BeardedHunter
12-19-2011, 07:35 PM
Well the title says it all, my quest to take a mature ram started last year when I was invited to go on a 5 day sheep hunt in the crowsnest pass. I frantically bought an eberlestock pack, pair of hanwags, and Nikon Monarch binos. After an unsuccessful hunt needless to say I was hooked. Fast forward to 2011, I was in the gym 5 days a week and eat, slept and breathed anything to do with sheep hunting and spent another couple thousand on gear i.e. Swaro spotting scope, jetboil TI, and a carbon fibre tripod Everyone I talked to about sheep hunting said the same thing, “the sheep are where you find them” and to “get out and hike up the mountains”, so that’s what I did. Before the season started I had about 80km on the mountains and about 35 of them with my daughter who hunts and is now hooked on the high country. When the season opened my hunting partner and I spent 4 days looking for sheep to only see 2 short rams. The rest of my trips were pretty much solo and when people asked how it was going I told them there are supposed to be sheep up in the mountains but I can’t find them and I am starting to get tired of taking my gun on long scenic vertical walks. Fast forward to the last 4 days of the season, first day we saw over 40 sheep in the morning (immature rams, ewes, lambs) Late in the afternoon we spotted 3 rams and with the light fading we made a sprint up the mountain, luckily I had been up this one earlier in the year and knew how to get to them quick. As sheep hunting goes they were on the move to look for a suitable bed for the night and wouldn’t give us a good look at them as shooting light faded away. The next morning we found another different 40 sheep (immature rams, ewes, lambs) and just as we were heading back to look for the rams we stalked the night before, my truck gets a flat tire. Not now! 45 min later as I changed the tire and my buddy glassed for sheep we were on our way. Not long after, we spotted the rams and continued to watch them for about the next 2-3 hours till they bedded down. This time we had to go up the mountain on a side I wasn’t familiar with, so we made a plan and my buddy picked a tree out by the rams that he said he would recognize from anywhere if he saw it again. Well 1hr later found us staring down at 4 rams at about 200yds, now I was supposed to shoot my ram this weekend as my friend has one on the wall already and if I didn’t get a ram soon I was going to be divorced as my life had been consumed for the past 2 months and I was m.i.a. as a father and husband basically. I should note my wife works full time, my oldest daughter runs competitively in cross country running and is in a race every weekend and trains 4 nights a week and my youngest daughter plays AAA hockey plus any other sport she can fit in. Busy to say the least! Back to the story, we had a little miscommunication as we watched the rams and I missed 3 opportunities to take him and long story short I had no more shots and my buddie got his second ram. All was good as I wanted the experience and had no idea how to cape and wanted to carry a ram off the mountain and put my training to work. The next day was uneventful as we didn’t see any sheep. Monday was turning out to be a lot like the day before as we were not seeing anything. Just as we were about to call it a day (11:00a.m.) As we still had a long drive ahead of us my friend says we still have time let’s turn around and head back and start glassing the mountains again, I couldn’t believe he said that. Well about 20 min later we were back at the start of where we can glass and within about a minute of getting my spotting scope out I found my ram bedded in the timber about 1.5 miles up the mountain. We watched him for about 45min and then got geared up and headed up the mountain after him. 40 min into our hike we stop to glass him and he is now where to be found. I was choked and figured all was lost as we continued up the mountain for a better look when my buddie says “I found him!” we ranged him at 536 yds. across the valley and as my buddie watched through the spotting scope I shot twice at him missing cleanly and sending him off walking towards some ewes that started filtering in through the trees. I grabbed my fanny pack of my pack loaded it with a powerade, shells, granola bar, and a range finder picked up my rifle and started running up the mountain across the valley a creek and up the other side. When I cut some tracks in the snow I figured I was coming in to close to the sheep and would get busted by a ewe so I headed back down and away into a draw I saw on the way up that I figured would take me higher than the sheep and possibly closer without being seen. When I came out of the draw I spotted a sheep’s back then horns then 3 sets of horns, I was about 120yds away and all of the sudden I saw one rear up on his hind legs and ram the other one! I closed the distance to about 60-70 yds. and watched the 3 rams fight for about the next 45min. I knew that none of these rams were the one I had shot at earlier as one was legal but immature and no mass and the other was a squeaker maybe and the other was a banana ram. I was standing there freezing to death as I was soaked from my earlier run on all fours up the mountain and struggling with the dilemma of shooting a mature ram and just about to leave when I caught something out of the corner of my eye coming up out of the timber. It was a set of dark chocolate horns, the safety came off and as I and the other rams watched him come to see who was fighting. When he made his way to the rocky knob where the other rams were they all moved out of his way and gave him the respect he deserved. Not too sure how long I watched this go on when two of the smaller rams started to fight again and he decided to step down as he knew they were all out of his league he gave me a quartering away shot and two shots later he was down! Now as I was chambering a 3rd shell and putting gloves on and putting my empty brass away I failed to notice that the I had 4 rams running right for me and after some yelling and frantically waving I brought them to a halt at about 7 yds. from me, when they saw me they reared up on their hind legs and turned for higher ground. The 4 rams stopped about 25yds above me staring down all in order from smallest to largest. The biggest being almost full curl but with no mass and very small bodied and lamb tips still on, the next one was the squeaker but I don’t think was legal and the other 2 were banana rams. Time was 2 o’clock on the last day of season and will be married for at least 2 more years! The first ram green scored at 169’’ and mine at 167’’. I would like to thank my wife and kids for supporting me on my quest to take a mature ram and my hunting partner for telling me we still have time, I think he got home at 2a.m. and had to work at 6a.m. without his generosity, knowledge and help this would not have come together the way it did. I should also say thanks to the people I hounded for any info on sheep and gear and thanks to this forum as I did learn a lot here also.
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