They say as you get older your memory starts to fade, but there are those small things as a hunter that just stick with you. Like June 12th. I was sitting at my desk, looking at Facebook, and I saw that Montana draw results were out. I really wasn't that anxious about it because I knew I needed a lot more points to be successful at the moose, sheep, and goat draw. However, I wanted to check and make sure I had gotten another year of points credited. I apply in Montana myself, so I needed to know I had done it correctly. When I opened the website and logged in with my ALS number, I noticed that I had no mountain goat points. As I was franticly trying to figure out what I had done wrong, my phone rang. It was Isaiah from Huntin’ Fool. “Guess what,” he said, “You drew a Montana mountain goat tag!” Now I knew why my points were gone!
Isaiah gave me a couple names of outfitters, and we visited for quite a while. That evening, I did a few more checks of names and called a couple of them and left messages. After a couple of days and several calls, I felt very comfortable with Cameron Mayo of Absaroka-Beartooth Outfitters. He told me this was a rugged hunt, but if I was in good shape, we'd get a goat. We booked the hunt, and I had several email contacts with his wife over the summer, asking questions and trying to get myself convinced I was ready for this. I run and workout year-round to stay in shape for western states hunting, and this tag was giving me extra incentive.
I was pretty sure I had the gear I needed, thinking that a September 15th hunt would be pretty nice weather. About a week out as I was following Gardiner, Montana on the weather app, it was starting to show more cold and more moisture. The day before I left central Nebraska, I actually unpacked and resorted my clothing. They were calling for snow, and I decided to switch to some warmer and waterproof gear.
I was to meet Cameron in Big Timber, Montana on Thursday morning. There would be another goat hunter and two elk hunters all going into camp. We all met that morning and introduced ourselves, and shortly afterward, two of Cameron's guides, Pat and Bob, showed up to lead us to the trailhead. From Big Timber, we had about a 50-mile drive to the trailhead. From there, it would be about a six to seven-hour horseback ride to camp.
By the time we reached the trailhead, it was raining. I was pleased with my decision to include my Sitka Coldfront tops and bottoms and my down layers. It made the ride into camp comfortable. Little did I know, I would wear them every day. We reached camp that afternoon and went out on a scouting trip, but we didn't turn up anything. The low clouds really limited us. Back at camp that night, we enjoyed the first of many excellent meals by our cook, Anna, as it began to snow.
For the first two days of the hunt, it generally rained or snowed. The elk hunters were able to fill a tag opening morning not far from camp. Joe, the other goat hunter, and I stayed in camp until late morning, hoping the low overcast would move out, but it didn’t. The second day, it actually snowed hard enough it made it too difficult to glass.
The third day, we woke up to clear skies but windy. My guide, Bob, and I worked our way up a long, steep ridge with a lot of downfall from old fires. We hoped from the top to be able to glass down in some of the overhangs and cover some ground. The wind blew so hard that it was almost a ground blizzard at times, but we felt like we were accomplishing what we needed to do to find goats. Finally, late afternoon, we gave up and headed back to camp, having to cut our way through a lot of new downfall because of the wind. Almost back to camp that night, the mule pulled back on the lead rope, and it twisted Bob around enough to throw his back out. I could see from the pain in his face that it wasn’t good.
The next morning, Bob wasn’t at breakfast. Pat, the elk hunter's guide, was pretty sure he wasn't going to be able to get out of bed. I began to panic. It was the fourth day of a five-day hunt. The first two days we were weathered out, and now my guide was down. The mental part of the hunt “game” was taking its toll. I only had two days left on what was for me at my age probably a tag-of-a-lifetime. Standing outside the dining tent with all kinds of thoughts running through my head, I saw Cameron visiting with Joe, the other goat hunter. Cameron shook his hand and walked over to where I was. He said, “Get your gear, I’m taking you out today. I talked to Joe, and since he is a resident and retired, I ask him if he would be all right with me taking you today. Hopefully we can fill your tag today, and tomorrow we can fill his. If not, I can bring him back out later in the season.” Wow! I didn’t know what to say to Joe. There was just no way I could thank him enough.
