Goat hunting

Dangerous Hunts

Dangerous Hunts

The other morning, I was awakened from what I consider a nightmare.  I was dreaming that I was mountain goat hunting and was climbing up a chute to get above the cliffs and rocks were falling all around me.  I felt like I was going to die any moment.  To protect my head, I had the top of my pack pressed hard against the rocks of the chute that I was climbing in.  In real life this has happened to me more than once while hunting both sheep and goat.  I have had D rings knocked off of my pack frame from fast moving rocks.  I still have a small rock fragment imbedded in the handgrip of my little Bear Kodiak Magnum recurve bow that was knocked out of my hand by a wild spinning rock in one of those rock slides.  In the areas where I have hunted, this has happened to me more times while hunting goats.  That brings up a good question, which is the most dangerous hunting sheep or mountain goats?  In my personal experience mountain goat hunting wins hands down!

Mountain Goats In The Wrangell's

Mountain Goats In The Wrangell's

If you have been following my blog, you know that the first animal that I harvested in Alaska was a mountain goat.  After that I was hooked on hunting the rugged but gorgeous mountains of Alaska for both goat and sheep.  I went on more goat than sheep hunts and before I started guiding, my friends and I had taken a total of 28 goats all in the Kenai Mountains.

A Goat For Nathan

A Goat For Nathan

Nathan my youngest grandchild of 7 grandchildren is quite a young man, a jokester and really fun to be around.  While I think Nathan liked hunting in general he especially enjoyed our family hunting trips.  Nathan and his big brother Jared have always had a special bond.  On our hunting trips, Nathan was always by Jared’s side.  After everyone left for collage, however, he was on his own.  In 2013, (Nathan had just turned 14), he ended up taking a super 386 point B&C caribou and his first moose, a 46 incher.  He was also drawn for a mountain goat permit in an area on the Kenai Peninsula.  It was an area that I had hunted in the late 70’s.  I was excited since I knew the area so well and was looking forward to hunting it again.  I hoped Nathan was as excited as I was.  We made plans for a mid to late September hunt.

Gulch Creek

Gulch Creek

Gulch Creek has a special place in my hunting memories.  Not only was it a gorgeous game filled little valley, but it provided access to Walker Creek and Falls Creek.  I killed my first big game animal, a mountain goat, my first black bear, my first animal with a bow, another mountain goat, and it was where I slept overnight without a sleeping bag for the first time and more than likely the first time that I almost died climbing a cliff.  There were many of those times.

Mountain Goat-My First Big Game Animal

Mountain Goat-My First Big Game Animal

Since mountain goats are cliff dwellers I feel they are the most dangerous big game animal to hunt in Alaska, especially if you are hunting them with a bow.  I have been in more precarious spots climbing after goats than I have climbing after sheep.  That being said I have been in on more goat kills with my friends than any other big game animal.  A total of 36 goats between the Gulch Creek area and another area we hunted.  Even though it was dangerous it was a quick cheap hunt for my military friends and me.

Some of the pictures aren’t the quality of the ones in my other stories.  I was using my wife’s Kodak “Brownie Hawkeye” camera that her parents gave her when she was in the 8th grade back in 1958.  That was our only camera the first four years of marriage.

With that, let’s go goat hunting!