Sorry for the delay in telling the story but I had to get registered here on Rokslide and I lost what I had written more times than I care to admit. My friends first sentence pretty much tells the story - as an accomplished sheep hunter he certainly helped me tag my first sheep, which was an incredible feeling of accomplishment for a guy that isn’t exactly the most comfortable in sheep country.
Colorado had implemented their new website, fee/application process and notification system this spring. In early May, when I thought it should be time for the early hunts (sheep and goat) to be posted, I logged in to my new account and had to look a couple of times to believe that I had just drawn a rocky mountain bighorn sheep tag – RAM - Season dates September 4 – 18th. I had timed it so close that my notification e-mail came from Parks and Wildlife while I was on the computer.
So now my mind is racing as to what I need to do, get, eat, pack, wear, scout, get in shape - so I called my friend.....who is waiting to hear on college acceptance for his daughter so he can schedule her Tok Management Unit dall sheep hunt in AK for early August. His first piece of advice - "Hope you don't get the disease". Having a fairly short window to get myself into “sheep shape” , the stairmaster, backpack, 35 pounds of weight and I quickly became antagonistic friends. In pretty short order I was completing 100 flights of stairs in 20-22 minutes and hoping this was a good start to my goal – harvest a mature ram and hopefully come out of the hunt intact.
Some scouting trips with a couple of hunting companions yielded my only finding of legal rams in one area of the unit, but we found a band of 13 with one that appeared to be pretty nice. That would be the planned starting point. Time flew by between the end of my son's baseball season near the end of June until early September with a seemingly never-ending list of things for me to prepare for this backcountry hunt trip (which I never fully completed). During this time, my friend was able to commit to the hunt, which left me relieved and nervous at the same time. At some point my wife asked what we were going to do for our 22nd anniversary (Sept 7th) and I told her I was probably going to be sheep hunting. She wished me good luck. Sometimes you just get lucky.
Some other time I will have to tell the story of the guy that rode by on his motorcycle with one of my gear bags hanging off his back. Evidently I left it where I had parked or it fell out of the truck. About 20 miles away I found that coyote tailed bike and got my bag back......that was a crazy (and sort of lucky) day.
Anyway my friend arrived from AK on September 4th, and we head out on the 5th, hitting crazy heavy rain on the way (its about a 5 - 6 hour drive to get to the unit depending on where you go). We drove around and checked a few places out then headed to town for the night since the weather was supposed to clear by the next afternoon or following day. Clear and cool the next morning, we packed our packs and headed for the trail head where I had seen the 13 rams a month earlier. About a half mile from the trail head was a camp and a couple of guys waved and headed for the road. One was the uncle of the non-resident hunter (2 resident and one NR ram tags for this unit's first season) and another friend. We talked to them for a while, they had been camped and scouring that part of the unit since Saturday. Seemed like good folks so we decided to head into another part of the unit, telling them we would be back in a few days if we didn’t find a ram somewhere else.
After a two hour drive to the other end of the unit, we packed in about 5 miles or so and set up camp right before dark. Elk bugling all night made it hard to sleep, but I love that sound. Up before sunrise, I start boiling water for breakfast and coffee when my friend says he has three rams in the scope! We keep checking them out, one much bigger and more full than the other two. Within minutes the sun pops over the top of the ridge the rams are on and we take turns trying to block it so we can see if this guy is worth pursuing. I got one brief look at this right side, which was a few inches longer than his left. Up over the ridge they go and we head off the other direction. Glassing a large basin and the other side of the drainage yielded a large group of kids and nannies, but no other rams. "I know you don't want to hear this but I find a lot of sheep covering country by traversing ridgelines" my friend says.
Off we go up along the ridge, checking the next drainage, getting a good look at a lot of country. As the day gets longer we decide to head toward the ram from the morning, see if we can get a better look at him and if he isn't mature enough, we would move somewhere else. We got on top of the hole and my friend crawls over, peeks over the edge and motions that something is down there. I am pretty sure I grew claws trying to peek over the edge to hold on without throwing up....but the rams had one heckuva hiding spot below that cliff face of 200 plus feet. My friend asks if I can make that shot and I am pretty sure that I would have had to have half my body hanging over that cliff to do so. We decided to move to around to the other side and see if we could get a better angle. Now we find the bigger ram laying across the hole, curled up right against the cliff wall. The ram looks to be close to full curl on his right side, left broomed a bit, and we think about 8 years old. My goal was within 125 yards if I could make one good shot, hopefully above the diaphragm but below the neck and head. I stretch out prone, friend beside me, on my 22nd wedding anniversary, and lean out as far as I can to clear the rock.....my little kimber mountain ascent not even reaching my armpit. Before the gun hits my shoulder at the shot, I see the ram’s head drop straight down and I know the shot was a finisher. Some deep breaths, a few congratulations and off we go to reach the ram. That 125 yard shot distance took us one hour, a couple of close rock climbing calls and a helluva an uphill battle at the end to reach him.
Pictures taken, the work starts with clouds and a few raindrops. Luckily that held off and we got the ram into our packs to start the descent down that nasty slope. “Just don’t leave me on this slope, because Kathy will be mad at both of us” was my only request before the dirt/scree/boulder downhill ski-scramble began. Outside of some bruises and almost wrecking one knee (trekking poles can be great friends too) all 100 years combined between us reached the trail intact just before dark. We emptied our packs, hiked a mile and a half, picked up camp and moved it down to the ram. A few miles of “slow” (aka I can damn near not run that fast) packing the next day, we reached the main trail and got a great assist out the last bit from a few locals to the trailhead.
I can’t thank my friend and my wife enough for helping me achieve a lifelong dream. He isn’t the biggest, won’t score the best, but the experience was remarkable.
Somebody get a tag, because I can’t wait to do it again. Maybe that first piece of advice just didn’t stick.
