“Dad, did you put me in for any cool tags this year?” my 16-year-old son asked. “Just the normal Washington stuff,” I replied.
“That’s cool. I was kind of thinking that it would be cool to hunt sheep this year,” he said in a hopeful tone.
After a chuckle and a “you and me both” reply, I explained to him how long the odds for drawing a sheep tag in Washington were, especially with only 6 points. He then went back to his room. This was the day before the Washington draw.
The following day, I opened my Washington account and saw the familiar red “not selected” on every hunt I applied for. I then went to my oldest son’s account. Same result. Then Rhett’s. I noticed one green response. I assumed it was for a doe tag or an Eastern Washington whitetail tag, which we draw every couple of years. The last hunt listed was Any Sheep. Chelan Butte B. I immediately closed the account and rechecked. It was still there. Sure that this couldn’t be real, I immediately logged on to Rhett’s account to try to buy the tag. It wasn’t there, and it was after 5 p.m. on Friday night.
After a weekend of assuming something wasn’t right, an 8 a.m. Monday morning call into WDFW and we had a tag purchased. It was real. Then a couple of weeks later, we got an email that there was an error in the Washington draw and some winners of tags actually didn’t draw and vice versa. I knew it was too good to be true. However, low and behold upon rechecking, he still drew the tag. Now it was real!
Rhett had had a tough couple of months health wise that caused him to miss the last two months of school. Then, an adverse reaction to the medication he was given caused him to be unable to move quickly or ride in a car without passing out. The symptoms got better each week, but it would be August before he would be able to really return to normalcy. This meant I had some scouting to do. After numerous calls to anyone I could find who had drawn the tag, the local WDFW biologist, and the Washington State Sheep Foundation, I had an idea of where to start.
My first scouting trip in early July resulted in finding a bachelor group with 21 rams. Two stood out, but I knew Rhett would be happy with about half of them. After a couple more trips over, I was starting to figure things out. Rhett was finally feeling better in early August, so we decided to go over for the day and take a hike. I would show him where we were going to be hunting, hopefully show him some sheep, get some exercise, and take a long hike.
My long-time hunting buddy, Steve, was going to join us. Steve and I have been talking about sheep hunting for 20 years. We were finally going sheep hunting together.
I had a route mapped out on onX where we would start at the top of the butte, go down a ridge, cut an old abandoned road that would lead us back to Steve’s truck, and cut right through the heart of the area. I figured it would be about a seven-mile hike, mostly downhill.
The weather called for a high of about 90. We got an early start to get ahead of the heat and hopefully be back to the truck by noon. Five minutes into the hike, we immediately found rams. There were about a dozen, with one full curl ram and another heavily broomed ram that may have been bigger. Rhett was excited. That’s where things started to go downhill. As we started
to work our way down the ridge to the old road, it started to get hot. The high temperature reached 103, and smoke from a fire on the north side of Lake Chelan was starting to settle in. Rhett also suffers from asthma and was really starting to struggle.
As both Rhett and Steve were starting to struggle a bit, we decided we should split up. Rhett and Steve would keep going down the ridge as the Columbia River was about 1,000 yards below, and I would continue to the truck and come pick them up. After a couple hours of hiking and a couple of really nice residents who lived on the river helped Steve and Rhett, we were finally off the butte with Rhett’s first taste of sheep country and a hell of a story.
That was the last trip we were going to be able to make before October. Rhett had drawn the late tag that started mid-October. I took the week before the season off to scout and learn a couple of areas I hadn’t looked at this summer.
I spent most of the week behind the spotting scope, finding sheep nearly every time I set up. There was no shortage of good rams. Steve joined me mid-week, and we were able to consistently locate a group of three rams, two of which were shooters in a spot that would be accessible for Rhett.
The night before opening day, another friend, Rob, joined as he was going to try to film/document the hunt for us. As there was another ram hunter, two juvenile ram hunters, and two ewe hunters who all had the same season in a relatively small area, we weren’t sure whether to hunt the three rams we had patterned or a sleeper ram I had found multiple times in a different part of the area that we didn’t expect to get any pressure. Since the season was a month long, we decided to go after the two bigger rams we had patterned. If that didn’t work out, we would go after the other.
Opening morning was finally here, and we were able to find the target rams. They were within a couple hundred yards of where we had seen them the day before. We were able to get on them. Rhett set up in some rocks about 100 yards above them. Unfortunately, the two bigger rams were side by side, quartering to us and staring at us. Neither gave Rhett a good shot, and they ran around the corner into another ravine. We continued to look for them but never found them. Steve was able to locate another group of six rams a mile or so upriver.
It took a couple of hours to navigate the terrain to get to where we thought the rams were. Rhett and Rob set up on an outcropping of rocks as I snuck up to the next outcropping. I was on top of them. As I peeked over the rocks, all I could see was a mass of horn. I was within archery range of three rams that all looked great to me. I immediately backed out and went back to Rhett. No sooner had I got there than a ram appeared right above us at about 100 yards. We could see that he had mass and that his horns were broomed but were turned up. He was a solid ram. I told Rhett that he was a good ram. There were bigger rams on the mountain, but if he liked this one, he was a good one.
I looked at Rob to get his take on the ram. Before either of us could say anything, Rhett shot. Neither of us were looking at the ram, so we didn’t know if it was a hit. I asked Rhett if he hit him. Rhett’s response was “Dad, there is no way I missed.” The ram had run over a little rise and no further. Rhett had made a perfect shot. He had his ram, and a hunter was born!