When Ron Niziolek drew a mountain goat tag in 2025 he couldn’t believe his luck.

“I was 100% surprised,” he said. “It was something I’ve always dreamed about.”

The tag meant more than just a once-in-a-lifetime hunt though, it was a chance to become the first to complete the Wyoming Archery Slam, harvesting 10 big-game species with a bow.

Niziolek began his hunt in mid-August hoping to find a goat he’d nicknamed Lucky after it kept slipping away and was impossible to follow. He had a chance at the animal on day five, but a difficult angled shot allowed the goat to escape again. The goat returned four days later.  

“This country is just super steep and vertical,” Niziolek said. “I climbed down the cliffs close to him, and was just waiting for an opportunity, but I couldn't see because he was under a cliff directly below me.”

While he was waiting, a younger male goat came down from above, stopping about 4 yards away. Niziolek put down his bow and started videoing the animal with his phone. 

“All these thoughts started going through my mind as far as how much longer I could do this feeling the way I did, and how I was keeping my buddies from their own hunts,” he said. “So in the span of 30 seconds or so, with all this going through my mind, I decided to go ahead and try to shoot this goat. I put down my phone, picked up my bow and I shot him at about 5 yards.”

In the end, Niziolek had his mountain goat, making history in the process.

“When I made it back up to the top, I just hit my knees,” he said. “It was an emotional feeling, and relief that I was able to get one. Relief that my health lasted long enough for me to do it, and also relief that I didn't die in the process.

“It’s special to get there,” he added of the archery slam. “I never thought I would, but it mainly boils down to luck and drawing a tag.”

Picking up a bow

Niziolek grew up in the suburbs of Connecticut. None of his family or friends hunted, but early on, he remembers being fascinated by his dad’s Field and Stream magazines. On trips to the barber shop, he liked to check out Outdoor Life magazine. Later his family started getting National Geographic magazines as well, which made his fascination with wildlife grow. 

But it was watching Fred Bear and his bowhunting pursuits on television that really hooked him.

“At age 14, with money saved from mowing lawns, I went to the local hardware store and bought myself a 50-pound Browning Cobra bow and six fiberglass arrows,” he said. “I did this myself, with no parental guidance or permission.”

Niziolek “borrowed” a couple of their horses’ hay bales, and put up a cardboard silhouette of a deer that his mom helped draw and cut out. He sent many arrows through that target, eventually graduating to live small game in the woods. 

His family moved to Wyoming in 1982 when he was 18 and Niziolek met his future wife later that summer.

“Her brother had just gotten into bow hunting, so we just started going together and learning,” he said. “I took my first deer with a bow in 1983.”

It took four more years before Niziolek got his first elk and he progressed from there. He began hunting other animals as a way to expand the season and spend more time outdoors. He added pronghorn, then black bear and mountain lion. But it wasn’t until he received his first Wyoming Award that he began thinking about possibly completing the Wyoming Archery Slam.

The Wyoming Award recognizes Bowhunters of Wyoming members dedicated to hunting with a bow and arrow. It is given in four categories to members who have taken all or the majority of big game species in Wyoming with a bow. 

If someone has all six of the “baseline” species (mule deer, whitetail deer, pronghorn, elk, black bear and mountain lion) and any one of the “second tier” species (Shiras’ moose, bighorn sheep, Rocky Mountain goat and bison), they qualify for the Wyoming 7 Award. Baseline plus any two second tier species qualifies for the Wyoming 8 Award, and so forth.

“I basically got lucky and expanded into hunting these other animals when I had the chance,” he said. “There was never a big desire for me to shoot all 10, it was just as opportunities arose and I started drawing tags it became a reality.”

Enjoying the difficulty

In the early years, Niziolek hunted with both a bow and a rifle, but 1993 was the last year he shot an animal with a gun. After hunting for a bighorn sheep for 27 days with a bow, the season was winding down.

“There was no guarantee that I would ever draw another sheep tag because there were no points for animals back then,” he said. “So I borrowed a rifle from a friend because I didn't own one, and I took my bow. I was up the South Fork, and I spotted a ram way up on Ishawooa Mesa, made sure he was legal and then I had the decision to make — do I take my gun or do I take my bow because I couldn’t carry both.”

He chose the rifle, and ended up shooting the sheep at 30 yards. It would have been the best bow opportunity he had that year if he’d chosen the bow.

“So that was it for me,” he said. “From then on, it was bow only.”

He said the difficulty of bowhunting and the skill it takes to get close enough to the animals for a shot is what he enjoys most about it. 

“When you are bowhunting, you learn so much more about the animals because you are close to them,” he said. “I like the challenge, with elk specifically.”

His time in the woods and mountains are also where he goes to find peace. 

“I've had several really good friends and hunting partners through the years, and getting to share that with them, it's hard to put into words just how much it means to me,” he added.

