The mountain goat that completed Ron Niziolek’s historic Wyoming Archery Slam fell on a horribly steep slope with only one grassy hump where photos were possible. (Author photo)
February 28, 2026
By Chuck Adams
Woody was perched on the edge of a cliff with bow balanced across his knees and binoculars glued to his eyes. Five hundred yards away, a lone white dot was moving up a vertical face of rock. Only a mountain goat, with its spongy hooves, could maneuver such a place without plunging to certain death.
My friend Ron Niziolek was on a mission. Months before, he had checked the big-game lottery section of the Wyoming Game & Fish Department website. You could have scraped his eyes off with a stick. After 43 years of applying for a coveted Rocky Mountain goat tag, Ron had finally drawn! The odds varied by hunt unit from one in 150 to one in 1,000. That tag was special.
Ron is a well-known and respected bowhunter, and a frequent Bowhunter
High Stakes Ron wanted a mountain goat, but the stakes were higher than just filling his once-in-a-lifetime tag. Five bowhunters, including Ron, had harvested nine of the 10 big-game species inside the borders of Wyoming. Nobody had taken the magic 10. Ron had elk, pronghorn, black bear, bighorn sheep, Shiras moose, mule deer, whitetail deer, bison and mountain lion. His mountain goat tag was the ticket to making Cowboy State history with the first Wyoming Archery Slam.
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Not many folks know this, but I have Ron’s permission to tell you. My friend never, ever complains, but two auto wrecks (neither his fault) have caused permanent spinal and nerve damage, even after multiple surgeries. Every step for him is painful. On top of that, he has progressive rheumatoid arthritis. At times, Ron cannot even draw his bow. Despite periodic infusions and modern meds, my pal has no idea how much longer he will be able to archery hunt. But Sam is right; woodpecker lips are wimpy compared to Ron. He keeps on hiking, shooting, backpacking and lugging out meat because bowhunting is what he loves.
Woody started scouting Wyoming’s Beartooth Mountains in June. This is one of the steepest and most dangerous chunks of real estate in the West — a perfect place for mountain goats. Animals move around a lot, are not abundant, and invariably cling to the roughest, near-vertical places they can find. Grizzly bears and wolves push goats into these horrible but relatively safe locations. Safe, that is, for the goats.
Ron and a few good friends snooped throughout the summer for billy goats. Wyoming is not known for the kind of giants found in some other parts of North America but produces a few good ones. By the archery season opener in mid August, Ron had covered some 50 miles on foot, had found a few goats and had a game plan in mind.
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His main target was “Lucky,” a goat he named after the rascal kept slipping away into impossible terrain. That billy would easily make the Pope and Young minimum score of 40, with horns more than 9 inches long and decent mass. But Lucky liked sheer cliffs as much as the next goat. As Ron watched that billy scale impossible terrain cross-canyon for the umpteenth time, he wondered if Lucky would ever go where Ron could follow.
A Dilemma Days slipped by and August was coming to a close. Ron’s number one passion is bowhunting elk, and the September archery elk season was drawing near. The brutal Beartooths were taking their physical toll, and Ron was concerned his friends might take time away from their own hunts to keep helping him locate goats. That’s the kind of guy he is. Dreams of bugling elk also kept waking him up at night. It was a dilemma.
In late August, Ron and his friend Randy Giesey spotted Lucky along a stairstep slope of vertical bluffs and steep shale slides. Randy settled down cross-canyon while Ron circled the skittish goat. With hand signals, Randy directed Ron to a perch directly above Lucky. But sheer rock made the billy impossible to see, let alone approach. Ron waited patiently, but this was not his first rodeo with the animal. The odds of a shot — even a steep and long one — were slim. Rocks rattled above Ron, and something white flashed between boulders high above. Ron backed away from the edge of the cliff so he could turn and look.
Seconds later, a goat tiptoed down the slope through a jumble of rocks. Ron froze, and the goat kept coming. It was a young adult billy, and no candidate for the record book. But when the critter stopped only four yards away, Ron made his decision. With ALL his sight pins on the goat’s chest cavity, it was time to pull the release trigger and go elk hunting.
Woody chuckles when he talks about that point-blank shot and the ordeal that followed.
“I call my goat Chopsticks,” he told me. “The horns aren’t that big, so the name really fits. I did not shoot Lucky, but I sure had fun trying. When Chopsticks decided to stalk ME, it was time to fill my tag!”
Woody’s goat staggered 30 yards and dropped inches from a sheer bluff. Ron crawled to the animal, jammed his toes in the rocks, and shoved the billy, inch by inch, away from the drop-off.
“At that point,” Ron told me, “I was darn glad that goat wasn’t heavier. It was a dicey situation.”
Ron photographed his prize on the only semi-level hump nearby, then slowly butchered the carcass. His pal Randy was hit with vertigo in the scary terrain and could not safely help scoot the meat to the top. It was too steep to stand up. So, Mr. Woodpecker Lips did it himself, crawling uphill to the top and dragging goat quarters behind.
On that fateful day, Ron Niziolek made Wyoming history. And days later in September, after more miles of hiking, he shot his 35th bull elk with a bow — a gorgeous 352-inch 6x7. How could you have a better summer than that?
