Silver15tacoma
Active member
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2020
- Messages
- 55
Taking it back to 2023 when surprisingly I drew a Rocky Mountain Sheep Ewe tag. This was a new hunt (only been around for 3 years at the time) and my odds of drawing was less than 1%. Needless to say I was very happy with my successful email.
Not knowing anything about that unit I quickly began my e-scout process….plus figured out where the hell the unit was at. Through my research I discovered that it was a super remote mountain range in the middle of some salt flats. Access was impossible with bad rains. So I guess I started praying for no rain?
Couldn’t find much information on the unit online (since it was such a new hunt). I did read a few threads on here about sheep hunting since I have never done it before so thank you Hunttalk! Also called the biologist but didn’t get much information from him other than “please don’t shoot a collared one, you can but please don’t”. Couldn’t go scout because I have a very busy summer work schedule. Guess I was going in blind.
October rolls around and me and a buddy make the journey to the hunt unit. It was definitely very remote/middle of no where. Didn’t see another person for at least half of the (6 hour) drive. Never expected to be hunting in country like this so I was thrilled. Got to the mountain range where the sheep were just before dark (day before the hunt). We threw up a quick glass of the mountains from the flats but no sheep. Slightly discouraged we then traveled further along the mountain range to where we would be hunting in the morning.
Day one of the hunt we start glassing right from camp. 10 minutes later we glass up our first sheep! It was a group of 5-6 ewes with one ram traversing a rock face at the very top of the mountain range. A good distance away. We then watch the sheep for another hour while also trying to pick up other groups of sheep. After not being able to pick up other sheep we decided to say “fxck it” and go after them. We didn’t know if we were lucky or seeing sheep right off the bat was a common occurrence, so not wanting to miss our chance off we went.
After hiking all the way up the mountain range, well I mean climb our way up the mountain range we didn’t see any sheep. Not wanting this treacherous-hot-sheep country-death climb to be for nothing I decided to go over one more ridge and check if the sheep were hiding just on the other side. As our luck would have it they were! Now it was a group of 10ish ewes, 3 lambs and 2 rams! Quickly I got as steady as I could and lined up a shot.
Had to shoot quick as in all of my genius I walked over the last ridge skylined and they had me pegged. Asked for a range from my buddy and it was 300 yards. I got as steady as I could and let one fly from my Browning BAR .300WM.
Unfortunately hit her far back so I hit her with another right in sweet spot. She started rolling and we were both praying she wouldn’t roll off a massive cliff. It was a tense few moments but thankfully she came to a stop. Did not want my sheep to be extreme tenderized.
Making our way to the sheep I couldn’t believe it was real. Getting up to the sheep she was an old broken horned ewe. I was stoked! After a million pictures (who knows when I’d be sheep hunting again) we quickly butchered it and started making our way down the mountain. Neither of us rolled or fell into slot canyons and we made it to the truck (barely).
Even though it was just a ewe I got to go sheep hunting! Something I didn’t think I would get to do for a very long time. Was an awesome experience that I’ll never forget! Plus the meat was honestly the best wild game meat I’ve ever had! Definitely emptied it out of the freezer quick!
Not knowing anything about that unit I quickly began my e-scout process….plus figured out where the hell the unit was at. Through my research I discovered that it was a super remote mountain range in the middle of some salt flats. Access was impossible with bad rains. So I guess I started praying for no rain?
Couldn’t find much information on the unit online (since it was such a new hunt). I did read a few threads on here about sheep hunting since I have never done it before so thank you Hunttalk! Also called the biologist but didn’t get much information from him other than “please don’t shoot a collared one, you can but please don’t”. Couldn’t go scout because I have a very busy summer work schedule. Guess I was going in blind.
October rolls around and me and a buddy make the journey to the hunt unit. It was definitely very remote/middle of no where. Didn’t see another person for at least half of the (6 hour) drive. Never expected to be hunting in country like this so I was thrilled. Got to the mountain range where the sheep were just before dark (day before the hunt). We threw up a quick glass of the mountains from the flats but no sheep. Slightly discouraged we then traveled further along the mountain range to where we would be hunting in the morning.
Day one of the hunt we start glassing right from camp. 10 minutes later we glass up our first sheep! It was a group of 5-6 ewes with one ram traversing a rock face at the very top of the mountain range. A good distance away. We then watch the sheep for another hour while also trying to pick up other groups of sheep. After not being able to pick up other sheep we decided to say “fxck it” and go after them. We didn’t know if we were lucky or seeing sheep right off the bat was a common occurrence, so not wanting to miss our chance off we went.
After hiking all the way up the mountain range, well I mean climb our way up the mountain range we didn’t see any sheep. Not wanting this treacherous-hot-sheep country-death climb to be for nothing I decided to go over one more ridge and check if the sheep were hiding just on the other side. As our luck would have it they were! Now it was a group of 10ish ewes, 3 lambs and 2 rams! Quickly I got as steady as I could and lined up a shot.
Had to shoot quick as in all of my genius I walked over the last ridge skylined and they had me pegged. Asked for a range from my buddy and it was 300 yards. I got as steady as I could and let one fly from my Browning BAR .300WM.
Unfortunately hit her far back so I hit her with another right in sweet spot. She started rolling and we were both praying she wouldn’t roll off a massive cliff. It was a tense few moments but thankfully she came to a stop. Did not want my sheep to be extreme tenderized.
Making our way to the sheep I couldn’t believe it was real. Getting up to the sheep she was an old broken horned ewe. I was stoked! After a million pictures (who knows when I’d be sheep hunting again) we quickly butchered it and started making our way down the mountain. Neither of us rolled or fell into slot canyons and we made it to the truck (barely).
Even though it was just a ewe I got to go sheep hunting! Something I didn’t think I would get to do for a very long time. Was an awesome experience that I’ll never forget! Plus the meat was honestly the best wild game meat I’ve ever had! Definitely emptied it out of the freezer quick!
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