It’s time for our annual Colorado mountain goat unit recommendations! If you are looking for bighorn sheep unit info checkout our 2020 bighorn sheep guide, because this article is all about the big white fluff balls only. All the goat units that I’m familiar with and have guided in over the past couple years are summarized below. If you don’t see a unit discussed, it’s because there are no goats in that unit… haha.. gotcha… actually it’s because I don’t have any valuable insight for that particular area. You can apply online starting March 1st on the CPW’s website. If you are interested in booking a mountain goat hunt with us, visit our sheep/goat hunt page.
G2
Historically, my favorite unit to guide in. Lots of variety in terms of access. West of Buena Vista, this unit is south of the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness. The hunting here is usually long glassing sessions from 4×4 accessible points followed by long stalks of varying difficulty. The area is high elevation and goats of any size are usually found in the basins you have to work to get into. Not a high density of goats, but some good ones off the beaten path. The area is full of stunning terrain.
Type – High altitude, rolling alpine with some rougher rim rock country at lower elevations.
Quality – 8” to 9” Billies
Success Rate – Great area to hunt goats. Not known for older age class billies. Hunt can be highly physical or moderate. It all depends where the goats are. My personal guiding here has been 100% harvest.
Draw – Good value historically and in 2020 it should be a slightly better draw for residents given they added one more tag. In 2018, the tag became harder to draw because tags were reduced from 6 to 4. Now we are back at 5. The hunting experience here is great, but you pay for that in the draw vs units like G12 and G3 which are typically 3-4x times easier to draw. There are some good honey holes in this unit that will hold nice goats.
G3 (now includes the area historically G13)
This is the most notable change to goat units in 2020. The fantastic G13 has been diluted by the troubled G3 unit… or you can look at it as the shitty G3 unit got upgraded by being added to G13.
Just North of G2, this new and improved G3 has a mix of wilderness and road access. The better access is on the historical G13 side and so are the majority of the goats. I’d speculate that most of the goats harvested in 2020 will be harvested in the old G13 boundaries. This hunt is now on par with G2, but the tag numbers can create some competition. Competition will slightly uptick in 2020 given the combination of the two units was really just a convenient way of adding tags to the historical G13 unit.
You need to scout this unit or you can waste a lot of time in old pockets that no longer hold billies.
Season is split. The terrain here is a little more forgiving than G6 or G12, so I worry slightly less about snow hindering a later season hunt. Great hides the first week of the 2nd hunt.
Location – North of G2, South of Independence Pass
Type – High altitude, rolling alpine with some rougher rim rock country at lower elevations.
Quality – 8” to 9.5” Billies
Success Rate – Varies a lot on hunter’s mental and physical toughness. My personal guiding here has been 100% harvest.
Draw – This one is a bit of a wildcard. My best guess is that you can take the historical draw odds of drawing G13 and this year drawing G3 is going to be slightly more difficult than that. G13 has averaged harder to draw than G12. It has lower goat density than G12, but a much better hunting experience. Easier to draw than G2, but you are going to have to work harder in G3.
G6
This unit has a big bump up in tags from previous years. 7 added tags here for 2020. Given the potential for great draw odds, this is my top pick for our clients in 2020. The Gore Range is serious business and this is a challenging unit. There are nice goats in the unit, but most of them are only accessible via a backpack style hunt. The use of horses is limited due to the terrain. We have found goats in several pockets that don’t have any history of goat harvests.
Location – Gore Range, North Side of Hwy 70
Type – Wilderness Hunt (Eagle Nest Wilderness), rough country
Quality – 8” and 9” Billies
Success Rate – Wilderness sharply gives the benefit to those with scouting time and those that know the country. Do not apply for this tag is you are not going to be decent shape and ready for a backpack style hunt. We can help greatly, but it is close to impossible to harvest a nice billy here if you aren’t open to sleeping up high. Our guided success rate here is 100% on trophy billies.
Draw – For the average hunter this hunt has been marginally overvalued in the draw but with the new tags I’m expecting it to be a good draw this year.
G12
This unit has gone through the biggest changes of any of the units over the past four years. The CPW has taken the tact to drastically reduce the goat population. So far, there has been a steady decline in population (despite what CPW counts claim) and a drastic increase in the difficulty of the hunt. Goats are getting pushed further into the gnarliest of terrain in the Bells, which might be the most rugged in the Western States. There are a few things you should know before applying here: 1) The non-hunting activity is intense. This can lead to many awkward discussions on the trail and, I personally feel, it takes away from the experience of the hunt. 2) The terrain here is rugged. Just because you can glass-up goats from a parking lot, does not mean you are going to be able to ethically harvest them. 3) The hunting pressure is nuts. The nature of goat hunting can really concentrate hunters. When you are talking close to 30 tags in the unit at a time, hunting can become a competitive sport.
The best experience and chance at a big billy, in 2020 and beyond, is going to involve a backpack-style hunt. I have guided many hunts here with 100% success on mature billies.
Location – Maroon Bells Wilderness and Surrounding Area
Type – Historical harvest is concentrated but goats are spread throughout the area and available outside of the heavily trafficked areas. Since 2016, tag numbers have been drastically increased. This has created difficult hunts for later dates. Goats are not too savvy, but they do move to rough country after sustained pressure. This country can kill you and has killed hunters in recent history. A physical hunt. Getting the good billies takes scouting and game planning.
Quality – Lots of opportunity for hunters ready for the terrain, hold out for an 8”+ Billy.
Success Rate – If you can get up in the rugged terrain, you can kill a mid-size goat. Scout and hunt hard to find the best goat.
Draw – For hunters just wanting to check-off a goat hunt and are in decent shape, this hunt is one of your best draws. For hunters wanting the pristine, no-one-in-sight goat hunt they have been dreaming about since they were 12 years-old, this hunt is only an OK draw. Because of intense hunting pressure, billies are much easier to harvest during the first season but do not have near the hide they will in the second season. Once I factor in the potential for snow on the rugged goat habitat during 2nd season, I lean a bit towards the first season. Lots of terrain here is un-doable once it has a slick of snow on it.
