2019 Breaks Sheep hunt
- Thread starter Lawnboy
- Start date
C Bow
Active member
Great story Great Ram I also want to thank you for taking him so he would not suffer any more I truly admire you. Thanks for sharing your story.
MTHunter1321
Well-known member
Beautiful ram!
geetar
Well-known member
That’s a good ram anywhere in the country and when you look at it on the wall you’ll never regret doing the right thing.
The Hedgehog
Well-known member
I thought I was the only one who skimmed threads. haha.
Spoiler alert - Bart did not shoot that ram. He shot a much bigger one.
Spoiler alert - Bart did not shoot that ram. He shot a much bigger one.
thusby
Well-known member
Definitely did the ethical thing there and the ram was nice as well.
EYJONAS!
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- Mar 17, 2017
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- 6,714
Looks like a nasty leg, he wouldn't have lasted much longer. Glad you guys decided to take him, he's a beautiful ram no doubt. Look forward to hearing more.
MTPUBLICLAND
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- Dec 21, 2013
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- 204
Really enjoying this read. Amazing what an animal can power through with an injury like that. Glad your friend got him as he is a great ram. I can relate to the mud and weather you talked about, my wife drew a rifle bull tag in the breaks this year. We had prepared for it but it still adds a potentially time killing challenge to the hunt. Congrats on the first ram, can’t wait for the rest of the story
Irrelevant
Well-known member
Tell your buddy congrats. Did was the meat off because of the wound?
rjthehunter
Well-known member
Beautiful looking ram!!!
brownbear932008
Well-known member
That sure is some cool country in there look forward to the rest of this adventure.
buffybr
Well-known member
Great Ram, pictures, and story. Congratulations
geetar
Well-known member
Someone sent me a pic of Bart’s ram the other day. Looking forward to seeing more pics on here.
bonedogg
Well-known member
that ram looks like he's got some great bases on him. congrats to you and your friend and thanks again for sharing with us to enjoy!
fishing4sanity
Well-known member
Congratulations to Scott, that's a great looking ram! Loving the photos, I hope to someday make it into the Breaks even if it's just exploring.
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rustneversleeps
Well-known member
Congrats, now you got me checking for updates
npaden
Well-known member
That is a great looking ram that Scott shot.
So if the ram in the initial post was in the mid 180's what did the ram that Scott shoot score? In some ways it looks bigger, but it doesn't seem to carry the mass out as far. It is a full curl ram and a beautiful animal, but I have no idea what it would score. I'm guessing pretty close to the same 180ish number.
Not that it will ever matter for me. My chances of drawing a Bighorn sheep tag in my lifetime is about 1 or 2 percent.
So if the ram in the initial post was in the mid 180's what did the ram that Scott shoot score? In some ways it looks bigger, but it doesn't seem to carry the mass out as far. It is a full curl ram and a beautiful animal, but I have no idea what it would score. I'm guessing pretty close to the same 180ish number.
Not that it will ever matter for me. My chances of drawing a Bighorn sheep tag in my lifetime is about 1 or 2 percent.
Lawnboy
Well-known member
I think Scott’s ended up 185. It had smaller bases than we thought. I think 15 3/4. It’s crazy hard to judge them. They all have different characteristics
Lawnboy
Well-known member
I was so happy for Scott. He was able to have one of his other great friends there and it truly was a great ram. To this day having seen what we did in the unit I would have been tickled to shoot it. I'm not going to lie my thoughts started to turn to panic a little. My friend was now tagged out. He had taken time off and surely was going to get back into the grind of work again. The later the season got the more a boat becomes an asset. I have never operated a jet boat and I thought dang he's going to pull camp and haul the boat back. Here I'm stuck still struggling to find good rams. Everyone kept saying oh you should be seeing rutting sheep by now but we weren't.
My fears of hunting alone were for naught as Scott said he would come back out as many times as needed to help. We took the opportunity the next day to go down river and see what was showing up. Not sure if any hunters have ever done this or not but Scott had not only brought a jet boat but also Jet skis (Seadoos). His friend was nice enough to loan me one and we went looking. Talk about fun those buggers rip down river and are easy on the fuel. We got all kinds of stares as we left the ferry. I joked that Scott might be a pioneer on using these on the Missouri Breaks. You do have to be careful of the gravel bars as they tend to suck up rocks easier than a jet boat. That day we ran into some deer hunters who said they had seen a nice ram and I went looking. As I climbed up this ridge I saw lots of fresh tracks like really fresh and then suddenly 3 boot tracks. I couldn't figure out for the life of me how someone really got to this exact spot???? They didn't come from the river they seemed to drop in from a ridge that I was baffled by. I was in the middle of nowhere it seemed but I couldn't find any sheep. Frustrating. It turns out the tracks were from John Lewton and his client literally 12 hours before I got there and they had shot the ram. It was a dandy as well. I had been communicated with John off and on through out the season and knew he had been in the general area but I was surprised (not really) that he found this ram where he did. I was somewhat deflated I admit. While the jet skis were fun we didn't see crap on the North side along the river. We went back to camp and packed up to head home. I was going to return on the next weekend with Scott and take the boat down again. I was desperately waiting for this magical time along the river everyone talked about. Where you basically waded through ewes and rams picking which one you wanted. LOL. Scott and I returned and sure enough we started seeing more Rams. We had heard about these benches were the ewes would come down during the rut followed by Rams. Sure enough we started seeing Rams and ewes on all these benches. In total that day we saw 30 rams but nothing bigger than mid 170s. It was exciting to see more sheep then I had the whole entire season basically but still was wondering where the big rams are. I thought to myself well this is what I need to do is continue to come down here along the river and glass and hopefully find a big ram thats moved in the area. It is November now and I’m feeling the crunch of the season coming to the end. I had messaged John for advice and even offered to pay him to take me out I was getting desperate. Why wasn’t I finding any big Rams? It turns out that John had about five days and offered to come along with me. I told him I had a place for us to stay in the camper