Bobcat, you asked for a picture

[HoofsandWings]

Here it is.

[bobcat]

Wow! Awesome ram! Thanks for the picture. What year was that?

[Falcon]

What a ram

Refresh my memory!

Some detail please!

[Bullkllr]

"Rudolph the red-nosed reinram"...   

Nice ram!

[HoofsandWings]

Wow! Awesome ram! Thanks for the picture. What year was that?

About 10 years ago. It was 12 years ago for goat, 10 years ago for sheep and 8 years ago for moose.

[C-Money]

You have had 3 OIL tags? Wow, I reckon you know how lucky you are!! Thats awesome. Nice Ram!

[HoofsandWings]

Once upon a time, a hunter drew a sheep permit. He drove over to the area and looked around. It was hot. It was dry. He drove his truck to the top of the hills. The road was covered in rip-rap, the 6 inch basalt. Talk about a rough ride. There was worry over the tires and once on top, there was worry over the knife edge ridge that the road, if you can call it that was on. There was this one steep section where you had to put the truck in low gear 4wd to go down, repeat, down the slope.
Once the truck was parked and the heart started beating again, he grabbed his gear which consisted of binoculars and a spotting scope and tripod. Picture five fingers and between each finger was a 500 to 1000 foot drop. The spotting scope was heavy. It was not your typical scope. It weighed about 15 pounds and had a 80mm objective.  The scope had been used to watch Haley’s comet. You could see the eyes of a sheep at 1000 yards.  The sheep were located the first day. However, they were all ewes.
After some searching online, there was a site operated by the farm bureau that had 36 inch by 48 inch low altitude aerial photos of the area.  They were only a couple of years old and had an amazing amount of detail.  He could mark his scouting using a grease pencil.
Then one day he was not alone. There were these mountain goats running up and down those slopes, only they were not mountain goats but scouts hired by guide who was to guide the winner of the auction. There were about a dozen of these guys and they looked in every nook and cranny for sheep. They were there a couple of days and were gone. I later learned they were looking for the bull of the woods.  A huge old ram. I saw a picture of the ram and knew why I did not want him.  For those of  you who have not hunted sheep or paid much attention to them, each herd has its characteristics. Unless you are not looking to hang something on the wall, but have waited years for some wild mutton, that big ram is not on your list. Yes, he has massive bulk, but he has a bad habit. He plows the ground with his horns. It is called brooming.  Picture a full curl. Now picture a ¾ curl. He was less than ¾. He probably had broomed as many as 18 inches, maybe more. If you killed him and mounted him, you would probably spend the rest of your life explaining why the horns are so short and come to such an abrupt end.
Next came the raffle hunt winner and his guide and scouts. There was no sign of the other permit-holders.  I later learned they were going to hunt the end of the season, not the beginning.
It was pretty easy to learn the habits of the sheep. They slept until about sunrise and got on their feet and wondered around. About an hour later, they went down a canyon single file.
Now it is the morning before the season opens. Being a DIY hunter who has not seen a soul in days, he begins to worry. Where is everybody?! Being as daffy as you get in these sort of circumstances, at nightfall, he moves his tent to the center of the road, effectively blocking it. If you have ever tried to sleep on 6 inch rip-rap, it is not an experience I would recommend.
Now it is morning. It is getting light. Hunters of species other than goat and sheep go out in the dark. In such country, you could end up at the bottom of a cliff.  There are huge lava flows of basalt and the gas bubbles have edges that have been sharpened from dust over the centuries. Even in the heat, you wear heavy gloves. You will go through several pair from just touching the basalt. It will shred your clothing and you do not even have to try. If you sit, it is like sitting on a bench of razor blades.
Looking around there are no other hunters. No vehicles on the horizon.  Strange.  Very strange.  Heading down the steep slope of the canyon, he trips on a rock weighing about a pound. That rock loosens another and another. Suddenly, there is a rock slide 30 yards wide and traveling down the canyon en mass.  The roar is deafening. Some of the rocks are 3 feet in diameter.  After a period of time when the dust cloud clears, there are no sheep to be seen.  The hunter looks here and there and spends much of the day seeing nothing.
Now the hunter is really alarmed at not seeing any other humans. He breaks camp and figures all of the other hunters are coming into the canyon from below, so he drives around to the bottom entrance of the canyon.  There is still no one in sight. The next morning he starts hiking up the canyon. It is steep and long. He has to zigzag around the lava flows. Climbing them is too dangerous. Finally he reaches an area where he can watch and wait looking at a clearing some 300 yards distant. He hears rocks and sees movement through the brush along a stream.  Finally the sheep appear. They are all rams. A weight has been lifted off his shoulders. The reason he was worrying about other hunters is he had counted only three worthwhile sheep. If he been beaten to these sheep, he would have had to settle for second or even third best.  After careful aim, he chooses the ram with the least brooming and pulls the trigger. The 140 grain 270 bullet finds its mark and the sheep kicks a back foot and rolls dead with his hoofs in the air. Even though it was 300 yards, it takes a nearly 20 minutes to zigzag around the basalt and reach the ram.
As a footnote, he found through a friend a taxidermist who was eager make a name for himself, so although he had worked on all sorts of game, he had not worked on a sheep. He had a good reputation and I had the shoulder mount done for $200.

[carpsniperg2]

Sweet ram hoof's