12 year olds first mt. goat hunt
Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2015 7:39 pmMy 12-year-old son drew a Kodiak goat tag this year and we just got back from a very pleasurable 9 days in the field. Started off by flying (via super cub) into an alpine lake at 2500' elevation.
On our way up into goat country, to set up a spike camp, we ran into this nice little Sitka blacktail buck that my son was lucky enough to tag with my .300 wsm. His first deer ever and the beginnings of a good trip.
We set up spike camp at the base of a very active bowl at 3000' and went to bed with the goats.
We spent the next several days trying to close the distance on this nice billy but were unable to either get within shooting range, or catch him in a place where he wouldn't fall hundreds of feet.
At about day five of the hunt this nice little nanny presented a good opportunity and with the lack of success we had been having with the billy, we decided to go after her. We made a stalk to within about 220 yards and set up for a shot. My son made a perfect shot placement, right behind the left shoulder, with the bullet puncturing both longs and coming out of the right shoulder.
After getting her cleaned we spent the next couple days around camp, as the weather turned bad and a storm with some decent winds and a fair amount of rain and fog settled in on us. We used this time to chase around some Ptarmigan which got us out of the tent for a while.
After the storm lifted, and having filled my sons goat tag, we decided to spend the rest of the trip filling the rest of our deer tags. I was able to finally get a little shooting time in and killed a couple of small spike deer. It was around this same time that the billy we had chasing earlier, came down to within about 100 yards or so of camp, and he would have been a pretty easy kill with no worries of him falling very far. It's kind of funny, like he knew we were done hunting goats. He did allow me to get some really good close-up photos and some pretty good video though.
All in all it was a wonderful nine days bonding with my boy and I'm sure we made some good memories that will be with us both, for the rest of our lives. We also ended up with a nice little pile of back straps and tenderloins.
The rest o it we cut up into roasts and ground burger.
Here are a few more miscellaneous photos of the trip.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
On our way up into goat country, to set up a spike camp, we ran into this nice little Sitka blacktail buck that my son was lucky enough to tag with my .300 wsm. His first deer ever and the beginnings of a good trip.
We set up spike camp at the base of a very active bowl at 3000' and went to bed with the goats.
We spent the next several days trying to close the distance on this nice billy but were unable to either get within shooting range, or catch him in a place where he wouldn't fall hundreds of feet.
At about day five of the hunt this nice little nanny presented a good opportunity and with the lack of success we had been having with the billy, we decided to go after her. We made a stalk to within about 220 yards and set up for a shot. My son made a perfect shot placement, right behind the left shoulder, with the bullet puncturing both longs and coming out of the right shoulder.
After getting her cleaned we spent the next couple days around camp, as the weather turned bad and a storm with some decent winds and a fair amount of rain and fog settled in on us. We used this time to chase around some Ptarmigan which got us out of the tent for a while.
After the storm lifted, and having filled my sons goat tag, we decided to spend the rest of the trip filling the rest of our deer tags. I was able to finally get a little shooting time in and killed a couple of small spike deer. It was around this same time that the billy we had chasing earlier, came down to within about 100 yards or so of camp, and he would have been a pretty easy kill with no worries of him falling very far. It's kind of funny, like he knew we were done hunting goats. He did allow me to get some really good close-up photos and some pretty good video though.
All in all it was a wonderful nine days bonding with my boy and I'm sure we made some good memories that will be with us both, for the rest of our lives. We also ended up with a nice little pile of back straps and tenderloins.
The rest o it we cut up into roasts and ground burger.
Here are a few more miscellaneous photos of the trip.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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