Mountain Goat Hunting

So you booked your goat hunt. Now what?

Preparation is key for any mountain hunt!

Now you have to worry about physical preparation. People call goats the poor man’s sheep hunt, and for good reason. I have hunted sheep and mountain goats, and I can honestly say that they are both incredibly demanding. However, goats definitely take the cake for living in rougher terrain.

When hunting goats there is no such thing as being in too good of shape.

Gary Colbath with a mountain goat he shot on Kodiak Island in Alaska. It died in a near vertical chute. Good thing he’s in shape.

You are probably going to spend hours pouring over topo-maps, google earth, talking to wildlife biologists, game wardens, past hunters, reading hunt reports, figuring out logistics, scouting, figuring out what gear and equipment you need, researching gear and equipment, purchasing gear and equipment, finding out you have too much gear and equipment, etc, etc.

This can be overwhelming to a lot of people, especially if you are not an experienced backcountry/mountain hunter. Don’t get me wrong, I think anyone who is focused and committed can successfully go mountain goat hunting. However, most people who don’t live and hunt this type of terrain on a regular basis, and just don’t realize how much preparation goes into this type of hunting.

Trophy Expectations

A successful mountain goat hunt will not only result in an incredible trophy for a hunter’s wall at home, but also will cause most hunters to catch “sheep fever.”

The country these animals inhabit is something to behold, and spending time there is addicting once you conquer it for the first time. SO DON’T WAIT for years to save up for that sheep hunt or think a mountain hunt need be planned for years, NOW IS THE TIME. Tags are over the counter, the hunt can be with any weapon and very ARCHERY friendly, and spots remain this year. A mountain goat hunt makes for an incredible first time mountain hunt and is the perfect “training ground” for sheep hunting. mountain goat hunts are only 25-30% the price of a sheep hunt and often more difficult.

In 2011 Troy M. Sheldon of Alexandria, KY bagged the new B&C world record mountain goat in the Stikine River area of British Columbia.

Huntable populations of mountain goat live in:

Alaska, Idaho, Montana, British Columbia, Alberta, The Yukon, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, Colorado, Texas, South Dakota and Washington.

How to Field Judge Mountain Goats

Field judging mountain goats is one of the more challenging in the hunting world.

For one thing, both males and females have horns, and it is somewhat difficult to discern between the two. In fact, many wildlife departments allow the taking of nannies. They encourage hunters to avoid nannies and in many cases require an orientation course on sex identification, yet nannies are still mistakenly taken.

Determine the Sex – The key to making this determination and evaluating a goat lies in mass of both horns and body.

A mature billy will have a hump on his back or shoulder and will appear “thicker” than a nanny. The horns of a billy will curl over their entire length. Nannie horns will commonly rise straight up, only curling back on the upper 1/3 or 1/4 of the horn.

Horn Length

When estimating horn length we must take into consideration two factors. the horn will curve backward. Long winter coats can hide horn growth at the bases near the skull.

The curvature of the horn can short-change the true length of horns in field observations. It’s a good idea to try and visualize the horns as straight. If the apparent horn length is visualized as straightened-out, and it reaches the distance from the nostrils to the bottom of the eye, you are looking at a horn length of probably at least eight, but not over nine inches. If the same comparison yields an apparent length equivalent to the distance from the nostrils to the ear hole, you are unquestionably looking at a records-class billy. Providing his horn tips are not broken and he appears to have a thick base on each horn.

Another useful gauge is the apparent length of the horns compared to the visible length of the ear. For trophy quality, one normally must look for a horn that appears to be two and one-half times the visible length of the ear.

Look at the Bases

When viewed straight on the bases will appear to nearly touch on a big billy. On a nanny or lesser billy white will be definitively visible. *Billy’s have two large black glands directly behind the horns which can be mistaken for extraordinary mass. Nannies do not have this gland.

All but 10 Boone and Crockett mountain goat entries come from northern coastal locations!

A look to the records reveals that the best bases and ultimately the best scoring goats come from the Pacific Coast range, or the west slope of the Rockies.  Reviewing the top 100 records-book goats of all-time, you will find the base circumferences range from 6 to 6-6/8″. The other locations showing up in the top 100 include; Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Colorado, and Nevada. The remaining 90 entries are all from coastal Alaska and British Columbia.

• Online Scoring Tool