It usually takes decades for hunters to draw even one or the other of Wyoming’s most-coveted hunting tags for bighorn sheep or Rocky Mountain goat — if they’re lucky.
To draw either one of them on the first try is almost unheard of.
For a kid to draw either one on the first try sounds downright impossible. For two members of the same household to draw those tags in the same year — one his first try and the other his second — sounds like a fairy tale.
And for two kids in the same household to draw those tags in the same year? Well, that’s getting into the realm of purple unicorns are real, too.
But that’s what happened in the household of Bill and Kalee Gollsbey, Powell-area farmers with six sons.
Last year the eldest son, Russell, drew a mountain goat tag, and the second-eldest, Rhett, drew a bighorn sheep tag.
That fall, at the respective ages of 13 and 12, they went with their dad into some of the most remote and rugged reaches of northwest Wyoming on separate hunts. They each got their much-coveted animals.
‘Could Have Knocked Me Over With A Feather’
Bill told Cowboy State Daily what it was like to get the news through two phone calls from Kalee, while he was out doing strenuous irrigation work.
“I was hot, tired and sweaty,” he said, and not keen on taking phone calls as he tried to finish the arduous task.
During the first call, Kalee was brief and to the point.
“She told me, ‘Rhett drew a bighorn sheep tag,’” and Bill could hardly believe it.
With his heart soaring with excitement for his son, Bill got back to work.
His phone rang again a few minutes later, and he answered thinking “now what?”
Again, Kalee was right to the point: “Russell drew a mountain goat tag.”
His disbelief turned into utter astonishment.
After all, Kalee’s father and Russell’s granddad, Lee Craig, had been putting in for mountain goat tags for 40 years and never drawn one.
Now Rhett had one on his first draw and Russell on his second.
“When I heard that Russell had drawn a goat tag too, you could have pushed me over with a feather,” Bill said.
Then his mind went into overdrive. Mountain goat and bighorn sheep hunts are no easy undertaking. They typically take days on end of searching during exhausting hikes or horseback rides in the high country.
Pulling off even just one of those hunts would be a huge challenge, but doing both in the same fall? That seemed almost as impossible as the odds of having drawn both the tags.
“I knew these were once-in-a-lifetime hunts for my sons, and there was no way I could pass on either one,” Bill said. “But my immediate thought was, ‘How are we going to get all of this done?”
At just 12 years old, Rhett Goolsbey did what many seasoned hunters only dream of, shooting a bighorn ram in northwest Wyoming’s backcountry. (Courtesy Kalee and Bill Goolsbey) 
Rhett Goolsbey of Powell drew a highly-coveted bighorn sheep tag. He and his dad, Bill, hunted in some of northwest Wyoming’s most remote and rugged terrain. (Courtesy Kalee and Bill Goolsbey) 
Rhett Goolsbey of Powell drew a highly-coveted bighorn sheep tag. He and his dad, Bill, hunted in some of northwest Wyoming’s most remote and rugged terrain. (Courtesy Kalee and Bill Goolsbey) 
Rhett Goolsbey of Powell drew a highly-coveted bighorn sheep tag. He and his dad, Bill, hunted in some of northwest Wyoming’s most remote and rugged terrain. (Courtesy Kalee and Bill Goolsbey)
Bighorn Ram Quest
Luckily, T.J. Redder, owner of Ishawooa Outfitters, is a family friend. He agreed to guide the first hunt for Rhett’s bighorn ram.
Rhett said he was just as amazed as his father was when he found out that he’d drawn the tag.
“I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t think I was old enough,” he said.
Bill had wondered about that himself before even putting in for the tag that spring, because 12 is the required age to hunt big game or trophy game in Wyoming, and Rhett was only 11.
But he would turn 12 before the hunting season, and thus qualified.
Rhett said he was so excited that he “started calling my grandparents and aunts and uncles everywhere.”
To get to their hunt area, they drove all the way up the South Fork west of Cody, then mounted horses and rode deeper into the wild for a full day.
And that was just to get to base camp. They’d be hunting even farther back in, right on the cusp of the Thorofare, widely regarded as the most remote area in the Lower 48.
They had eight days to hunt, and early on it rained, so they had to stay in base camp. Trying to navigate the steep country that bighorn sheep call home while the ground was wet and the rocks were slick would be too dangerous.
Redder showed Rhett how to make a makeshift bow and arrows, and Rhett passed the time trying to shoot ground squirrels.
After the rain lifted, they started searching far and wide.
They spotted some rams way off in the distance late on the fifth day, but those bighorns were gone by the time they returned the next morning.
So they kept looking, and found another group of rams.
