2023 Montana Bighorn Sheep Tag/Hunt...

Oct 7. I drive to Winifred and then after buying gas and last minute supplies, head into the hunt district to find a camp site. The spot I wanted has a camper already there (more on that later). I find a spot on some state land and get the camper set and level. My friend Sean shows up and we go for a quick glassing trip. It is unseasonably warm and right out of the truck, what is that buzzing noise!

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We see 14 lambs and ewes (mostly ewes) and a lone small ram. This seems different already. Life is good, town was okay but this is way better. Dean arrives that evening.
 
Oct 8th. So now there are three of us glassing. More eyes the better (as many of you know). We split up and plan to regroup noonish. Dean goes west and we go east. Sean and I find a group of 5 rams. We eliminate 4 but without the Swaro scope that Dean has, we decide we need to get a closer look at number 5. They are on the move and we lose them in coulee. We sneek in slowing and once again they are closer rather than further. I ease forward and lay down on a little ridge. I can see four of the five and have the rifle on them. This could happen, is today the day? Where is number 5? He finally shows himself, a 5 ½ year old. All good, I ease out of there and they go back to feeding.

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We all meet up and head to the river with the boat (its warm again). At 35 miles an hour, I spot a ram while traveling downriver. He is tucked in a little canyon that has a few pines and shade. At this point I am dressed in a t shirt, light hunting pants and flip flops, it is hot out. We circle back and watched him for 2-3 hours, 7 year old, 170ish, maybe 180. I am tempted, good rest, 212 yards... All the time in the world. He has a beautiful cape (Pretty Boy). We could load him whole in the boat. This could be a World Record, if only I had a satellite phone to call the Guinness folks (hello, has anyone ever shot a bighorn ram in flip flops?)

(the spot on the nose is dust on the lense of the spotting scope
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BrowningCitori said:
We all meet up and head to the river with the boat (its warm again). At 35 miles an hour, I spot a ram while traveling downriver. He is tucked in a little canyon that has a few pines and shade. At this point I am dressed in a t shirt, light hunting pants and flip flops, it is hot out. We circle back and watched him for 2-3 hours, 7 year old, 170ish, maybe 180. I am tempted, good rest, 212 yards... All the time in the world. He has a beautiful cape (Pretty Boy). We could load him whole in the boat. This could be a World Record, if only I had a satellite phone to call the Guinness folks (hello, has anyone ever shot a bighorn ram in flip flops?)

(the spot on the nose is dust on the lense of the spotting scope
View attachment 319874
Click to expand...
And there my hunt would have ended. Nice ram!
 
Last edited:
BrowningCitori said:
We all meet up and head to the river with the boat (its warm again). At 35 miles an hour, I spot a ram while traveling downriver. He is tucked in a little canyon that has a few pines and shade. At this point I am dressed in a t shirt, light hunting pants and flip flops, it is hot out. We circle back and watched him for 2-3 hours, 7 year old, 170ish, maybe 180. I am tempted, good rest, 212 yards... All the time in the world. He has a beautiful cape (Pretty Boy). We could load him whole in the boat. This could be a World Record, if only I had a satellite phone to call the Guinness folks (hello, has anyone ever shot a bighorn ram in flip flops?)

(the spot on the nose is dust on the lense of the spotting scope
View attachment 319874
Click to expand...
That would be super tempting, especially for the flip flop cool factor. I also would love to bring a ram into get checked loaded whole in the back of my truck.
 
Sean is like wow, that is very nice ram. Dean say he is a nice ram but you can do better and please don’t screw-up this fall. In other words it is early. I decide to pass. That night I lie awake thinking, did I do the right thing? Enjoy the journey. You wait 30-40 years for a tag, do you want it over in one day or 40, big ram or great big ram, no ram...? So many questions, so few answers, but I am sheep hunting, life is good!

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Oct 9. We spotted a new ram from Bob’s knob this morning. The ram is a mile away, did I mention I added a Leica rangefinder to my pack? With the Swaro it is easy to see he isn’t the one. We head to the river, we refind Pretty Boy, today he is at 325 yards. Maybe he is the back up if I can’t find “the one”?

