew I was just dreaming. Then in 2005 I moved to Alberta with high hopes of hunting bighorn sheep eventually. My brother and hunting partner from the beginning, we don't come from a hunting family, joined me in the West in 2006 and we started to talk more about our dream to hunt in the mountains. The following years we started to hunt more game from whitetail deer, elk and moose also mule deer and black bear for me.
Eventually my brother moved to BC and became an official resident last year. We then decided it was time to realise our dream to go sheep hunting. Having a choice to either hunt in Alberta or BC we decided he would be the hunter and northern BC would be our hunting ground for a backpack hunt for stone sheep or mountain goat.
Having no experience hunting in the Rockies we had a lot to learn from the required backpacking gear to the food, plus a lot of research to educate ourselves on sheep and mountain goat. All that was unknown for us and we didn't know anyone to help/guide us in the proper direction for such an adventure. We were and still are very ambitious to learn everything related to mountain hunting and also enjoy every aspect of the preparation. Our home work paid off and we did have a successful hunting adventure and a very comfortable 12 day hunt without missing anything. This year only minor modifications to our gear list was required to leave home the excess stuff, cut stuff we don't need and some improvement/upgrade.
I must admit I was hooked so bad, I had a feeling it would happen, I researched the hunting potential and differences of BC vs Alberta and finally decided to move from the Peace of Alberta to the Peace of BC this winter. Our hunt this year was an eleven day hunt from the end of August to early September and we both agreed I would be the first shooter.
August 27My brother arrived at my place mid afternoon, both of us very excited and anxious for an other hunting adventure we left my house quickly. We didn’t bring all that food in the picture, probably three quarter of it. Our backpacks weighted 63 and 61 pounds all loaded up and we had to camp by the highway that night.
August 28The noise of big trucks woke us up quite early. It was a great day to drive in the mountains and the scenery was breathtaking. We saw a lot of wildlife along the highway in the mountains from a whitetail deer and a fox to mountain caribou and two bands of stone sheep ewes.
After our first creek crossing I noticed one of the caps for the scope dial was holding but on an angle. Wondering if my scope was ok I fired a practice shot resting on a backpack at 100 yards. I was very relieved to see that my shot was two inches high, which is perfect since the rifle is zeroed at 200 yards.
After a good day of hiking we made a camp for the night. My brother found a bear track in the sand by the creek.
August 29After a quick glassing session during breakfast, we loaded the backpacks to complete our hike with more creek crossing and an old forest fire to cross. What we didn’t know at that time is how hard it would be to walk thru that forest fire and how much it would slow us down.
To our surprise the forest fire is all the way to where we planned to start our hunt. With dead trees on the ground and new re growth some parts were dangerous but we still manage to keep going. Exhausted we set up the tent on a light slope that night.
August 30Even if we weren’t where we planned to be at that point in the hunt our spirit was good, fog patches were present that morning and I managed to find a mountain goat in steep cliffs. A young goat with horns about the length of the ears, it wasn’t possible to determine if it was a male of female. The mountain scenery was amazing with the fog moving around.
After breakfast we climbed for the top of the mountain but we had to clear the tree line first and the small shrubs that like to anchor on your feet. We were exhausted but knowing we only had half a day of hiking/climbing left to do was good news then.
While climbing I spotted a mountain goat walking on a ridge at the top of the mountain, he bedded skyline. We kept climbing and eventually it became very steep. Here’s my brother taking a break in a steep spot while waiting for water to boil for our Mountain House Lasagna.
I was ahead of my brother when I reached the summit of a cliff for a plateau, being exhausted I stop being cautious when I walked over the top and made too much noise in the shale rocks. At that moment in some small coniferous trees close by I spotted something white bedded, it was the goat we spotted earlier and when I saw a head moving I drop low to move in a low spot. When my brother reached the top I told him to join me quickly and explained him what just happened.
We then decided to grab only our hunting gear and to go up higher to cut him off in the event he wanted to go for some cliffs where he was earlier. We never saw him and decided to walk the edge of the area with trees in case we could spot him and also to set our self in a good spot to glass the mountain sides for sheep or goat.
After so much hard work it was a pretty good feeling to have action right when we hit the alpine. While glassing, a band of 8 female goats was feeding, being new to mountain hunting it was fun to watch. Eventually we spotted a lonely goat on the other side of the valley, after analysing him we determined he was a mature male mountain goat.
One thing we notice quickly once we were in the alpine was the presence of a large quantity of droppings and foot print in the rocks. That was enough to cheer us up, not that we were negative but just very tired and exhausted at that point.
August 31This day will be one I’ll remember for the rest of my life. We saw a lots of game and a day full of great emotions.
It’s a day that started very normally. When I woke up my brother wanted to rest so he stayed for more sleep. I couldn’t stay put so I loaded what I needed for a hunt and since we were running very low on water I left without having breakfast. What a mistake of my part, an energy bar would have been at least just enough but I had to rely on my ambition to fuel my body. I was heading for one of the highest peak of our mountain to glass an other valley.
At first light I glassed a grassy slope and after an hour I carried on with my slow climb, of course careful to not skyline myself and looking around for game. Eventually I found a group of mountain goat, I’m assuming it was the same group from the night before, and I also scared some ptarmigan.
Once close to the summit I found a snow patch that would become our water source since I had the intention to make that area our camp. It was well located for a base camp to give us options to move around and glass the valleys in the area. There was also some sheep or goat trail in the rocks in the area, an other good sign that sheep and/or goat live on that mountain.
I found a low spot to sit in to glass the surroundings. The scenery was amazing and I had a great view of the band of goat also. I counted 9 goats, all female with their young one, bedded on the edge of a steep shale rock slope. In the deep and wide valley in front of me I found a male mountain goat feeding on the edge of trees on a grassy slope. Just as I was going to take a picture of him, he bedded behind a tree.
Back to the tent around 10:30 am, we again found the male mountain goat across our valley, he was bedded in a very steep shale rock slide on a mountain side. Since time was going by very fast and the fact it took us more days to reach our hunting area, I took the time to study him carefully before deciding to go hunt him.
I finally told my brother he was worth to harvest since he meets my criteria by being a male and I was confident he was mature. So we loaded our backpacks with just what we needed for the day, including hunting gear plus the rain gear and warm clothes in the event we wouldn’t make it to camp for the night. This way we were light and efficient in our travel.
After discussing and analysing what was the best approach to the goat according to the wind and the land, we decided to climb part of the steep rocky mountain up to where there’s some vegetation on top of the rugged rocks, on the left side of the next picture, then once on top of those rocks walk to the island of similar rock toward the goat. This way there was no way he could smell us if the wind stayed put, I would have been about 200 yards of him with a straight shot instead of an angled shot and he would roll in the shale rocks most likely down to the creek plateau bellow. This way the damage to the meat, hide and horns would be minimal for a mountain goat.
Often events in life don’t go as plan and for this hunt again things went not according to our plan. I’m still amazed on how the following events happened.
Here descending our mountain side for the mountain side the goat was located on.
Walk down
Walk/climb up
Every experienced mountain hunter knows the landscape of the land changes once you’re in it. Even knowing about that and some experience related to it, we completely forgot to turn toward the goat. We were so focused on our safety in this dangerous cliff that we kept climbing and forgot we were there to hunt.