To get close enough to put in a stalk, perhaps get a shot, they had to push things to the limit.
“We came down a slope in some pretty gnarly stuff that I doubt anybody had ever been on,” Bill said. “Once we were down it, there was no going back up.”
They inched closer and closer, until it was time for Rhett and Redder to push ahead for the final stalk.
Rhett settled his rifle on a rock outcropping and killed his ram with one shot from 417 yards.
By the time they got the ram quartered and ready for transport, it was getting too dark to go all the way back to base camp. So, they slept on the ground that night.
“We slept on our saddle blankets, underneath our rain slickers,” Bill said. “We woke up the next day, ate some chunks of bighorn sheep steak and rode all day to get back to base camp.”
After a day of rest, then the long ride back out to the South Fork Road, the hunt was complete.
“That was Rhett’s first game animal ever,” Bill said. “Some hunters go their whole lives without getting a bighorn, but that’s how he started his hunting career.”
Rhett was forlorn that the adventure was over.
“I was not excited to go back to school,” he said.
At just 13 years old, Russell Goolsbey of Powell did what many seasoned hunters only dream of, shooting a mountain goat in northwest Wyoming’s backcountry. (Courtesy Kalee and Bill Goolsbey) 
: Russell Goolsbey of Powell drew a nearly impossible-to-get mountain goat tag. He and his dad, Bill, hunted in the steep, unforgiving Clarks Fork Canyon in northwest Wyoming. (Courtesy Kalee and Bill Goolsbey)
Mountain Goat Quest
While the bighorn sheep hunt had been guided, the mountain goat hunt would be “DIY,” Bill said. He and Russell would go it alone.
The place to go for mountain goats was up the Clarks Fork Canyon in country that was even steeper than the bighorn sheep habitat.
It was too rugged for horses, so they’d have hunt on foot.
“The sheep hunt had mostly been a lot of riding. The goat hunt was a lot of hiking,” Bill said.
Bill and Russell started going up whenever they had spare time. They’d drive a side-by-side as far up the canyon as the road would allow, and then hike from there.
“It took six or seven trips, two or three days at a time,” Bill said. “Twice, we had to turn back around because of early snows.”
Finding a mountain goat proved to be even tougher that finding bighorn sheep had been, but a day of success finally came.
They left Powell at 4 a.m. and hunted most of the day.
It was starting to look like the day would be another bust, but “we finally glassed up a goat” (saw it through a spotting scope) that afternoon.
After stalking to within 426 yards of the mountain goat, Russell had a target area “just about the size of a softball,” Bill said.
His first shot missed. Bill saw where the bullet impacted, and told his son to adjust his aim accordingly.
The second shot “killed the goat where he stood,” Bill said, adding, “then the real fun began.”
The goat was across the canyon, on the other side of the river.
So they had to hike down to the river, “strip down to just our long johns” and wade across in water that was about chest-deep to Russell, Bill said.
Then they had to climb up to the goat, break the carcass down for packing and repeat the process of hiking down to the river, stripping down and wading back across.
Now it was just a matter of hiking — and hiking and hiking. As it got dark, they turned on their headlamps and kept going.
Russell said he staved off complete exhaustion by thinking of a line from one of his favorite movies, “Finding Nemo,” an animated feature about a fish’s quest for his lost son.
“In ‘Finding Nemo,’ it was, ‘keep on swimming, keep on swimming.’ So I turned that into, ‘keep on walking, keep on walking,’” he said.
It was midnight before they made it to their side-by-side and 1 a.m. by the time they made it to where Bill had parked the pickup and trailer.
They didn’t get home until 5 a.m.
Kalee said that was rough night for her, because her husband and eldest son were out of cell service until the wee hours of the morning and couldn’t call to tell her that they were OK.
“They were way back up there where it’s steep, the rocks are slick and there are lots of grizzly bears. I was nervous,” she said.
Sheep Meat Is Great — Goat, Not So Much
The family’s hunting adventures have just begun, Bill said. He, Russell and Rhett all drew elk tags in an area not far from where Rhett shot his bighorn ram.
Meanwhile, they’ve enjoyed the bounty from last year’s epic double tag draw.
Well, at least the meat from the bighorn sheep, Bill said.
“I think it’s the best big game meat I’ve ever had, and I’ve had all sorts of big game,” he said.
“The meat from the goat? Not so much,” he added. “The tenderloin, I could choke down if I needed to.”
Kalee said they made the goat meat palatable by mixing it with other big game and game bird meat to make sausages.
Russell disagreed with his parents about the quality of the steaks from his mountain goat.
“I tried some of it,” he said. “I didn’t think it was that bad. I kind of liked it.”
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
