Thanks BIGJOHN,
This tag was an unexpected draw for me, as my dad has put in for 21 years and still not drawn, and I somehow got lucky enough to draw with 13.
Before this hunt I had next to no knowledge/experience with bighorn sheep, so I had a lot of work ahead of me once I learned that I drew. My first step was to study the maps of the unit. I quickly learned that access was an interesting challenge because the mountain range that the sheep lived in was predominantly surrounded by private land with only a few windows of public to access the mountain range.
After 4 weekend trips to the unit, I still had not seen any sheep and I was feeling a little worried. On my 5th trip, I finally spotted a group of ewes and young rams. That's when it dawned on me.. I had no idea what I was actually looking for in a big ram. That spurred a whole separate research project of learning how to differentiate a small ram from a nice ram, and a nice ram from a big ram.
Anyways, after what felt like several years of research and anticipation for the hunt, opening day finally rolled around. I spent my first day driving/hiking around to the numerous vantage points that I had found in my weekend scouting trips. I was pleasantly surprised to actually find quite a few sheep that morning. It was tough because they were about a mile or two away and I was using big glass to look at them, so that combined with my limited experience made it tough to tell what I was looking at. After the first day, I realized that the only way to know for sure was to bite the bullet and go in after them to get a closer look.
Easier said than done... The mountain range that they were hanging out on was extremely steep and rocky. Accessing the areas I was seeing the sheep was the toughest part of the hunt. There were only a few ridges that led all the way up to the main ridge, and even those were extremely steep and hard to get on top of. During my first three days, I hiked up three different ridges to get closer looks at different small groups of rams. On the first and second day, even after hiking up the ridges I was still over 1,000 yards from the sheep that I wanted to get a closer look at. I was seeing other rams around the area but they were definitely not quite the caliber of ram I was hoping for.
On the third day, I decided to try a new ridge that looked like it would get me closer to the sheep. The only catch was that it was even more rugged and steep than the hills I had climbed in the days before, and it also was a few miles longer of a hike. I started early and ended up having to just sit at the base of a cliff until daylight so that I didn't get myself killed by falling off a ledge. It was a grueling hike. About every 20 vertical feet or so I had to take my backpack off to toss it up on the next ledge, then walk around to find the easiest place to pull myself up.
But the plan worked, and by around noon I found myself 500 yards from what I thought to be a shooter. He had a big beautiful curl and seemed to have great mass, but I didn't have my spotting scope with me because I tried to hike in with minimal weight. The only problem was the ram was hanging out in the middle of a sheer hillside that was so steep it looked nearly vertical, and at the base of the hill there was a cliff that looked about 50 feet high. I was afraid that if I shot him where he was, he would roll down the hill and fall off the cliff. Not only was I afraid of his body/horns breaking, I was worried that I would never be able to get him out of that canyon. I sat there for almost 3 hours hoping that he would make his way towards me and off of the hillside, but eventually he went the opposite direction of me and disappeared over the ridge. I was too chicken to cross the hillside and chase him.
After those first three days I decided to give my legs a rest and spend the 4th day exploring and looking for different places worth checking for sheep. I found a small group of sheep that were hanging out much lower than the other sheep I had been seeing. I packed up and did a little easy hike to get in closer to them, and was disappointed to not see any rams worth chasing. I sat there and watched them until it was getting dark, and decided to take one last look around with my binoculars before hiking back out. BAM! I found a group of 4 rams that had started working their way down to the other sheep. It was starting to get dark on me, but I could tell that one of them was definitely the nicest ram I had seen on the hunt.
I went to bed that night and barely slept cause all I could think about was getting a better look at that ram. I started the hike before daylight the next morning and was in the exact same spot I had left them in the previous night. No sheep! I hiked up higher and was able to finally find them in a little bowl over the next ridge from where I had seen them the night before, but the nicer rams weren't with them. I decided to hike up the valley a little higher and see if they were bedded down up above them, but I was unable to find them that whole day. Later in the afternoon, I decided to start the trek back down so that I wasn't stuck on the ledges in the dark. I worked my way back down to the sheep and the rams still were nowhere to be seen.
I felt a little defeated and started back down to the truck, and sure enough, I actually stumbled on the rams about 1/2 mile down below the group. It was an ideal situation. He was about 400 yards away from me just hanging out with the other rams. I had plenty of time to look at all of them and decide that he was a good ram worth taking. I made the decision and took the shot, and looking back I would do it all over again!
By the time I shot him, I had looked over about 15-20 rams and I feel confident that I took the nicest ram I looked at. Sometimes I think back and wonder about the ram that was on the hillside that I didn't get a very good look at, but oh well! I couldn't be happier with the hunt and results.
