Archery Sheep Hunt

[TopherDave]

I’ve pulled an archery dall sheep tag! Very excited for this challenge. They say the best way to kill a sheep with the bow is to not bring a rifle! I don’t have a choice with this tag. Challenge accepted!

Anyone out there ever kill a sheep with a bow? Any advice? I heard from one fellow rokslider, trust your bubble. Great advice in the mountains.

Thanks in advance.

 

[ol490]

First of all congratulations!!! I hope you kill an old bruiser.
There are people on this forum much more experienced than me (1 archery bighorn) on archery sheep but I’ll give my two cents.
Do all you can to prep for steep shooting. Including:
- make sure your 3rd axis is properly leveled
- make sure your rangefinder properly cuts for angles. I’m not a huge fan of Leupold but their fulldraw 5 rangefinder works for this well. I think upper end sig rangefinders also run the same archery ballistics calc setup.
- practice shooting steep uphill and downhill a lot to verify all of this plus get used to the challenging footing setup and upper buddy form needed.
- shoot a forgiving setup. A level shot with good footing is unlikely. You may be in a position where you induce some torque / other form issues.
I ended up shooting my ram with a fixed blade but I was packing a couple of mechanicals for tough setups, or very long shots.
- broad head tune your bow and shoot broad heads as far as you ever plan on taking a shot.
I apologize if some of my two cents is basic but it’s the key items I focused on so thought I’d share.
Lots of us live vicariously through others for sheep hunting so please share prep and the hunt with us.
Good Luck!

 

[TopherDave]

That’s great advice. Even when we think it may be redundant; bow hunting is all about redundancy! I definitely plan on taking my bow as much as possible into the mtns this summer to shoot those goofy shots and to make things up. I’m trying to figure out, what kind of target to use that I can pack on my back and my bow for the day to play. Something less cube, more flat would be ideal.
I shot A LOT this past summer prepping for my bison tag. Shot my broad heads out as far as I could go. Fixed blade groups started opening up a bit around 90. So I limited myself to 80 yards with that and killed my Buffalo at 75 yards.

I’m very excited to prove this opportunity to myself! Mental prep, physical prep, the gear prep. It’s going to require all that, skill, patiences and a little to a lot of luck. But I’m going to do every in my power to control the variables I can.

I’m also secretly training for a 3 hr 30 min marathon, so if you have an audible books or podcasts to suggest on the subject during my long zone 2 work, that’s also great info!

 

[TopherDave]

There is an Old Hammer that I met on here that’s done the North American grand slam with a trad bow. Been waiting for him to call me back!! He’s was sitting on a wolf bait somewhere in Alberta, I think. Can’t wait to pick his brain and hear his stories!

Ironically we have the same birthday (just all half a century apart) and are from the same home state.

Rokslide is a really great community. Lots of awesome people here with a ton of knowledge and experience.