Kodiak Goat Hunt
I had the chance to jump kind of last minute on a mountain goat hunt in Kodiak with a teammate of mine. I'd never hunted before, so I saw my role mainly as being a Sherpa carrying heavy things. Besides the opportunity to put some meat in the freezer, it was also a chance to see Kodiak, where I'd never been, and to camp in the mountains, so I jumped at it.
We flew in to our hunting spot, leaving from this seaplane base. The weather wasn't great, so we weren't able to get in to any high alpine lakes, but it was good enough. Our pilot came up to Kodiak to do some commercial salmon fishing, decided he liked the idea of flying, and has been flying in Kodiak for over 20 years.
We set up camp right next to Frazer Lake, where Rolan dropped us off. It had the advantage of being close to our drop off, minimizing the base camp gear we had to haul, but had the disadvantage of meaning a long climb in part through very heavy brush every day.
The first day as we were hiking up we spotted a large group of goats on a ridge north of the valley where we camped, so we headed up that direction. The weather was generally nice-ish in the mornings, which was good, as it prompted us to get out of our tent.
Bill in his overwhites. They're just tyvek suits - if we wore these around town, I imagine people would probably assume we're meth cookers. They were effective for the hunt, though - we actually had some goats come up to us out of curiosity.
The weather deteriorated every afternoon. After dropping packs to successfully stalk the goats, we had to return to pick our bags back up, by which time the goats' location was out of view.
Cleaning the goats. The spotting scope was to check out some other possibilities for the next day.
Coming down with 80-100 pound packs on steep terrain was pretty tough work.
It was tough work through pretty country, though.
We took a 4-man tent for just the two of us, which turned out to be a great move. We were soaked at the end of every day.
We were allowed to shoot four goats between the two of us. We shot two nannies on the first day, then switched our focus to trying to find a billy. We found one at the top of this ridge.
After shooting the two nannies the first day, the weight of the meat and hides together was too much for us to carry everything down in one go. We returned on the third day to grab the nannies' hides. It turned out to be our best weather day.
We had a day to spend in Kodiak after returning from the hunt, so we kicked around town and checked out the fishing boats. I'm not sure that I'm going to become a big-time hunter anytime soon, although eating meat you worked for is awfully satisfying. This mountainous hunting thing does thing does get you out climbing around in big mountains and sleeping in a tent, which is always a good thing. Lot of work, but also lots of fun.
We flew in to our hunting spot, leaving from this seaplane base. The weather wasn't great, so we weren't able to get in to any high alpine lakes, but it was good enough. Our pilot came up to Kodiak to do some commercial salmon fishing, decided he liked the idea of flying, and has been flying in Kodiak for over 20 years.
We set up camp right next to Frazer Lake, where Rolan dropped us off. It had the advantage of being close to our drop off, minimizing the base camp gear we had to haul, but had the disadvantage of meaning a long climb in part through very heavy brush every day.
The first day as we were hiking up we spotted a large group of goats on a ridge north of the valley where we camped, so we headed up that direction. The weather was generally nice-ish in the mornings, which was good, as it prompted us to get out of our tent.
Bill in his overwhites. They're just tyvek suits - if we wore these around town, I imagine people would probably assume we're meth cookers. They were effective for the hunt, though - we actually had some goats come up to us out of curiosity.
The weather deteriorated every afternoon. After dropping packs to successfully stalk the goats, we had to return to pick our bags back up, by which time the goats' location was out of view.
Cleaning the goats. The spotting scope was to check out some other possibilities for the next day.
Coming down with 80-100 pound packs on steep terrain was pretty tough work.
It was tough work through pretty country, though.
We took a 4-man tent for just the two of us, which turned out to be a great move. We were soaked at the end of every day.
We were allowed to shoot four goats between the two of us. We shot two nannies on the first day, then switched our focus to trying to find a billy. We found one at the top of this ridge.
After shooting the two nannies the first day, the weight of the meat and hides together was too much for us to carry everything down in one go. We returned on the third day to grab the nannies' hides. It turned out to be our best weather day.
We had a day to spend in Kodiak after returning from the hunt, so we kicked around town and checked out the fishing boats. I'm not sure that I'm going to become a big-time hunter anytime soon, although eating meat you worked for is awfully satisfying. This mountainous hunting thing does thing does get you out climbing around in big mountains and sleeping in a tent, which is always a good thing. Lot of work, but also lots of fun.
posted by Slim at
8:49 PM
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