It took Niziolek 11 years to draw his first moose tag in the late 1990s, 17 years to draw his first bighorn sheep tag, with his second sheep tag and moose tags coming 22 years after the first two.

His moose were harvested south of Jackson in the Hoback River area and by Pinedale near the Green River Lakes. Both hunts took some time. The first tag he couldn’t find a bull moose for several days and actually shot the first one he found.

“He was crossing the mountainside, and we had to run down the mountain we were on, cross the river and climb up the other side, about 1,000 vertical feet,” he said. “I snuck in and I made a good shot on him, but then he kind of flipped over backwards, and tumbled down the mountain. We couldn't see it, but we could hear it for a long time. Just him flipping down the mountain, and a big dust cloud came up.”

When they went over to where the moose was standing before it fell and looked down they couldn't see the animal anywhere, so they made the long trek down and finally found him right near the bottom, almost 1,000 vertical feet.

They put the moose in the river to cool off, hiked out and the next day came in with some horses and packed it out.

Closing in on 10

Niziolek shot a bison in 2014. During the hunt down by Jackson, he crept up on one and thought he’d made a good shot, but it ended up being a little low. So he and his friends tracked the animal and found him standing in wide-open country. 

“I had to circle around and drop down close to them with a little ridge in between us, and it's just open grass and sagebrush country,” he said. “And it was in the rut, so they're angry anyway and very aggressive.”

About a half hour later, when Niziolek was moving in again, the bison saw him and his tail went up.

“I just thought, ‘I'm dead,’” he said. “But I ended up getting him without getting charged, which was good because there was nowhere to go.”

 The following year he shot his ninth animal, a bighorn sheep. While the mountain goat hunt was the most dangerous, he said the bighorn sheep hunt was more difficult, mainly due to the amount of miles across varied terrain. It took about 19 days of searching before he harvested a sheep.

“When I drew my sheep tag that's where it became a reality that I may eventually get all 10, but with bison and mountain goat, those are just a random draw,” he said. “You don't build points for those, so there's no guarantee you'll ever draw those in your lifetime.”

Niziolek was the first to shoot nine species with a bow in the state in 2015 but since then, four other hunters have also accomplished the feat. 

“So for several years, we've all been trying our luck at drawing that 10th species,” he said. “I think four of us needed a mountain goat tag, and one of us needed a bison. So I just got lucky and drew the tag. There's no doubt in my mind that any of these bowhunters with nine could have gotten the 10th species had they drawn the tag. There's a lot of great bowhunters out there.”

Drawing the magic tag

Niziolek had been putting in for a mountain goat tag for more than 40 years when he drew one in 2025. 

“I never, never even dreamed that I would draw because the odds are so horrible,” he said.  

While there were a few other places he could have gone, Niziolek wanted to stick to the high country.

“I love the alpine,” he said. “That just appealed to me, getting one up above the timberline, and I was happy it worked out that way.”

The hunt in the Beartooths wasn’t easy, as Niziolek has several health issues following two major car accidents. 

“I’ve had 20 some-odd surgeries, and I just struggled,” he said of the hunt. “I had issues with my feet, a bum knee, a bum back and it was just difficult.”

After he decided to take the smaller goat, it went down 15 yards from him. It was a difficult spot to access, so Niziolek climbed back up to reach his friend. When they started to drop back down together to where his goat was, his friend began to suffer vertigo and couldn’t make the trek. So Niziolek went back down himself, took a few photographs of the mountain goat and then began to process it. He had to take handfuls at a time up to his friend until he was finally finished.

“I couldn't even do the photographs with a timer because I couldn't move fast enough,” he said. “I thought I was gonna die over the edge, so I ended up having to set it to take a video and then pull some still pictures off the video when it was all said and done.” 

Niziolek nicknamed the goat Chopsticks because his horns weren’t that big.

“I was super glad that I was able to get one, and just to experience it,” he said. “I spent a lot of time up there last summer looking around. I just enjoyed the whole process.”

During last spring’s Bowhunters of Wyoming banquet in Sheridan. Niziolek received a plaque for taking all 10 animals. There was also a slideshow and brief presentation.

“They made a bigger deal out of it than I thought was going to happen,” he said. “The guy doing the presentation I've known since he was 10 years old and he got choked up presenting the award because he said I’m someone he looks up to. Many of the people in Bowhunters of Wyoming have also been an inspiration to me as well, and I look up to many of those people.”

This year Niziolek is going back up to where he got his mountain goat, this time helping a buddy who drew the tag. Then he has a trip to Alaska with another friend, where both drew moose tags. At the end of September he hopes to harvest one more elk before he has to have two back surgeries in early October.

“I put them off until the beginning of October, so I could hopefully have one more September to hunt,” he said. “I've done that several years with some of my surgeries, just put them off until after hunting season. But the way I feel now and these pending surgeries, this may be actually my last year bow hunting. I don't know for sure yet, but if getting my mountain goat is the way I finished up my bow hunting career, then that's a pretty good way to go out.”