Is it possible to see this too many times? I don't think so.
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Oct 10th. Same ram from Bob’s knob. We head upriver and don’t find any sheep. We grill cheeseburgers on the boat and do a little fishing Life is gooood! Sean has to head home. Dean and I head downriver, we find 5 rams, 3 were 7.5 year olds. Great day. Rain and lightning at the end. We find pretty boy again but now he is at 415 yards.
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Oct 11th The ram at Bobs Knob is closer and not as big as we hoped. A 6.5 year old 160 something. We go to town for boat gas and breakfast. We are on the river by 11:30, light rain. We see 14 more rams, just none that stand out. I have never trophy hunted in my life and now I am passing up over a dozen rams in one day, this hunt is everything I hoped and more! Camp life with friends has been awesome, why would I want this to end. I haven't even mentioned my new friend Kevin, he doesn't have a tag but his friend does, he is my "text a friend a ram photo" and I get an estimated score back almost instantly.

Oct 12th. We wake to rain and low clouds, can’t see much. Back to town for breakfast and gather a little local intel. We spot the ram near Bobs knob in the evening, it is the only sheep of the day.

Change has arrived
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Oct 13th. We are up early and glassing (same hunt, different day). We spot two rams glassing but neither are big. On the river we find a group of 3 rams. One deserves a better look, after a closer look we decide he is tightly curled and wouldn’t score great. We also find a group of 14 ewes and lambs.

Oct 14th, We awake to 32 degrees fog/low clouds, burr. It has been so warm that this seems really cold. We spot 5 rams from Bob’s knob, they are split up across the landscape. We spot another 5 rams and 10 ewes and lambs from another glassing spot. We got a hot tip to look east from this spot as you can get past the private land by hiking around it. We have been looking west from this spot but seeing only a few sheep. Now looking east we spot several bands of sheep including some rams. As we are trying to triangulate the location of these rams, my hunting partner spots a ram 400 yards below the truck on a plateau in the middle of this coulee. It appears I could drop into some trees and close the distance to 200 yards easily.
 
This is day 14 of the hunt, this appears to be a nice ram, 180ish. I am very tempted but Dean needs to head home and deal with some obligations. He leaves and I a hem and haw about what to do. Also, it is very warm out again. Can I pack it out myself? Do I want to do that? I drive a bit, and hike a bit, glass a bit and decide that is a nice ram. I go back to check and he has disappeared… Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.

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Another friend arrives, Levi (he tends to just show up). He offers to hunt with me for a couple days and then his friend is arriving with a ewe tag for 680. We have a couple hours of daylight and he has a tip on a 195 ram. We hike in and glass and hike and glass, we don’t find any sheep but this area has more timber than most.

I should mention at this point, in the back of my mind, since September opener, several folks have said, "November here is the best show on earth". In other words, you should wait until the rut...

Oct 15th. We spot a ram from our new glassing spot. He is cruising and we never get a good look with the Swaro. We meet our friends from Lewistown and they show us photos of rams they saw yesterday on the river. One of the rams is just downriver. They offer to take us for a quick look in their boat. We find the ram and play a bit of cat and mouse (we hike in and he goes around the hill). We relocate him and hike in close but apparently 4 people inside 150 yards is too much. Nice ram but not huge. Not gonna lie, ready to pull the trigger after looking at this many rams. We run further downriver but don’t spot any rams. We head upriver and find two groups of ewes. Did I mention we have been seeing pre rut activity the last few days? Rams are starting to follow ewes, butt heads, etc. There are two good rams with the ewes but they are a long ways away. It is late in the day. We decide to “charge” the hill and get a better look. We get to where we can glass and a different group ewes start standing up 60 yards away. Unfortunately, the other group of ewes and rams are no where to be seen. One ram was in the 190 range for what we saw. So much for a quick river trip. It was so nice of my new friends to spend their day trying to get me a ram. Amazing day in amazing country with great friends! They close by saying, “if you get something down call us, we will come help and take pictures”.
 
THANK YOU for this write-up! It's bringing back so many memories from my ewe hunt across the river - the highs and lows of drawing and then being told they went over quota and might take the tag away, the roads, the gumbo, the sunrises, the views... good stuff!

I met a guy with a 482 tag (and his buddy) at the hotel the day after I got mine. Rainy night, November 2 if I recall correctly. Wondering if it might have been you...? (PM if you like.) Nice guys - I've wondered a time or two how their hunt turned out.

Looking forward to hearing more.
 
BrowningCitori said:
It's the off season...trying to stretch this out until...tags are drawn for 2024....haha...more to come today...maybe
Click to expand...
I've been applying in the west for 11 years and this thread, this post in particular, has made me wish for draw season to end the quickest. I can't wait to hear the whole story and hear/see how this amazing adventure ends up! Keep it coming.
 
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