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I've been watching this thread for the last 2 years as a lurker. Seeing close to legal rams rams is something I expected in the unlimiteds with all of the chaos and dudes who just want to put one down. But seeing the main guide and a hunting legend involved in bragging about shooting a sub legal ram is hard to fathom, I would like to see this ram compared to other confiscated rams over the years. I believe it's more of a black eye for Montana FWP and that something like thishose would go on, public or not.
Valid point. Comparing confiscated rams to boddingtons.
 
Ive been of the opinion any legal UL ram is a trophy kinda rethinking it I wouldnt have pulled the trigger on the one Boddingtons wife did no way
With me being just a regular guy it probably would have been taken from me
 
The day was also sunny and warmer so I didn't have to worry about hypothermia.
EDIT: Added some information and reference to the thread: "My experience with hypothermia" here on HuntTalk. If I ever figure out to move my trip info from the GPS to the laptop, I will post an image of the map so all can see just how short of a trip, in distance, can turn potentially lethal. One thing that I always liked about hunting Montana wilderness in the old 502 season structure was that I felt safer there, even in sub-zero and windy weather, than late Fall and Winter hunting on the Olympic Peninsula. My insulating layers always worked in the dry cold of the Absaroka Beartooth, and fire was always available by dropping down to timber.

Hypothermia is definitely no joke. I'm embarrassed to admit that I just had my second close call with it Friday night, 29 October. Despite the embarrassment, I relate the story because there are tips therein, though no guarantees, which might help others. Reading through the preceding comments in "My experience with hypothermia", one will note some similarities and repeated themes--pay heed.

But for a couple items that I threw in my pack against the possibility, which were not really enough had things developed even worse, a half-day mushrooming trip could have finished me.

I got a late start, so figured I would not be getting too deep in the woods. Still, I had a destination in mind that I'd long been wanting to visit, so I pushed on farther than needed to fill my bucket.

I was navigating through the very old second growth partially by dead-reckoning while responding to the terrain and vegetation, and partially by occasionally correcting my course toward the waypoint I'd marked on GPS unit, which is something I rarely use. The trip was as much to evaluate the GPS as it was mushroom harvesting. When I got to the spot, I realized I had not been paying enough attention to the time.

I knew there was a trail due North and downhill of me. Distance to the trail was shorter than what I had already traversed. If I got to it, the walk back to my vehicle would be longer, but also easier and safer after dark. I had a crank-rechargeable flashlight, an emergency bivi bag, and a fleece vest in my pack; but I did not have nearly enough insulation and dry clothing to spend a night in the cold wet woods. I was already wet from the knees down from pushing through damp bushes and kneeling on moss while cutting mushrooms.

Not long after heading downhill, I realized that I was likely in trouble when I left closed-canopy forest and began encountering numerous blow-downs and salal tangles. Also, I was descending small ridges between feeder creeks that kept merging and forcing me to climb out of the deeper ravines formed by the merged streams. I had been to the general area only once before; it had been down on the trail level and I remembered seeing mossy-floored forest above me on that trip.

I started downhill before 5:00 PM, had maybe a little over half-a-mile to the trail. Sometime after 6:00 PM, with the last of daylight fading, I pulled off my damp shirt and undershirt, donned the dry fleece vest and a knit cap, then put the other two shirts back on over the vest, keeping the driest and fluffy layer next to my skin. I drank some fluid, ate half of a granola bar, and contemplated how to spend a miserable night. While evaluating the prospects, I began chilling. I had a lighter, some matches and a knife with me. But there was no way I was going to be able to start, let alone sustain a fire for a twelve-hour night in the soaked woods. I placed the mushroom bucket into my pack to free my left hand for the flashlight--I carried a homemade staff that doubles for digging in forest duff in my right--and grimly continued down through the blow-downs, hoping they would give way to open understory before long or at least not snap my legs.

I'll spare you most of the miserable details of the next five+ hours. Suffice to say I fell off logs numerous times. (My balance after dark is shot; I stumble just getting to the bathroom at night if I don't turn on my nightstand light.) On one fall, I did a literal face-plant, distorting my wire-framed glasses between my nose and the ground, the nose bridge bar scraping a fair sample of skin off my nose. I also had to crawl under quite a few crisscrossed logs that posed too much risk to crawl over or along with my poor balance. In the wet brush and soggy ground, those crawling passages just wet and chilled me further. At least, I did not break a leg, which was my greatest fear given the conditions of travel.

Once I finally made my way to the trail, the rest of the hike was short and uneventful other than I felt it was getting colder. I got out of my wet clothes at home, drank a cup of tea and turned in at 12:20 AM. It took another twenty hours to finally get comfortably warm. Yesterday, Saturday morning, was the first full-coverage frost across my shop roof that I have seen this Fall.
 
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Man been out hunting deer and elk here in Wyoming had a lot of catching up to do with y’all hope everyone is having a good season and hope someone has had true success on a real trophy in the UL units I’m still planning and researching for my hunt and the training is going pretty good. Would love to hear some stories from this year from you guys happy hunting and stay safe everyone
 
hope everyone is having a good season and hope someone has had true success on a real trophy in the UL units
There was indeed one heck of a fine ram taken in the units so far this year--we're all hoping to read that story. I have it from a good source that the trophy was definitely earned. I guess I have to say that about at least two rams this year, as one was taken by a bowhunter! (I hear it is also a great ram; but I have not seen a photo of it yet.)
 
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