Montana 2024 Ram

BuzzH said:
(cont). So I made the decision to wait until early October since it appeared no more sheep were dying. I figured I would do my first hunt in early October after helping my Dad with his moose permit. So, after he got his moose killed I spent several days hunting sheep. Went with my brother a few days and then solo a few days. I saw several good rams, including an old ram that was radio collared, the last ram with a radio collar in the unit. The fire was still causing problems with glassing, etc. I also lost one day to a severe windstorm that blew a bunch of trees across the main access road into my sheep area.

Decided to take day off and cut my Dad's moose up and while lifting a hind quarter off a meat hook, I heard and felt a loud pop/snap in my bicep. I knew I tore the shit out of something and sure enough I tore the distal tendon in my left arm. I made an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon, and he recommended not fixing it. A decision that so far, seems to be working well.

By this time, I'm thinking what else could go wrong? So, decided to keep hunting and went with a friend of mine that had some time. We looked around and found some rams, but decided to keep looking. Well, that pesky fire crossed the highway and was now burning on the side with most of the rams. We went up and got turned around on the road by the District Ranger who decided to close the road. Probably a good idea and where we talked to him, the fire ended up burning that area to a crisp. It was so frustrating not having a way to get into there to hunt, but I get it, the FS can't risk some dumb sheep hunter getting torched.

I kept in contact with the FS and the biologist to monitor the sheep and what was going on. I decided to wait it out and hope that the fire would be controlled and that the sheep wouldn't suffer any more die off.

So, I traveled back on Nov. 1 and got lucky that the road opened up on November 2 and I started looking for rams again. Went with my friend and brother the first couple days and we looked over a bunch of rams. Spent the next few days doing the same and in all looked at 21 rams that I felt were 5-8+ years old. I hate the terms people use for sheep, but I guess what they would call class 3 and 4 rams. I knew from talking with the biologist that about 20-25 rams in that class were in the unit. So, I was feeling pretty good that with all the scouting and hunting, I had looked at about all the rams in the unit. I'm sure I missed a couple but felt good about what I was seeing.

So, it came down to 3 rams for me and my preference has always been to take a ram at least 8 years old. So, of the three there was one that had a much bigger body than the rest and was sort of a bully. We parked the truck at the top and headed down toward the highway to look over the top 2 rams that I liked. We got lucky and caught them about halfway between the top and the highway and got to see them on the same hillside. I made my mind up, to take the older of the two.

They were just across the draw from us at about 300 yards, but by backing up, and dropping into a draw we could easily cut the distance in half or better. So, that's what we did. We snuck into 130 yards and, according to the video I sat there for about 14 minutes waiting for the ram to clear the other sheep in the herd and turn broadside. He finally cleared and I really took my time to make sure I made a perfect shot. I also had decided to use my first hunting rifle that my Dad and Grandfather bought me in 1978, a ruger M77 in 6mm. I recently had a new pacnor barrel installed and refinished the stock. I also had some old style nosler solid base loads that I put together in 1997 that shot very well out of my rifle. So, I looked at him one last time through the scope to make sure he was what I wanted, placed the leupold dot on his heart and pressed the trigger. I knew it was over as he took a slow couple steps uphill and stopped. I shot him again behind the shoulder and he dropped and rolled a hundred yards or so downhill coming to a rest on a small flat spot.

Every once in a long while things you've dreamed about for more than 4 decades actually become reality and I'm still a bit surprised it happened. We worked our way down to the ram and he was everything I like in a bighorn, old ram, big body, roman nose, and just my perfect idea of what a bighorn ram should be.

Considering all the shit that went wrong, it ended up with a much better story than just shooting a ram. The good news is, I never saw any sheep with any problems, lots of up and coming rams, and excellent numbers of lambs. I hope that the die-off was localized and that more hunters in the future can hunt there.

This hunt fulfilled some things for me, I decided a long time ago, my "grand slam" would be any 4 rams of any species. I wanted to draw a local to me sheep tag where I grew up. I wanted to shoot one with my first hunting rifle. I couldn't be any happier that I got the opportunity to see all that happen, never thought it would, and certainly never expected it.

Ram is either 8 or 9, sort of tough to tell at the bases, I think 8 though.

IMG_20241106_192503.jpg
Click to expand...
Your face says it all @BuzzH

Congrats
 
The biologist you mentioned is fantastic. She has been a tremendous help to me with things far more mundane than sheep.

Congrats on the hometown ram!
 
Any ram is special, but shooting one with your first rifle is very cool. My first rifle was also an M77 of that era.
Well done Buzz. Thanks for the recap.
 
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