I hunted bighorn rams in several of Montana's Unlimited ram tag units for 10 or so years. When I started hunting them the resident tags were $25 and you could buy an Unlimited tag if you weren't successful in the limited drawings. Back then I didn't know how good a deal that was and I only a few days at the season opening.
The first year that I bought an Unlimited tag I backpacked several miles into the Absaroka Wilderness and set up my spike camp, then hunted several miles a day from there. By the 3rd morning I hadn't seen any sheep, but shortly after I left my camp I heard a bull elk coming toward me, bugaling. The early elk season in that Wilderness was open, and after I saw his dark, white antlers walking toward me, my sheep hunt ended with a 330" bull elk. Maybe 15 miles for no sheep.
My first bighorn ram was in another Unlimited Unit, and I hunted late in the season. The first day I walked several miles without seeing any sheep. The second morning I spotted a legal ram a mile or so from the road, so I put a stalk on him, packed half of him out, then made a second trip in for the rest of him. Maybe 8 total hiking miles for that trip.
For my second bighorn ram, a friend and I used our horses to pack a camp into the Wilderness in a different Unlimited tag unit. Opening morning we left camp in different directions and I found a ram a couple of miles from camp. I used my horses to pack him down to camp and out, so probably walked 7 or 8 miles on that hunt.
Two years later, I used my horses to pack a camp into a different mountain range in the Unlimited unit that Ihad killed the above ram in. Opening morning I legal ram that I had passed on the year before on the backside of the mountain above my camp. I was able to get my horses within about 1/ 4 from him to pack him out. I probably only hiked about 4 miles on that hunt.
I did other Unlimited unit ram hunts using my horses to put in camps, but without coming home with a ram, and probably hiked 8-10 miles on each of those hunts.
For my first mountain goat hunt, I drew a tag in Montana's Pintler Wilderness. I waited to the later part of the season so the goats would have their winter hair. I slept in my truck near the wilderness boundary, The first day I climbed over the mountain above where I had parked. The snow on top was thigh deep. A quarter mile down the other side, I spooked a billy, but couldn't get a shot. Climbing back to the top it was so steep and the snow was so deep that I would climb 10 steps, then rest for 10 breaths all the way to the top. The next morning there was another foot of snow on my truck, so I gave went home, thinking that I would come back later. The snow just got deeper throughout the rest of the season.
A few years later, I drew another goat tag in the same unit that I had my 3rd Bighorn ram in, but several years before I had shot that ram. In September I made several trips into that area with my horses scouting for goats and with an Unlimited ram tag in my pocket, but leaving my goat tag at home so I wouldn't be tempted to shoot a billy before he grew his winter hair.
By mid November of that year I figured that the goats would have their winter hair, so a friend and I set his tent camper up in a campground near where I wanted to hunt for my goat. It was 15* F when we left camp. My friend had a cow elk permit, so he went up one valley to look for an elk and I drove to where I could glass for goats.
I spotted a lone billy about a mile above the road, so started climbing up to him. Earlier when there wasn't any snow it had taken me about an hour to climb up to the top. That day there was knee deep snow and it took me 3 hours to make the climb. So I only walked about 2 miles the day that I shot my goat.
In 1999 I booked a Dall sheep hunt in the MacKenzie Mountains in Canada's Northwest Territory. We took a float plane into Base Camp, then a Piper Cub to a point where we would backpack a couple of miles to a spike camp. The first morning from sike camp my guide and I hiked a mile or two over and around a mountain to where we spotted 5 rams. I immediately saw the ram that I wanted, and we snuck to within 206 yards from him where a 117 gr Sierra GameKing bullet from my .257 Ackley dropped him.
The next day we packed my ram and our sike camp down to where the Super Cub would pick us up, and on the way down we met a Wolverine coming up the valley. Along with my sheep tag, I had also bought tags for a mountain caribou, a wolf, and a wolverine. My total hiking for that ram was about 6 miles, with a wolverine as a bonus.
cam got nothing on me! Hahaha
