Oregon bird hunting

Every year, the state of Oregon issues 10 tags for Rocky Mountain goats in northeast Oregon. Most of the hunts are so remote and require such an investment in effort that some hunters, having drawn the tag, just stay home.

When Bend’s Jerry Gardner learned his name had been drawn to hunt a mountain goat in the Elkhorns, his first thought was, “Oh my God, what have I done?”

In 1994, when he was 63 years young, he had drawn the once-in-a-lifetime hunt for a bighorn sheep. Now, 17 years later, he had another mountain to climb.

“You get to my age and you lose your balance more easily,” the 80-year-old Gardner said. “I can stumble over a bottle cap now.

“I had three months to get in some kind of condition. I did a lot of walking. To do a hunt like that you should probably go to a gym or get some kind of exercise machine and really work out.”

It also helps to have friends. Jim Mateski, Rod Martino (Gardner’s son-in-law), Dave Jarschke, Troy Boyd, Fred Newton and Jim Michaels took time off from work and their own personal hunts to help.

Base camp was a motel in Baker City. Mateski, Jarschke and Gardner made a scouting trip a month before the season’s September start. The road took them to 7,800 feet above sea level. Two billy goats fed out in front of the scouting party. Gardner began to believe he could do this.

For the hunt, Gardner settled on a Weatherby Vanguard, chambered for 270 Winchester. Martino took on the task of making the rifle mountain-ready.

“The old trigger was like pulling on a box of broken glass,” Martino said.

A new trigger was installed and the old scope was jettisoned in favor of a new Leupold. Martino hand-loaded several boxes of 140-grain Nosler AccuBonds.

A month later, the hunters left Baker City at 4:30 in the morning and started up the mountain.

“That road is probably the worst road I have been on in my life,” Martino said. “It is like climbing up a river washout. We parked at 7,800 feet. The first thing we saw was a goat at about 500 yards out. Everyone broke up into groups. I stayed with Jerry, helping him pack his gear up the mountain.”

It was a clear day, headed for temperatures in the low 70s with 20 to 30 mph gusts at the mountaintop. The goats were in an alpine valley, picking their way around avalanche-killed trees strewn like so many toothpicks on the valley floor.

“You could look over into the Baker Valley. The sections of land looked like little tiny squares. On the rocks above, you could see the goats climbing up and down the sheer cliffs,” Martino said.

Mountain goat horns are scored by taking a measurement of the length of each horn, the circumferences at the bases, and at points along the length of the horn. To qualify for inclusion in the “Record Book for Oregon’s Big Game Animals,” a mountain goat must score a combined 42 inches. In the field, goats are hard to judge and it is even difficult for most people to distinguish between a male and a female at long range.

From what he had learned about mountain goats over the past three months, Gardner judged that he was looking at a good one. The hunters had their eyes on three goats, two males together and a third afar off.

From their vantage point, the hunters watched the goats for more than 7 1/2 hours. Troy Boyd, Mateski, Jarschke and Gardner worked their way down the face of the mountain to a rocky outcrop and then to another 70 yards below.

At one point, one of the goats fed to within 238 yards, but Gardner couldn’t get steady enough to make the shot. He held off and the goats disappeared for a time. Unknown to the hunters, the goats were cooling off on a slab of ice tucked up against the base of the rock wall. It was 5:30 p.m. when they came out into the open again.

Gardner was ready.

It was a downhill shot, 275 yards at a 19-degree angle, according to the rangefinder.

“It bothered me, that 275 yards,” Gardner said. “The wind was blowing bad. I tried the shooting sticks, standing up. Finally the wind subsided a little bit and we got him.”

Later, after the meat had been packed and the hide was in the salt, someone put a tape to the horns. The animal’s horns green-scored 46-5⁄8 inches, enough to qualify for the Oregon Record Book.

In the Oregon Big Game Regulations, in bold print, all capitals, hunters are advised: “ROCKY MT GOATS ARE LOCATED IN EXTREMELY STEEP AND RUGGED TERRAIN AT HIGHER ELEVATIONS AND HUNTERS SHOULD BE IN GOOD PHYSICAL CONDITION.”

“It would be easier for a younger fellow, but I made it okay,” Gardner said.

Any hunter that applies has an equal chance to draw one of 10 tags for a hunt at the top of the world.

Some hunters are more equal to the task than others.