Thread: First blood and a proper trophy sized Billy

Got invited on to a farm down south Mosgiel way to help cull some goats.
So I prepped and got my 223 sorted with a new scope and some new ammo to try and it seemed to be a great match.
Prepped ready to go.

New scope

Grouping with the new ammo Belmont 223, 50grain (muffed the 3rd shot my phone rang)

So the morning started pretty average with heavy fog but we headed out anyway. After a short drive in the prado we switched into a side by side for some trickier terrain.
Soon enough we were at our site.
No sooner had we been there and got our gear sorted the fog lifted.

Good looking goat country. Cut my teeth goat shooting in the Waikato, miss the lack of goat shooting in Canterbury.

So we dropped down into the gorge till we were about 100 to 150 yards from the face opposite us.
We could hear the goats bleeting up a storm but couldn't see any.
So we sat and waited..... Sure enough we started to see them all different colours, sizes.
After a few reference range checks 2 of us got our rifles loaded and called our targets.
3,2,1 boom 2 shits ring out, 2 goats drop on the spot.
We fired shot after shot and nailed a few more. Little did I realise at this point my first kill was something pretty special. We held our position for about 2 hours and between us we shot around 20 goats from 100 yards out to 270 yards was my best with the 223 bergara. My mate hit one at 370 yards with his 243 webly which was we all thought pretty good shooting.
I learnt that I could get pretty good shot placement with far less zoom than I thought most of my shots were between 3x and 5 X zoom.

One of those moment you wish you had something other than a single shot...

We decided after not seeing any goats for about 30 minutes to climb back up and re assess what we wanted to do for the rest of the day. At that stage we had been invited on a pig hunt and we were tossing up whether to stay and shoot more goats, go on the pig hunt or mission over and retrieve a few goats.
We sat on the top of the hill had a feed and noticed a few goats on the opposite side of the gorge to us and quite high up. My mate set up with his 243 and eager to improve on his 370yards he ranged and took one at 500yards we all cheered then he said hang on I'm gonna hit another and cracked one at in excess of 600 yards.
Some pretty cool shooting for a 243.

Good shooting, got a picture of your billy?

Originally Posted by Mooseman

Good shooting, got a picture of your billy?

It's coming wait for the story

We decided we were too late for a pig hunt and we set about planning recovery of some of the goats.
We dropped about 350 to 400m into the gorge through some pretty intense steep wet and sometimes thick vegetation. Finally we hit the creek bed and had to make our way about 500m or so down stream, crossing the creek several times as we were bluffed out. At this stage I looked up and realised there was no way we could climb back out the way we came in and maybe had 3 or 4 hours tops of daylight. I'm not the fittest fella and I was already hurting but we pushed on and got to the base of the face we had been shooting.
Rest spot

Creek bed

Possum skull ?

The face we were shooting was crazy steep and a little out of my comfort zone being pretty inexperienced we discussed it and agreed I would be better to save my energy for the climb out.
My 2 mates both more experienced shot up the face embarrassingly fast and set to gutting a few goats then tossing them down to me.
At this stage I called out and asked if they got my trophy?
I knew I had shot a Billy but didn't think it was anything special.
Whumpf ! I heard something big come down off the face the guys were grinning, then I saw why.
My Billy was huge on seeing him I guessed about 18" but I was chuffed as he had a good head on him.
He stunk to high heaven so we set him up and got a quick pic before removing his head.

We then packed the goats and set about getting out as daylight was already fading. It was an arduous task and I knew the final push was gonna suck.
The final push was 250m of near vertical tussock, ferns, Spaniard and rock face. I was well out of my comfort zone already knackerd and it was now getting dark very quickly.
We made progress maybe 30 or 40m at a time stopping and resting each time looking for the next goal. I thought it was bad dropping down in the light when I could see how high we were but I was wrong it was far worse in the dark knowing that the drops were there but not really knowing where.
We inched our way up dragging our asses cursing and whinging (mostly me). We reached a rocky outcrop and decided to have a good break and catch our breath for the final push. Once rested we got up and pushed around the outcrop and to my supprise we were at the top. Even though I was spent I let out a whoooooooo !!!!! I was so happy to be out.
What an epic adventure. I'll close with a few more random pics from the day.

The happy ending is that when I got home tonight and measured his horns he was 29" and a proper trophy worthy of the effort to retrieve him

Cheers for the read and pics. It does look a tad steep going into the gully..


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Originally Posted by tiroatedson

Cheers for the read and pics. It does look a tad steep going into the gully..


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It sure was very character testing

Thanks for sharing your mission and pics. That's a good trophy right there!

Hunting goats in that kind of terrain is never boring.