Broken Compass
WKR
So I have been trying to help my friend with his mt.goat hunt, we have been scouting every weekend for the last month and a half. While we have been seeing a lot of goats it seems the more I see the more unsure I become of what I'm looking at as far as age and sex. I have done the Alaska and Colorado quiz things and I feel pretty good about my abilities to distinguish a billy from a nanny.....until I get on the mountain and start looking at them. I have read about differences in size and shape of horns, the way they pee differently, the hump a mature billy should have, the stain, etc.etc.
Our first scouting trip we seen two large groups, a group of like 22 that we were within 400 yards of and another group of about 28 that was too far to really analize horns. In the first group I didn't recognize any as being a mature billy, in the second group one of the goats seemed to have a considerably larger body than the others but like I said we were too far away to tell what the horns looked like.
I guess I am looking for any information that will help me single out a big billy.
What surprised me about this first trip is that I was expecting to find big billies by their selves or with a few other billies, not in large groups.
On our last trip we seen many groups of two, three which turned out to be nanny w/ kid, a group of five which appeared to be a nanny a kid and 3 young billies. In these groups the kid was eating from the nanny which is the only reason I know they were nannys. we did spot one solo goat bedded we watched it until it stood and when it did it stretched out like a billy supposedly pees, but we couldn't tell if it was actually peeing or just stretching. It did also appear to have more massive horns than everything else we have been seeing. I am 97% sure this was a mature billy.
So out of approximately 120 goats that I have looked at this summer, only one I am truly confident in calling a mature billy. Does this sound about right? Granted not all were close enough to really tell but I thought it would be easier to really distinguish.
Should I be ignoring groups of 15+ goats, and looking for singles and small groups? Thanks for any help.
Our first scouting trip we seen two large groups, a group of like 22 that we were within 400 yards of and another group of about 28 that was too far to really analize horns. In the first group I didn't recognize any as being a mature billy, in the second group one of the goats seemed to have a considerably larger body than the others but like I said we were too far away to tell what the horns looked like.
I guess I am looking for any information that will help me single out a big billy.
What surprised me about this first trip is that I was expecting to find big billies by their selves or with a few other billies, not in large groups.
On our last trip we seen many groups of two, three which turned out to be nanny w/ kid, a group of five which appeared to be a nanny a kid and 3 young billies. In these groups the kid was eating from the nanny which is the only reason I know they were nannys. we did spot one solo goat bedded we watched it until it stood and when it did it stretched out like a billy supposedly pees, but we couldn't tell if it was actually peeing or just stretching. It did also appear to have more massive horns than everything else we have been seeing. I am 97% sure this was a mature billy.
So out of approximately 120 goats that I have looked at this summer, only one I am truly confident in calling a mature billy. Does this sound about right? Granted not all were close enough to really tell but I thought it would be easier to really distinguish.
Should I be ignoring groups of 15+ goats, and looking for singles and small groups? Thanks for any help.