As her husband and her oldest son described their hunt, Kalee Goolsbey’s face turned red. Bill and his 13-year-old son Russell had been hunting for a mountain goat billy for days on the rain- and snow-slickened granite cliffs of the Clarks Fork Canyon when they made a harrowing attempt to get a shot off. 

Just thinking about the hunt still made Kalee nervous.

The parents of six boys devised a plan to keep things moving in the right direction. Bill takes care of the family farm and Kalee takes care of the children.

“We're a pretty good team,” Kalee said. “So, you know, with the big things we help each other out. But for the most part, we stay in our own lane.”

Hunting is the one activity that challenges those lanes. Kalee helped prepare for the hunt, alerting teachers and coaches to absences and packing lunches for the trips. But once her boys leave the house with guns in their hands, all she can do is pray for their safe return.

She knew the roads were closed due to snow and they were hunting in unforgiving territory. She had heard the story of their hunt before, yet simply thinking about her son exposed on the cliffs made her nervous.

Just getting a mountain goat tag was incredibly lucky. Kalee’s father, Lee Craig, has been putting in for a mountain goat tag for 40 years and has never drawn one in the annual Wyoming Game and Fish Department lottery. Russell drew his tag on his second attempt.

“I was thinking about like getting an elk, deer or antelope to start off, and then, when I got older, try to get bigger game,” the young hunter said. “I didn't even know that [my father] had put me in for a mountain goat.”

Bill said he was only putting him in to get points for a future hunt. However, when you draw a once-in-a-lifetime tag, you have to hunt like there’s no tomorrow.

The father and son team, along with help from “grandpa” Craig and “uncle Father Dale” Craig morning of their final hunt Bill and Russell decided to make a play on a small band of goats. To do so they drove a borrowed side-by-side to the bottom of the Morrison Jeep Trail, hiked to the top of the rim and then had to climb down the rim to a flat spot 425 yards from the goat.

Once there they realized the goat was a nanny. Having not been able to get their sights on a billy in several multiple-day efforts, Russell said he would be happy with a nanny. 

The nanny was lying down on a rock spire, but there was a branch between the goat and the hunters. There was an opening about the size of a softball to hit its vitals, so Russell lined up the shot.

Having competed in 4-H shooting events for a few years, Russell was already a competent shooter. In the recent competition, he had scored five trophies out of the seven events in which he competed.

He took the shot with a custom-built 300 Winchester Magnum, loaned to him by a family friend, but missed. The goat stood up and as Bill said shoot again, Russell took a second shot and dropped the goat where it stood.

Now the hard work began. The pair climbed down to the bottom of the canyon, stripped down to their long underwear and boots and crossed the Clarks Fork of the Shoshone River with their clothes and equipment in dry bags. and climbed 500 feet straight up on slick boulders to retrieve the goat.

Once they reached the goat they took some photographs and then field dressed, quartered and packed up the nanny. It was getting dark so Bill did most of the knife work to speed up the process. They still had to climb back to the river, cross it safely and climb back up more than 1,200 feet, this time in the dark of night.

They reached their truck in the early morning hours. Exhausted, they sent a text to Kalee and decided to nap for a few hours before returning home.

The text never reached Kalee, who was awake through the night worrying about grizzly bears and hunting the steep terrain.

“My dad had started calling me at about eight or nine o'clock, asking if I had heard from him,” she said. “There's always a grace period with hunting, but they were alone. If one of them got injured…”

She started to wonder if they had a break down and Bill’s phone was still going straight to voicemail. She wasn’t panicking, but she was definitely worried. Bill never worried about his son’s abilities.

“I figured he’d keep up,” he said.

The successful hunters finally returned home at 5 a.m. Looking back, it’s easy to forget the thoughts that creep into the mind at times of anguish. Now, Kalee simply thinks about the pride she has for her “boys.”

The sheep

Having a child draw a tag for a goat was amazing. However, unthinkably, 11-year-old Rhett had also drawn a bighorn sheep tag. He would turn 12 before the end of the season, qualifying him to apply for the tag at 11. He too has been competing in 4-H shooting events, but he was better at archery than with guns.

One of the reasons Rhett did better at archery was because he had to compete against Russell in the gun categories. In the air rifle competition, Russell won first place by 65 points. Rhett was the runner-up. However, Rhett had won two top trophies in archery and was excited to hunt.

“With their skills that they've acquired through shooting with 4-H I wasn't worried about them harvesting an animal. They are both good shots,” Kalee said.

However, starting your hunting career with a bighorn sheep tag and a borrowed 6.5 Precision Rifle Caliber rifle is daunting. A family friend, who also is an outfitter, offered to take Bill and Rhett on the hunt and offered the gun for the hunt.

Rhett came out to test his accuracy with the gun and hit the bullseye on his first shot. Each successive shot was better than the last.

For eight days the team camped with a team of horses while looking for the right ram. But by the eighth day, they had run out of food and Rhett was expected back at school so they needed to finish the hunt soon.

Luckily, that was the day they saw two great rams. They worked their way to within about 420 yards of the rams on the move. Rhett set up for the shot, squeezed the trigger and dropped his trophy with one shot. After quartering the ram, the hungry hunters decided to eat a portion the last night in camp.

Kalee wasn’t worried about the guided September hunt. She knew they were in good hands with friend T.J. Redder of Ishawooa Outfitters. She also knew her husband and sons had put in the hard work to be successful.

“If you want to be successful, you've got to put in the hard work,” she said. “You can do a mediocre job, but you're going to get mediocre results. That's what we've always told them.”

The family is still doing research, but they think Rhett is the youngest hunter in the state to have taken a ram. Both boys returned to school and their football immediately after their hunts.

The rest of the story

Bill and Kalee have six boys; Russell, Rhett, Rowdee, Rhylee, Rhenn and Ryatt. All of the boys want to learn to shoot and hunt with their father. There will be many great adventures for the boys and probably as many sleepless nights for Kalee as one by one her children come of age.

Incredibly, Bill had put himself and his two sons in for elk tags this year and all three drew the tags. It will be another hunting adventure to remember. Meanwhile, Kalee has a plan.

“I’m going to buy another freezer,” she said.