The Hunt of a Lifetime

[JoeVon]

          We woke early Friday morning and headed out to the spot where we’d drop off the ridge to get to the big ram.  Working our way down the hill we spotted another Mountain Goat soaking up the early rays of sun and shortly after Ron found the big boy from the previous day, only he’d joined up with two other nice rams and one half curl.  The younger rams were pushing and challenging the bigger, older ram as they fed up the ridge so their attention was focused on just that and it allowed us to get within shooting range of the group.  Ron laid his pack down along with mine to gain a solid rest and I deployed the spotter and started spouting off ranges.  It was to be a 256 yard shot straight across two small draws.  Just as Ron was readying to squeeze the trigger, the younger rams succeeded in pushing the big guy over the ridge and out of sight, it had happened again!  We hastily picked up our things and crossed the small draws, heading in the direction of the sheep, if things worked our right they’d come across right below us.  Our plan worked to a “T”, and a few minutes later the sheep were slowly crossing below us, only they were a little tighter to the base of the hill than we thought they would be and Ron had no shot available from our current position.  He had to sneak 5 or 10 yards down the hill and would be shooting at a steep down hill angle at around 80 yards.  The plan would’ve worked great, had the half curl ram not caught movement in the corner of his eye, and in a flash we were busted again.  I was gettin darn tired of seeing sheep rumps!  I had to head back to home to get to work on Saturday morning and Ron decided to stay, hoping to seal the deal.

[JoeVon]

Ron, trying his best to find the rams after they'd blew out on us.



A view towards the west, looking over the canyon the rams dropped into.

[JoeVon]

A shot down the hill towards the highway.  It was nice to be able to come in from the top!



I took this photo standing on the ridge where the rams pushed over earlier in the morning, keeping us from getting a shot.

[JoeVon]

     On the morning of Saturday the 25th, Ron hunted alone and saw rams but nothing that piqued his interest.  That evening another friend, Kevin, showed up to hunt with Ron, and Sunday morning they were back into the sheep but just couldn’t find one that he liked.  Sunday night Ron and Kevin packed there stuff and headed home.  We wouldn’t be back over for another week.

[JoeVon]

          Ron made the trek back over on Friday, October 1st, and I followed shortly after getting off work, arriving to camp at 1:30 a.m. Saturday morning. It was decided that we’d head down to “The Saddle” and try to glass some of the big rams across the way the next morning.  We woke early and were down glassing in no time.  I hadn’t even gotten the spotting scope set up yet when I heard Ron signaling that he had rams spotted.  When I reached the rock that he was glassing from two sheep could be seen with the naked eye, bedded straight down the hill at 350 yards.  I hurried and setup the Spotter and upon looking noticed that the bigger of the two rams appeared to be a good one, but he was bedded facing away which made trying to judge him tough on both of us. 

         Ron started setting up for a shot just in case the bedded ram was the one he wanted and a few minutes later he gave us the look that we were after.  He was a good one, Ron wanted him and when the ram stood, he’d take him.  The only tricky part was the steep shot.  While we both had rangefinders neither of them were angle compensating so that guesstimation was done in our heads.  We decided to set the calibrated turret to 300 yards and as the ram stood Ron sent a bullet his way.  I watched in the spotting scope as the ram lurched, but a puff of dust flew up behind him and he ran around the hill and out of sight.  Ron immediately took off down to the bed to follow up on his shot and upon approaching the spot saw the ram again, sneaking through some timber and he fired again, this time he knew he’d hit him.  After the shooting the second time, Ron made it to the bed where he’d fired the first time and confirmed our suspicions, no blood.  Working his way back to where he’d fired from the second time, Ron cut the tracks of the sheep and followed him around one more small ridge where the Ram stood 60 yards away, mortally hit but still hanging on, so one more shot and the Ram was down! 

[JoeVon]

Here is what Ron saw when he approached the downed Ram.



The Ram and the Mountain...

[JoeVon]

Some more photos of Ron and the Ram.

[JoeVon]

Two happy hunters!!!



The Ram.

[JoeVon]

   I worked my way off the ridge top and down to my elated friend, a big smile could be seen from 200 yards away.  After all the high fives and congratulations we couldn’t help but stare in awe of what a great ram we’d found, and reflect upon the trials and tribulations that are sheep hunting.  Upon close inspection, we found that the first shot had cut the hair off the top of his back, right in line with his vitals, just too high, the other two shots were right on the money. He is exactly what Ron explained when we talked about the kind of Ram he wanted, and being 9 ½ years old was just icing on the cake.  We quartered the ram and caped him out, and before we started packing meat, made a phone call to a good friend Butch who drove two hours over from home to pick us up at the bottom so we wouldn’t have to make multiple trips going out the top of the canyon. We made it down with everything in one trip.  We both know now what people are talking about when they speak of “The Fever”, we can’t wait to go back again, hopefully in the years to come another friend or myself will draw, and everything will be put aside while we go on another “Hunt of a Lifetime”.

[JoeVon]

Ron packin part of his Sheep.




Back at camp.

[JoeVon]

This last shot is one of Ron, Butch, and I after we'd gotten the sheep in a cooler and finished glassing the hills one last time to see the Rams we'd left behind.  I spotted a dandy of a Ram that evening directly behind the three of us, lets hope that the final tag holder gets to hang his tag on him!

[NWBREW]

  Congrats

[carpsniperg2]

dude that is a sweet write up! and some super great pictures as well. thanks for sharin them with us.

[bowhunterforever]

Souds like it was one heck of a hunt, Congrats

[Hyde]

Outstanding!