Cameron and I headed up what he called Middle Ridge. He told me as we were leaving that this might be the toughest thing I’d ever done. He was right. Cameron took a mule with us. He assured me there would be goats where he was taking me, but it was nasty getting there. Again, he was right. Finally, at about 11:00 that morning, we reached the top. We started picking our way around and glassing down. It couldn't have been 30 minutes when Cameron glassed up three goats.
We spent some time trying to pick out a billy, and finally, Cameron said, “There’s one billy in there. He isn't an old, trophy billy, but he is a billy. What do you want to do? We can keep working our way around this top and try to find a bigger goat if you want.”
I pondered for just a short time, and then I told him no, let’s go after this one. It was midday already, and we had a long stalk to get this done. If we left to keep looking, we wouldn't have enough daylight to get back to this point and relocate this group. We headed back down towards the horses and lightened our packs for the stalk.
I think it took a long hour to get to a point where we had a 400-yard shot. Cameron asked me if I was comfortable with that, and I told him I was. My Nosler 270 WSM was very capable at that distance as I had practiced further distances all summer. Just as we got set up, the goats all got up and began feeding back around a point where we couldn’t see them. They were heading into an old burn to feed. We gathered our gear and headed back up so we could get around a big rockslide. I was beginning to fail the mental part of this again. I could picture so many things going wrong, and I told myself I would have to accept whatever happened. As we started down again to try to find the goats, Cameron saw one of them through a thick patch of burnt timber. He told me to hold still and let him glass it over. After a few minutes, he said, “That’s him, that’s the billy.” We could never see the entire animal at one time because of having to look through the timber, and I'll still never know how Cameron could tell that was the billy through all those trees, but he did. I ranged him at 200 yards and tried to find a decent rest. There was just no way to get prone on the rocks with the steep angle, so I opened the bipod and used it as a brace on a small burnt pine tree. I just had to wait for the billy to stop with his vitals exposed through the trees. It seemed like forever, and I was really starting to shake from the nerves. I was starting to think this might actually happen. He finally took the step I needed, and the Nosler Partition did its job.
We worked our way down to the goat, got some pictures, and started skinning and boning. Cameron told me several times that getting back up wasn’t going to be easy and to start preparing myself for a long climb back out. He took the cape and my rifle, and I took the meat. We needed to hurry as another storm was building and it was getting colder and windier. The next three and half to four hours may have been the toughest thing I’ve done in a very long time, but I wouldn't have traded that for anything. Most of the time I was on all fours, trying to work across wet, snow-covered inclines. However, I was starting to win the mental battle. We got back to the horses, and after a short break, we started to lead them down. The wind was starting to knock over dead trees again, and we both got a bit nervous.
It was almost dark by the time we got back to camp, and I ate another wonderful meal and crawled into my KUIU sleeping bag. My hope was that Cameron could get Joe out on the last day and get his goat. We woke up the last day to a hard snow, and Cameron even talked about pulling out a day early. They hoped it might break later and give them one last chance. The weather wasn’t going to cooperate. It snowed all day and all night. It made the ride out pretty miserable, but we made it. It was September 19th, and the snow was belly deep to the horses going over the Divide!
I can’t say enough about Absaroka-Beartooth Outfitters and their commitment to their clients. Their horses and mules are excellent. Cameron did get Joe back out a couple weeks later and got him his goat, too. I was thrilled! Joe, I can’t ever repay you, but thank you. To the readers, never, ever give up. Never stop applying. It will happen some day, probably when you least expect it. Use as much of your budget as you can on top end clothing and gear; you won’t be sorry. And trust Huntin’ Fool with their outfitter recommendations. I have used their opinions quite a few times now over the years, and they haven’t disappointed me yet.
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