The first pic is of sheep camp in the purples range of the Mackenzie Mountains looking across the Mountain river over into Stan Stevens country. The second pick is of my sheep and my guide, Peter Oxtoby (on the right). The third pic is another of the ram and me. The next is of my caribou. He was an old man wiht three nubs for front teeth, they did not think he would have made the winter. Lots of length really helped his score, 57"+ main beams and 25" bezs. We had a hard time getting good carbou pics becasue we had a grizzly lurking around and I was not wanting to look at the camera. We finally got some of the meat and cape and horns and left out for a few hours, luckily he fed on the carcass and did not bother our other meat and we were able to retieve it the next day and all turned out well for us and the grizz. The bou was shot at 363 yards and I made a good shot on the first shot hitting him low thru the heart, then showed what I was truly capable of missing him 5 times as he refused to go down finally hitting him one more time through the chest and he gave it up. He was a big bodied old boy and Peter and I could not drag him, as we tried to move him for a better position for pictures. I would like to go back and get a hard horned bull some day, I really enjoyed the caribou hunting, kind of like hunting antelope, lots of glassing and usually lots of animals to look at.
We killed the ram on day four and it was quite a day. I think we saw 9 or 10 legal rams on that day. We made a stalk on a ram that reminded us of Roger's ram, I will not say he was as big as Roger's because Roger's is truely a giant, but he flipped out like Roger's and looked really good. Any ways we got smelled and they busted out over the top. We had found three rams that morning early and were going to make a stalk on them when we found the wide flaring ram and decided to try him first. We worked our way back to the basin were we had left the rams that morning. We were working our way along and spotted the rams coming back up on a bench to feed. We set up for a 389 yard shot, but one of the rams got behind a rock before Peter could judge him and see how old he was. We agreed to go over and try and get closer as we were not sure they would come back our way. The next two hours were intense as we were close and just could not find the rams on the bench and we went this way and that trying to find them. Peter kept telling me 85% of the time they are still there and not to give up. He finally got a glimpse of one of them and confirmed they were still there. We put on our whites and decided we would slip right down on them and hope we could make a call when they busted us. We eased down the mountain a step at a time and finally saw horns at less than 25 yards, I quickly sat down and told Peter to call them ram out when they came out, they busted out from below us and Pete called for me to shoot the ram on the right, I hit him on the run at about 30 yards and again as he slowed from the effects of the first shot, anchoring him. We sat and enjoyed the moment and let the other 7 year old full curl ram slowly move off. What a thrill, it really is like nothing else. The ram was aged at 11.5 years old and is 36.25" on one side and slightly shorter and broomed on the other. It was 10:30 P.M. before we headed for camp and midnight before we got there, sleep was still hard to come by as it took a little time to wind down.
It took years of saving pennies to get here and I swear you are in the tent that night trying to figure out how you can get back and do it one more time and it seemed everyone in camp felt the same. I had the priviledge of being in camp with a father son from North Dakota, the son was in a wheel chair. I will not tell the story because it is his to tell. I will say it was a special place in time and it was an honor to get to know them and a pleasure to share camp with them, truely an insperation.
Thanks for listening and I apologize for being so long winded.
