Guest Publications
Here you will find articles/stories from my previous clients about their hunting experiences.
Window of Opportunity
*Note* This article was written by Don Wingert and is printed here only with his explicit permission.
I'd been collecting information on outfits specializing in Rocky Mountain Goat hunts for the past couple of years. Since it takes a number of years for me to save for such a hunt, I wanted to give myself the highest percentage of connecting on a goat when the time came. After accumulating a folder full of correspondence with guides, hunter references, and anyone else who was willing to share information about a particular hunt, I felt I had narrowed down my search to a couple worthy candidates. Throughout the year I had contacted those proprietors and made it known of my intentions to book a hunt and keep me in mind should a cancellation hunt become available.
The 2005 Fall season had come and went, or so I thought when I received a call on Tuesday, October 4th from Brian McConnell of McConnell & Company Guiding Services. Brian was calling to tell me that he had a hunter cancel and an opportunity was available to go on a goat hunt. I asked when I needed to be there and his response was "I'm open from now until October 15th." We talked a bit more about the hunting, reality of taking a mature Billy, and the logistics of getting a plane ticket from Des Moines, Iowa to Terrace, British Columbia. By the end of our conversation I had pretty much written-off being able to realistically do the hunt as I had just returned from an Alaska hunt two weeks prior and was still catching up on work at the office - let alone the logistical cost of getting to B.C.
The next morning I continued to ponder options, as I couldn't shake the thought of going on a goat hunt. I checked flights on the Internet, cashed in some frequent flyer miles, and explained to the ultimate boss (wife Denyce) that this was a once-a-lifetime chance. Everything panned out as I confirmed with Brian later that morning that I would meet him at the Terrace airport on Friday afternoon.
Friday's flight from Des Moines, thru Denver, then Vancouver and onto Terrace, B.C. was uneventful. Having never traveled into Canada with a firearm before I was nervous as to the procedure, but found everyone to be very helpful. Downloading and filling out the firearm declaration form, it was a simple act of paying the duty at the Vancouver customs and I continued on my way. I arrived that afternoon to an overcast sky with temps in the mid-50's and easily found Brian waiting for me at the terminal as his 6' 7" frame makes him difficult to go un-noticed.
The weather forecast for the day called for rain throughout most of the evening and night so I'd be staying at the Coast Inn of the West hotel for the night. This allowed me to get my gear in order and walk around the town a bit.
On Saturday morning, Brian met me in hotel restaurant where he explained in detail the area that we'd be hunting and what the plans were to fill a goat tag. After driving a few hours from town on the highway system and logging roads, he announced we had arrived at our jump off point.
Now this is the point that I was most concerned. Though I work out daily climbing stairs I hadn't been doing it with a backpack full of weights as I had done when planning on a sheep hunt, and given that I only had 3 days to prepare for this hunt I was skeptical on how well I'd keep up with the guide. Brian and Ki, his yellow lab, set a brisk pace up the mountain through the old growth forest. How 100' trees can grow on a 45+-degree slope of rock is beyond me, not to mention the obstacles of working around blow downs in a rainforest (read here "slick"). Brian allowed for climbing breaks as Ki softly whined giving me encouragement to hurry up, as he wanted to get to the top as well. We topped out about 3 hours later into the alpine where base camp was located.
Now on a typical backpack hunt I would have expected a small two-person tent with very few amenities. Not so when hunting with Brian as I would find he packed up the mountain a 4 person tent, lunch meat for sandwiches, steaks for dinner, sausage for breakfast, and a small propane heater to warm the tent in the morning. Pretty remarkable considering what we had just ascended.
After a short rest at which time we dropped off my sleeping bag and non-essential hunting gear, we wolfed down a candy bar and sandwich then continued our ascent of the mountain. Climbing in the alpine was made easier by the beautiful views of the surrounding mountains and valleys and we soon gained the ridge. Peering into the deep mountain cuts we began glassing for goats. Nothing appeared in our immediate area so we worked our way around the top of the mountain and continued to glass. We saw numerous goats on other mountains throughout the afternoon and decided to head back down to base camped around 5 p.m. Afternoon a dinner of steak, fettuccine, and rice we retired to the tent for the night.
