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Another Kodiak Goat Report
Posted by JVinAK on Oct 06 2005
Like a previous poster, I headed to Kodiak the last week of September for a goat trip. We had the permit for the southwest part of the island (477?). We used Seahawk Air as well, and I can't say enough about them. Great operation. Rolen is a great pilot, knows the area and his support staff is great too. First thing he asks when he sees us is if we had a big tarp since a big storm was moving in. We say no. He goes and gets one. Do we have ropes for tie downs? He goes and gets some that he was planning to use the next week and spends 5 minutes melting all the ends. Its the little things. Anyway, Rolen flew us out and let us look at 3 or 4 lakes to choose from. He had recent reports from people who had been in on almost all of them. We picked the one that would be easiest to get out of in marginal weather. It was also the one that I researched the most and one that Rolen had shot a goat from a few years before. There were some people getting picked up (by Andrews) where we landed - no goat, but they were after billies only. (We had no such qualms.) Seems at the head of the valley, they had counted 38 nannies and kids. That seemed promising. So day 1 - we crashed alders for about 500 feet and settled into an alder patch for our tent location. We draped the tarp Rolen gave us over the alders and tied it off. We spotted 3 goats. 2 were in nasty stuff right above camp and 1 was on an opposite peak. We saw him for only a minute or so. I think that was probably the only billy we saw the whole time. Day 2 - We spotted a group of 20-30 goats at the head of the valley. We headed up that way with the plan of dropping over the ridge on our right and sneaking up behind the goats. It looked flat on the map. It was definately not flat in person. So we turned around. While we were on the other side of the ridge, the goats relocated such that when we came back around, we could side hill right within rifle range. Previously, they could have seen us the whole way. At the point we came around, we just couldn't see them at all and I was worried that they might have relocated. My buddy was tired so he told me to just go ahead. I started off and about 1/2 hour later he started to follow at a slow pace. Anyway, when I got to the head of the valley I popped over a ridge and there were 7 goats at 200 yards. I slipped into a white suit (they were looking my way) I have for sheep hunting and then crawled up and got a good rest on a rock. One got up and looked at me, but then decided that I was no big deal and it laid back down. Well, they were all just laying there, so I figured I'd just wait for my buddy to catch up and we could get two. So after 20 or 30 minutes he came up and I told him the situation. He was to shoot right after me. After he got his white suit on and settled into position, I fired at the goat with the nicest fur. I ended up shooting it 3 times, all lethal, and it merely rolled a few feet dead. My buddy got excited and missed twice. He was pretty disappointed but figured he'd go and see if there were any that hadn't run too far. He went over and all the other goats that we had seen in the morning were just on the other side of where we had seen the group we shot at. So, shot number 3 from him put down his goat. We gutted them but then darkness forced us back to camp. The next day was a weather day. The storm Rolen told us about arrived. 60-70 mph winds. You could hear the gusts coming down the valley like a train. They flipped over a float plane on Afognak. The winds shredded the tarp and we pulled a couple tent stakes, including one holding the vestibule down. All my stuff got soaked. It was a sleepness night. The next day we packed the goats down to the lake. Vermin had gotten to them while we were gone. They ate most of the backstraps and a whole quarter off of mine and a hind quarter off of my buddies. Kind of disappointing, but at least it wasn't eaten by a bear. The next day we called Rolen and two hours later he picked us up. A very good trip. Extremely difficult alder crashing and climbing, but very satisfying.
Next: great job JV! fullkurl Oct 06 2005
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- Another Kodiak Goat Report JVinAK Oct 06 2005
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