and access to a jet boat. So he shows up on Tuesday it’s only been three days since Scott and I had seen the 30 Rams. The weather turned super crappy with lots of snow. We made our way down towards the river breaking trail on the road which gave me hope that there was nobody ahead of us that morning. We threw the boat in the river and started down. I was really excited to show him the sheep I had been looking at and to get his opinion. About 3 miles down the river I could swear I saw a guy walking along the bank. I Couldn’t figure out how that could be there was nobody parked at the ferry. As we got closer we realized there are three canoes on the bank and a bunch of tents. They were deer hunting and had floated down the river. That seemed odd as I hadn’t seen anybody doing that yet. We continue down the river I was excited to get to the other benches and see all these sheep. As we made it to the first bench I could see an orange tent and as we get closer they were three more canoes. This particular bench had about 12 rams on it with a bunch of ewes 3 days prior. As we floated past there were no sheep to be found obviously with the camp right where they were. They weren’t going to be there. We continue down the river only to find the same situation. There were camps on every single bench where the sheep had been three days prior. I was getting super frustrated. The Deerhunters had literally driven the sheep off the benches and now we couldn’t find anything. John had never seen anything like it either, in total there were six different camps that day and we only ended up seeing 12 total sheep. . We spent the day freezing our tail off and headed back to camp that night. I called my friend Matt and told him my frustrations. He had some time off and I told him he should come out with us because we had three more days left. He said he would head out later the next day after work. John and I had made a plan to go to another spot that Scott had checked out about a month ago and had seen quite a few ewes.
I’ll write more tomorrow and finish this saga up! Lol
My fears of hunting alone were for naught as Scott said he would come back out as many times as needed to help. We took the opportunity the next day to go down river and see what was showing up. Not sure if any hunters have ever done this or not but Scott had not only brought a jet boat but also Jet skis (Seadoos). His friend was nice enough to loan me one and we went looking. Talk about fun those buggers rip down river and are easy on the fuel. We got all kinds of stares as we left the ferry. I joked that Scott might be a pioneer on using these on the Missouri Breaks. You do have to be careful of the gravel bars as they tend to suck up rocks easier than a jet boat. That day we ran into some deer hunters who said they had seen a nice ram and I went looking. As I climbed up this ridge I saw lots of fresh tracks like really fresh and then suddenly 3 boot tracks. I couldn't figure out for the life of me how someone really got to this exact spot???? They didn't come from the river they seemed to drop in from a ridge that I was baffled by. I was in the middle of nowhere it seemed but I couldn't find any sheep. Frustrating. It turns out the tracks were from John Lewton and his client literally 12 hours before I got there and they had shot the ram. It was a dandy as well. I had been communicated with John off and on through out the season and knew he had been in the general area but I was surprised (not really) that he found this ram where he did. I was somewhat deflated I admit. While the jet skis were fun we didn't see crap on the North side along the river. We went back to camp and packed up to head home. I was going to return on the next weekend with Scott and take the boat down again. I was desperately waiting for this magical time along the river everyone talked about. Where you basically waded through ewes and rams picking which one you wanted. LOL. Scott and I returned and sure enough we started seeing more Rams. We had heard about these benches were the ewes would come down during the rut followed by Rams. Sure enough we started seeing Rams and ewes on all these benches. In total that day we saw 30 rams but nothing bigger than mid 170s. It was exciting to see more sheep then I had the whole entire season basically but still was wondering where the big rams are. I thought to myself well this is what I need to do is continue to come down here along the river and glass and hopefully find a big ram thats moved in the area. It is November now and I’m feeling the crunch of the season coming to the end. I had messaged John for advice and even offered to pay him to take me out I was getting desperate. Why wasn’t I finding any big Rams? It turns out that John had about five days and offered to come along with me. I told him I had a place for us to stay in the camper and access to a jet boat. So he shows up on Tuesday it’s only been three days since Scott and I had seen the 30 Rams. The weather turned super crappy with lots of snow. We made our way down towards the river breaking trail on the road which gave me hope that there was nobody ahead of us that morning. We threw the boat in the river and started down. I was really excited to show him the sheep I had been looking at and to get his opinion. About 3 miles down the river I could swear I saw a guy walking along the bank. I Couldn’t figure out how that could be there was nobody parked at the ferry. As we got closer we realized there are three canoes on the bank and a bunch of tents. They were deer hunting and had floated down the river. That seemed odd as I hadn’t seen anybody doing that yet. We continue down the river I was excited to get to the other benches and see all these sheep. As we made it to the first bench I could see an orange tent and as we get closer they were three more canoes. This particular bench had about 12 rams on it with a bunch of ewes 3 days prior. As we floated past there were no sheep to be found obviously with the camp right where they were. They weren’t going to be there. We continue down the river only to find the same situation. There were camps on every single bench where the sheep had been three days prior. I was getting super frustrated. The Deerhunters had literally driven the sheep off the benches and now we couldn’t find anything. John had never seen anything like it either, in total there were six different camps that day and we only ended up seeing 12 total sheep. . We spent the day freezing our tail off and headed back to camp that night. I called my friend Matt and told him my frustrations. He had some time off and I told him he should come out with us because we had three more days left. He said he would head out later the next day after work. John and I had made a plan to go to another spot that Scott had checked out about a month ago and had seen quite a few ewes.
I’ll write more tomorrow and finish this saga up! Lol
thusby
Well-known member
Deer hunters in canoes, in the breaks... Must have been an article in Outdoor Life.
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