Aug- 18-I was up in Hinton last week and did a scouting trip. As luck would have it over the few days I spotted a band of 8 rams- The best one looked heavy and seemed broomed on his right. His left looked a bit better.I got back to Red Deer later that week and decided to get back up to that country to try after him.
Aug. 22- I drove back up and had a long hike into base camp with heavy packs. My brother in law (my long time sheep hunting partner) was with me and I had spent the month previous guiding in NWT so my legs were fit and we were pretty optimistic to get back on the rams. We set up camp in a valley bottom in the general area I had seen the band earlier that week and cleared a bunch of snow out to set up the tent. Two sets of boot prints on the trail as we came in and the smell of a recently burned fire. I figured I would run into other hunters everywhere so I wasn't too concerned.
Aug. 23- We were up early and up on a glassing ridge. We located the band by 9 am. 10 rams this time. The same heavy ram was still in there. They were close to where they had been earlier in the week and the one looked good but we had to get a closer look.We were about 2.5 kms away and I couldn't make out the tip with my swaro hd 65. We went down to the camp, packed up the tent and moved our camp closer to where we had spotted them. We got up again on a second ridge and picked up the rams again as they had fed down into a basin. Watched them feed back up onto the same ridge they were earlier. Got a better look and we were pretty confident he was legal on his left. Broomed back not legal or too close to call on his right. Back down to the camp at dark.
Aug. 24- Up early and up on the same ridge we watched them bed on the night before. Located them about 9 am at 800 yards. Watched them for a few hours and the potential shooter would not give us a view of his left side. Right confirmed too close to shoot but a front on angle view showed some tip coming up on his left horn and longer then his right so we were optimistic. The band fed a bit in the timber, split up and 6 rams went back down into the basin they were in the day before. We snuck down on the trees and got on them again at 400 yards as they were quite low and we had great cover. They were bedded about 100 yards from where Byron would end up shooting the ram. We finally got a good look at his left. Got some good pics through the scope and confirmed he was legal. !! Both of us were excited. I had never shot a bighorn so this was getting pretty sweet as we were on a good ram on the night before opener. They fed past us at 250 yards and went up on a ridge. We backed off and watched them until we couldn't see them any more. They bedded down high in a small draw and we planned our stalk to be on them for first light.
We were pretty confident looking at the above angle that he would be good on his left.
We were 100% with this pic and an even better view through the scope which had a true side profile. This one we could still get his eye behind and he wasn't at perfect side profile. As a newer hunter for bighorns, this was what I needed to be confident with the next days attempt.
Aug 25- after a worried sleep, we were up at 4 and up the horse trail. We came near Byron's camp at 4:30 am and spotted each other. (up until this point we had only seen some boot prints)
We bailed off the horse trail and headed straight up the ridge to where we had watched the rams bed down the night before. We watched Byron's headlamp move down in the valley bottom and tension was high.
We snuck up to exactly where we wanted and covered the last few 100 yards especially slow. The wind was good and I was confident of our play given what we had seen and what the conditions were. I set up behind a tiny bush around 5:55 and started to wait for the 6:18 legal light. I figured I was about 150 yards from where they had bedded down. As the light got better I got a sick feeling in my stomach as the rams were nowhere to be seen. I was confident we were in the right spot and was hesitant to move as I figured they must be close. I finally decided to creep over the edge, where they had been feeding the night before to see if they were there. I went down with the wind, cleared the top of that side of the ridge, and then snuck over into the wind on the other side. Nothing....
All of a sudden a shot rang out from the basin below. Then another. I was devastated as I crept over the side and watched only 5/6 rams scamper away. My hunting partner was encouraging and we decided to go over in case the hunter had missed or wounded it back up towards us.
This was not the case as I could see a ram on his back about 900 yards below us.
Why the rams decided to feed down before legal light and bed down right above Byron I will never know! It was tough to take but I sucked it up and walked down to check out the ram, congratulate the hunter and hopefully get some advice, insight or intel on other rams that had been spotted by him.
I was super shocked when I got about 20 yards from the ram and the hunter to see it was Byron. We had chatted on the forum and met once in Hinton but I had no idea where he hunted and given how big the country was and how far back we were it was pretty wild that we were both on the same ram. Freaky weird!
I couldn't stay too long as I was pretty sad but I couldn't help but feel a bit happy watching Byron and his ram. I have watched many guys kill sheep and you can see it on a person when the harvest really means something to the hunter. This was definitely the case for him. I also felt a lot of frustration and after some pictures and congratulations, we buggered off. As we walked away, David said "That wasn't how I was expecting to walk up to a dead ram" and "Its pretty weird that we have pictures of a dead ram on our camera that isn't our ram!"
Not too many words were said between my hunting partner and I. Both of us just tried to figure out how our "perfect hunt" had ended so quickly and so wrong. We ate breakfast and packed up camp. We still had three days to hunt and it was only 9 am on opening day. As far as hunting experiences had gone, that was a tough one but not as frustrating as something that had gone wrong by a mistake on my part. We had played those rams perfectly and had done a stalk that I would do again exactly the same given the fact we knew the high chances other hunters would have been watching those rams. I am confident that we would of spotted the shooter below and shot him that morning if Byron had not.
I was still pretty choked and we packed up camp and headed up the horse trail. We ran into Byron again at camp with the ram's head. More Congratulations, a quick look over a map with him and I put my head down and started covering some ground. I needed to go for a walk to clear my head!
Linear Mode