On Sunday morning we woke at 5 a.m. to whiteout conditions as we were in the midst of a snowstorm with no visibility. We spent the entire day in the tent with the snow finally subsiding sometime during the night.
Monday dawned clear and cold with 10+ inches of new snow on the ground. We ate breakfast, loaded our backpacks for the day and climbed to the top of the mountain. The sun was extremely bright as it reflected off the new snow and hid all signs of our presence from the two days before.
After looking into some of the basins Brian saw goat tracks at the bottom of the valley in which they led up into the pinnacles across from our vantage point. At the end of the tracks we found a good Billy that was bedded down. Now the discussion centered on whether or not we could get to him, would he stay put during the stalk, and how close did we think we could get for a shot. Again, Brian proved experience well beyond his 21 years and explained a plan that would initially take us away from the goat, allowing us to climb around and through a saddle, which would get us on his side of the mountain. Once traversing this section of terrain, we made our way across the snow-covered shale and through many little vertical drainages, until we finally worked our way to the pre-determined plateau from which we thought we'd have a shot around 250 yards. The Billy continued to bed while looking in the opposite direction from which we were moving in on him.
Setting up the packs for a rest and video camera to capture the action, Brian made a bleating goat call which prompted the Billy to stand up. I aimed for the right front shoulder and touched off a shot and had minimal reaction from the goat as he swapped ends. I fired again in which he was almost standing straight on, again little reaction other than he now hurriedly stepped into some small hemlock and disappeared. Brian suggested we gather our gear and make our way over to where we last saw him. Now I know everyone says that if you hunt long enough, there comes a time when you'll miss a shot. That may be true, but on a goat hunt where you just spent hours clawing your way up the side of a mountain, that's not the time to miss. My stomach was doing summersaults as I put my pack on and started making our way to where the goat had been. Brian's long stride again aided him in working through the snowdrifts at a quicker pace than I could. He and Ki arrived where the goat had been bedded and immediately found blood confirming a hit. As both of them followed the tracks along the ridge spine into the hemlock, I climbed into the goat's lair and immediately the Billy came busting out of the rock/hemlock cover below heading back to where I was standing. Upon seeing me he tried to escape into the rocks in which I was able to dispatch him. The Billy rolled off the cliff with all four hooves in the air.
We made our way down the vertical face of the mountain with the aid of small vegetation to keeps us from free falling all the way to the bottom. We then worked our way down a streambed over to the base of the rock cliffs looking for sign of the goat. As we ascended back to where we thought we should see him, we found what looked like a toboggan path with a fluff of off- white hair at the end. Our goat had fell over 200 feet from the cliffs, hit the sloped ridge and slid another 1000+ feet to the valley floor, coming to rest in some small trees. I commented to Brian at the time that from the pictures, nobody would ever believe the goat was shot near the top of the mountains as we were now so far away from the original engagement spot. Luckily the horns were in tact and sported great width with 9 ½" length.
After caping him for a full mount, it became apparent that there was no way we could climb back up and over top of the mountain back to base camp. Our only option was to work our way off the mountain and hope to hit a logging trail that we could follow back to where we'd left the pickup. After stumbling down a streambed, working around the mountain and through the timber we arrived at a logging trail 5 hours later. We dropped our packs, stripped off our raingear, and Brian and Ki left me sitting on a log pile while they jogged the two miles to retrieve the pickup. We made it back to town late that night in which a hot shower and bed was very appealing.
The following day, Brian climbed back up the mountain to retrieve the remainder of my gear that we'd left at base camp. He made it back down in time for us to enjoy dinner at the hotel restaurant and then dropped me off at the airport for my flight back to Iowa. I returned to the office on Thursday - harvesting a goat in less than a week's time.
I can't say enough good things about this adventure. Brian set honest expectations for the hunt and delivered on everything, which allowed me to fulfill one of my hunting goals in harvesting this challenging animal. Brian is a young, enthusiastic guide that I'd recommend to anyone who's looking for a quality hunt with high success.