The mountain goat is an icon of the West. They can be challenging to hunt due to the high-elevation country that these special animals call home. The steeper and nastier the country is, the safer the goats feel. Nearly every goat hunt in the West is going to require a backpack-style hunt to be successful.
I was lucky in Montana this year and drew a mountain goat tag down by Yellowstone Park. This tag was very unexpected. I drew this exact same goat tag in 2004 and killed a great billy with my bow, and I feel very fortunate to have this tag again after a twenty-two-year wait. The goat unit I drew is the same unlimited bighorn sheep unit where I killed my ram in 2025. During that hunt, I glassed up many mature billies, and I am very excited to get back out there this year. As an added bonus, my seventeen-year-old son Colter will be there with me, and he has an unlimited sheep tag.
When they draw a mountain goat tag, most hunters have a big decision to make. You first need to choose if you want to do a guided hunt or get a few friends together and go on a self-guided hunt. If you are going the guided route, I would encourage you to reach out to the Huntin’ Fool Adventures team so they can book you with a reputable endorsed outfitter. If you are thinking of doing a self-guided hunt, I encourage you to keep reading and reach out to me or one of the other Hunt Advisors at Huntin’ Fool with any questions.
Mountain goats can be one of the more difficult animals to judge, as they have small horns and most hunters have not spent a lot of time hunting them. The first thing you really need to learn is how to tell the difference between a billy and a nanny. In my experience, the best way to determine the sex is to watch the goat urinate. A nanny will squat with her rump close to the ground like a dog, while billies will stretch their front legs forward and keep their back legs straight like a male horse. Billy horns are thicker at the bases and have a more uniform curve. Nanny horns are thinner at the base and grow straighter before curving back near the end of the horn. Nannies are also typically in bigger family groups, while billies outside the rut are more solitary or found in smaller groups.
Never judge a goat that is by itself. Many goat hunters have made this mistake and walked up on the goat to discover it was a nanny. For some great information on judging and sexing goats, I encourage you to go to the Rocky Mountain Goat Alliance website at https://www.goatalliance.org/, as they have a lot of good information and videos. It is also just a great organization to support by becoming a member.
My first goat was taken with a bow at fifty yards after I put three arrows in him. Goats are not tough to kill, but if you decide to go the archery route, I am a fan of heavy arrows. The front shoulders on a goat are quite a bit larger than the rear quarters due to the amount of climbing they do. Make sure your setup has enough kinetic energy in case you hit that shoulder. You should also practice at extreme angles if you’re planning on an archery hunt.
If you will be rifle hunting, I recommend a thirty-caliber rifle. I know that may seem like overkill for a goat, but I want my first shot to break the shoulder so that he can no longer go up or across the mountain. I have been on over thirty goat hunts, and the only goat we lost was one shot with a .243 rifle. The hunter made a perfect lung shot, but the tough mountain goat walked up the ridge forty yards and bedded on the summit. Due to the other billies around him, the hunter was unable to get off a second shot. The billy died bedded on the summit, and, with one last death kick, it fell off the backside of the mountain—a 2,000-foot cliff. Unfortunately, we could not recover the billy, as it never made it to the bottom of the cliff. If the hunter had shot the billy in the front shoulder with a thirty-caliber rifle, then that goat would be on his wall today. Regardless of whether you are hunting with a rifle or bow, my advice is to keep shooting until the goat is down. Goats have a lot of hair, so don’t worry about messing up the mount.
When hunting mountain goats, you can find yourself in a situation where you are in range to take a billy but it would be impossible to recover him. When I am guiding for sheep or goats, I always tell my hunters we can only take an animal if we can safely recover it. I learned the rule of “angle of recovery” by putting myself into situations where I probably should have died or been seriously injured. It is amazing looking back at the stupid situations I put myself in when I was a lot younger. I can only take to heart what my dad always said: “If you live through the situation, I hope you learn something from it.”
