Dan Larsson, son to Skinner Sights owner Andy Larsson, drew a Montana mountain goat tag, and a Marlin lever-action helped him bring it home.
By Dan Larsson
I was sitting in Dad's truck's passenger seat when I pulled up Montana's special license drawing results web page. I threw my hands up in the air in a gesture of delight. Dad looked over with that, 'what did you just get' look. Months of excitement and planning were about to commence!
Having drawn a cool, once in a lifetime mountain goat license; I wanted to shoot it with something appealing and challenging without compromising the hunt. High alpine breathtaking views come with crazy steep terrain and long-distance shots. Being a long-range shooter, no problem, right. Use a bolt gun and make the hunt easy, or… use a lever gun and make a different kind of memory.
Dad and I discussed what lever gun I should take. I own a few, but most lever actions aren't as ballistically suitable to a flat trajectory and downrange kinetic energy as you would like for most goat hunting shots. We discussed the 375 Winchester cartridge as well as the time-honored 45-70. However, while doable, the trajectories were just a little too much of an arc for such a valuable hunting opportunity. Dad brought up that he had a Marlin MXLR in 338 Marlin Express. A very cool cartridge based on the .376 Steyer that would fit in the legendary 336 Marlin action. This little fat and somewhat awkward cartridge matches the baseline 30-06's ballistics with a 160gr Barnes bullet traveling at 2700 fps.
Two buddies (Jared and James) that climb like goats accompanied me on three horses as we climbed to a campsite over 8,000 feet in elevation. I always forget how much the wind blows up high. Two out of the three nights, the wind shook the tent, and the trees howled as the wind blew. Most people don't know that you can get a "hot tent" and a titanium stove that weighs under 5-6 lbs. It was great to light up the little wood stove at 4 am when the chill started to seep through our sleeping bags.
After traveling and riding most of the day, we had a couple of hours to set up camp and glass up a few goats before dark. We spotted four goats that first night. One was okay, but we wanted to see what the area had to offer. I hadn't been able to get away and scout previously, so this was a scout and hunted all in one. That night was relatively warm (low 40's), and the stars were vibrant. James slept out under the stars while Jared and I sheltered from the wind in the tent.
We practically had two full days to hunt, so we left the horses in camp and hiked the three miles up the canyon, glassing all along the way. Have you ever tried to sit on a horse and glass? They are never truly still. We glassed up goats all along the canyon, past the lake, and up to the back cliffs. A few nannies and kids were unconcerned as we hiked by and glassed over them with our bino’s. Jared spotted a crusty old billy on a ledge where he was safe from everything but gravity. He was the kind of old goat we were looking for. His white hair was slightly yellowed, and his body had all the angles of an aging body. Using the spotting scope, we found that he had broken off one of his horns. There was also no way to get to him, and we let him be. Grow, old Mr. Billy!
A trail went over a pass into the next basin. We zig-zagged up the trail until we could glass a new country. It was more beautiful and slightly less rugged than our camp location, though farther in. We glassed up some goats that were not where we would ever consider shooting or recovering one. Then we noticed two billys on the next rockslide to our left. Jared was convinced we should shoot the longer of the two, but I wanted to look a few more goats over first, and we were three and a half miles from camp. It seemed prudent to shoot a comparable one above camp…right??? If only I had known that the camp billy I was thinking of would poof and we wouldn't see another good one close to camp, I could have saved us 7 miles of hiking to shoot this same goat the next day.
We returned to camp in time to glass a little, catch a few cut-throat trout for supper, and hit the hay. The next morning, we were up looking for the camp goat. He was gone. There were some nannies and immature billys, but those weren't our target. So, we hiked up the canyon again. The night before, we had determined that there was a young billy with those nannies and kids. He had the best mass we had seen of any goat on the mountain. We found them bedded up just above the trail again, and ole' one horn was on his ledge. We discussed shooting the little billy for half an hour before deciding that he was too immature. So once again, we zig-zagged over the mountain pass.
There was one goat on the crown of the ridge with long horns. We thought it could be a billy and headed off into the basin after it. Halfway to the bedded goat, a billy popped up out of the brush. We looked over both goats and decided the first one was probably a nanny. Man, it isn't easy to judge the difference between males and females. The best way is to watch them urinate, but they rarely do so. This close goat was a billy with massive bases but short horns. Never-the-less, a storm was coming in, and it was time to shoot a goat. We hurried up the mountain to a big rock where we had a shooting lane. We ranged him at 350 yards, and I dialed up the scope.
I'm picky about my scopes and would not take a substandard scope on a hunt this epic. The previous year I hunted primarily with a Marlin .308 and a Skinner Sights scope. It is a rugged scope that holds its zero even when I'm dragging it around the woods and prairie. Almost as good, it will dial. As a long-range shooter, I love a repeatable scope when dialing up to range and back to zero. I did a test with this 1-6x by 30mm scope on my best shooting rifle at 100 yards. Zeroed dead on at 100 yards, I shot a three-shot group centered and again in every corner of the target, dialing it 4 inches diagonal and back to zero. It put three bullets right where I wanted it to in each of those spots and again in the center afterward. On this 338 Marlin, I was able to dial up for 500 yards and put a bullet on the steel plate. Not bad for a lever gun! It also has a lit reticle that I used last fall, in a low light situation, on a 5x5 whitetail.
The scope was dialed in, and I was resting over my pack. The goat turned broadside, and I took up slack in the trigger when I started sliding off the rock backward. I twisted my head around to get a foothold and froze my finger's progress, but my momentum pressed the trigger for me. The bullet went harmlessly in front of the goat, and he kept walking. Whew. It may have been that the Lord knew there was a larger billy in the brush in front of us. At the shot, the bigger goat got up and walked out towards 300 yards as I crawled back up on the rock and got James to plant his foot where I could stand on it. A quick look and this goat was a shooter, so I dialed back down 50 yards and shot him at 310 yards when he turned and gave me a side view. He bucked and jumped downhill a short distance and gave me another broadside shot. I squeezed off another shot, and his knees buckled. Then he kicked and started to roll. Thankfully, there were no cliffs, and he stopped in less than ten somersaults. Yes, less than ten. Hahaha. We've all seen those videos.
We hiked up a slide and found him hung up on a rock. We congratulated each other and took a bunch of pictures. Then we skinned him for a life-size wall mount and cut all the meat off the bones. We probably had about 150 lbs. of meat, hide, and head to pack out. Jared is a true goat and took off down the trail to camp. He met us back up the trail a mile from camp with an empty pack and offered to take one of our loads of meat and tell us that he bumped into a bear that he and James tried to find on the way back down. As far as we know, the bear evaded us is still on the mountain living a bear's life. It was so good to be back in camp. We roasted the inner loins over the fire, and it tasted great!
The next morning, we led the goat laden horses out and headed home. My kids were excited to hold the goat and see what he looked like up close. They are anxious and keep asking me when we get to cut him up. "Tomorrow, children, tomorrow." Daddy needs to rest for a day. Hahaha.
I've always joked with my father that I get to keep any rifle of his that I shoot a big game animal. He's not relinquished any of these so far. However, when he got my satellite text from the mountain, this is what he replied. "I guess that means the rifle is yours. Yep. Earned it. You are quite the man. I'm always proud of you." Those words are worth more than the goat. Thanks, Dad, Aka: Andy Larsson.