Dad's Rocky

Uttaxi1

Uttaxi1

Active Member
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Well this is something I never thought I would have the privilege to do. Dad always worked graveyard when my brother and I was growing up. He would always coach our sports teams and teach us the ways of life. Working hard, playing hard and helping others. Time was going by and my brother and I got married and had to start adulting. We still managed to get out one several trips a year. Fast forward to oct 5 2015. I was elk hunting with some friends and we were packing out a elk when I got the word. My dad had suffered a massive stroke while on vacation with my brothers family at Disneyland. I took a minute and did what my dad would have wanted me to do. Finish the task at hand and don't overreact. I got to a place where I had service called my brother and asked him how bad it was. It wasn't good news. He was given a 1% chance to live. Well he pulled through after 68 days in ICU in socal and having to basically relearn most tasks. He had to relearn to do the most basic daily tasks. He has made a great progress and is even allowed to drive. He has taken a muley and been on a few other hunts with us since. Well this year I got another call from my brother about the time credit cards were being charged for tags. He said are you sitting down? He said I have a hit and it's a big one. He had put in multiple people so we had to wait for the emails to come out. Well it was dad's turn for a tag. Turns out he drew a bighorn tag with 7 points. Well I have zero exp
 
Experience hunting sheep. The difficult part was going to be getting one to cooperate with my dad being 75% paralyzed on his right side. Walking on flat ground is a challenge. Forget about loose gravely hills. We started making calls and reaching out to people that have had the tag and everyone said we could probably get it done. My brother made a scouting trip during the scorching summer to get a lay of the land. We loaded up and head out the day before the season and set up camp. With everything in order we would be hunting sheep in the morning. It was our time to do one for Dad. We were joined by several close friends and my brothers kids. We made our way to where we planned to start glassing and started seeing sheep. We looked over a few and realized this was going to be a task. Everything was in places that we had no chance to get him closer for a shot. Some kept covering ground. We saw several more bands of sheep as well as bachelor groups of smaller rams. We found a 4 year old at 200 yards and was cooperating. We had plenty of time to get dad up and even let him look at him through the scope just to get him more comfortable when it was show time. We passed and went on our way. We kept covering ground and glassing the mountains. We made it up to a high point and we all were glassing. A band of 4 rams and 12 ewes fed down and out on the bench below us. We got dad set up for the shot. Miss, my heart sank. My brothers range finder didn't have the angle compensation on and the shot was high. We watched the sheep travel for a long ways. At least a mile. They were headed right the trail we had traveled up to the vantage point. We hustled back to the SXS and made our way towards were we saw the sheep heading. We came around the corner there they were in the mouth of the next canyon feeding. We got dad set up and had to find the bigger ram. The one that originally caught out eye was a dark chocolate ram with broomed tips. A couple of ewes was blocking our view of him. They started moving away and there he was 125ish yards away and dad sent a round his way. He acted hit and didn't follow the rest of the group. He ran towards us up on a rock outcropping and tumbled off the top and was going down fast and expired. Holy cow I couldn't believe it, it really happened and it was only noon on day one. It couldn't have been a better ending as everyone was able to see the whole thing go down. I wanted nothing more than my dad to be able to make it to his ram. It took him a while but he made it. We all were waiting for him to get there so he could be the first one to lay hands on him. High fives and hugs then it was onto pics and skinning. It definitely was a great day. Was super glad we could all be there and get it done. Here are a few pics. I think my favorite pic is of him watching my brother and I skin it. You can see the smile on his face. The ram was aged at 8.5 by the dwr and was double broomed.

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Great job and great story. Some of Utah’s Rocky hunts are more like desert sheep hunting terrain. Assuming we will see a full body mount posted in the future. Was that a shooting blanket you have the ram laying on?
 
What a inspiration your father is. Congratulations to him and all of you for sharing your experience with all of us
 
LIK2HNT said:
Great job and great story. Some of Utah’s Rocky hunts are more like desert sheep hunting terrain. Assuming we will see a full body mount posted in the future. Was that a shooting blanket you have the ram laying on?
Click to expand...
We did skin the ram for a Lifesize mount. I am in the process of building a new shop and it will going in the office there. My parents have downsized and don't.have the for the mount. I am having replicas made and will mount the replicas so ha can have the skull and horns. It's a tarp my my buddy made with handles on the event we needed to haul dad's ram out to him for pictures. It worked really well to keep everything clean for skinning and quartering. I normally carry a blue tarp for that.
 
Great write up Ross! Amazing that your Dad can still get out and do the things he loves, even if it's a little trickier. That looks like a great ram for that area! Congrats to your Dad on a great achievement.
 
That is an awesome way to wind down his hunting days. Sheep hunts are way cool, especially if you can share it with family.
Congratulations to all.
 
elkhunterUT said:
Big time congrats to you and your pops Ross-it was good chatting with you! What a pretty ram with a gorgeous cape!! 8.5 years old is the perfect ram to kill out there.

Can't wait to get going out there this next week!
Click to expand...
I'm excited for your turn! You may need to bundle up and don some long johns!
 
Last edited:
Such an awesome story glad to hear your dad was able to experience a sheep hunt! Mist will dream of few will actually experience. Congratulations to your dad
 

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