When I talk about the angle of recovery, it is simple. I look at where the animal is and draw a 45-degree angle going downhill to either side, the animal being the uppermost point. If that triangle of area below the animal is all recoverable, then we aim for the front shoulder and take the shot. If you break the front shoulder on that first shot, the animal will only be able to go straight down the mountain or down at a 45-degree angle, as he’ll be packing a front leg. On the flip side, if there are cliffs or other areas where the animal may hang up, we hold off and watch him until he gets to a recoverable position. Patience is the name of the game in the high country. It takes so long to cover country that it’s sometimes worth just waiting another day to let your billy get into a safer position to recover. Goats are built to roll; I’ve only been on one goat harvest where the goat did not roll a ways down the mountain. You owe it to these animals to harvest them in a location where they’ll be retrievable and the meat and cape will still be salvageable.
Mountain goat seasons are all different across the West, with some staying open for three months. My hunt in Montana this year goes from September 1 through November 29. A lot of hunters feel that the long hair is what makes a trophy and tend to wait until later in the season to hunt. In the case of my tag, I am planning on going in September. A lot of the country I’ll be hunting is around 10,000 feet above sea level, and I have seen early snowstorms dump three feet of snow up there in the middle of September. I can tell you from personal experience that adding a bunch of snow and ice to the steep country mountain goats call home significantly increases the difficulty of an already difficult situation. I have also found the older billies tend to hair up quicker than the nannies and kids. Most big, mature billies we kill in September are seventy-five to eighty-five percent haired up, and the mounts have all turned out great.
“You can’t cheat the mountain, pilgrim.” We have all heard mention of being in “mountain” or “sheep” shape, and the truth is, no matter how good of shape you are in, most mountain hunting is going to kick your butt. Being in the best shape you can be will make the hunt less painful and more enjoyable. At some point on almost every goat hunt I have been on, someone in the hunting party starts talking about how horrible the experience is physically and swears he will never hunt the mountains again. I always tell them that the pain is temporary, but the memories of experiencing the high country will last forever. Once we get back to the trailhead, every one of them can’t wait to go on another mountain hunt. If you are a mentally strong person and can embrace the suck of how difficult the hunt is, then you can make up a lot of ground for not being in the best shape possible.
Honestly, there are thousands of articles out there on how to get in shape that were written by trainers. I don’t have a perfect workout for you, so I will just tell you what I do. I am currently forty-seven years old, and my preparation for hunting season is way different than it was when I was twenty-five years old. The number one goal for me is to stretch every day because staying flexible is great for injury prevention. I enjoy CrossFit and try to go at least three times a week. I leave my ego at the door and do not try to lift heavy.
My goal is to stay mobile and keep my strength levels where they need to be to maintain my lifestyle. Once the snow melts, I start trying to hit the mountain and do one to two hikes a week. The first couple of hikes start out with less weight, and by the end of summer, the pack is loaded with fifty pounds of water. I prefer to pack water up the mountain and dump it all out once I get to my destination.
In my opinion, there is no reason to be carrying that much weight down the mountain during training. The chances of twisting a knee or ankle are simply too great—especially with such a rare tag in your pocket.
Given the rarity of a goat tag, the beautiful scenery, the mountain solitude, and the deep sense of accomplishment that comes from undertaking such an adventure, it is easy to see how mountain hunting can become an obsession.
Buy the best gear you can afford, but pay special attention to your boots, optics, backpack, and rain gear.Lightweight gear is awesome, but remember that at a certain point, it’s easier and cheaper for most people to lose five pounds than to cut five pounds of gear out of their backpack.
2. Stay off the skyline.
3. Put your binoculars on a tripod.
4. Know your weapon and be skilled with it. We don’t get many goat tags in a lifetime, so make yours count.
5. Always be prepared to sleep on the mountain. If you find yourself up on the cliffs in the dark, just find a safe place and wait until daylight. More than one goat hunter has lost their life trying to negotiate cliffs in the dark.
6. I am not a fan of bringing technical climbing ropes, as most people who bring climbing gear get themselves into a worse situation. If you remember to use patience and the angle of recovery outlined in this article, you should never need technical climbing gear.
7. Take pictures and video of the whole hunt; more likely than not, you will never be back there again.
8. This is a rare tag, so don’t rush the hunt. Make sure you take enough time off from work so that you don’t feel rushed.
9. Only invite people who will be helpful and can do this kind of mountain hunt. You don’t want your hunt to fail because one of the people you invited cuts the hunt short.
10. Cape the goat for a full-body mount. You can always change your mind later.
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