Intense Scouting and Family Support for Bighorn Success
Drawing a Rocky Mountain sheep tag is more than just a hunting opportunity, it is a celebration of conservation efforts as a limited number of tags aims to ensure the sustainability of these iconic populations. The excitement surrounding the draw is not only about the pursuit of a trophy but also about participating in the responsible management and preservation of a species that holds a special place in the heart of every wilderness enthusiast.
As I applied for the draw with my 10 bonus points, I never imagined there was chance I would actually be hunting sheep for at least three more decades. I received a call from a friend that bank accounts had been hit by Game and Fish, and my mind could not process what the $300 deducted from my account could be. Possibly my buddies and I had all got deer tags together? It had to be a sheep tag, but in my mind, it still seemed impossible. A week later, my Portal in Game and Fish confirmed that the next five months would be consumed with the preparation and pursuit of a Rocky Mountain bighorn ram.
I began to prepare for the hunt immediately. My close friend Jeff with Evolution Physical Therapy helped me get ready for the physical aspect of the hunt by training me three days a week. At home, I used VR goggles at night to walk along cliffs, play rock climbing games, and watch videos of skydiving to help with my “love of heights.” I had some experience Coues deer hunting in unit 27, but I needed to begin scouting for sheep.
My first trip up to scout was with my friend PJ from Nutrioso. We spent the first expedition slowly driving the steep roads, stopping to pack in a mile or so and glass the country. By the end of that first scouting trip, we had located over a dozen sheep but not the ram of my dreams. It became apparent to me that the most amazing part of having a bighorn sheep tag was how helpful people were when the topic came up. After a particularly hard scouting hike in August, my buddy PJ and I went to take a swim in some pools off Blue River Road. We met some other hunters there who gave us some helpful advice and we parted ways. A week later, they managed to track us down through friends of friends and sent us pictures of a very nice ram and an onX Waypoint where they saw him. Never in my life has anyone gone out of their way to help me locate big game, but holding the only sheep tag for a unit seems to have its perks.
The scouting continued every three to four weeks for the months leading up to the hunt. Good friends and family ventured into the mountains with me to find an old ram. Trips were long days of hard work, laughter, shared experiences, and the joy of spending quality time together in the great outdoors. The memories forged during these scouting trips become lasting reminders of the special connection between individuals brought together by a shared love for hunting and the outdoors.
One other amazing experience before the hunt was the Arizona Game and Fish hunting clinic for all sheep tag holders. Participating in this clinic offered me the invaluable opportunity to gain practical skills, knowledge, and ethical hunting practices in a one-day crash course. We were able to speak with game wardens from our unit and hear from those who had spent decades mastering the art of hunting sheep.
Finally, after months of preparation, the day came to leave for the hunt. I loaded my trailer up with two weeks of firewood, food, and everything I thought I could possibly need and headed north. It was snowing when I arrived in unit 27, and it was a slow drive down Blue River Road with my loaded down Four-Runner and trailer. I was relieved to find my desired camp spot near the area where I had seen sheep on each scouting trip was not taken when I arrived.
While setting up camp the day before the hunt opened, I looked across the small valley and 400 yards away stood the largest ram I had seen in my life. Immediately, the little devil on my left shoulder was screaming in my ear to shoot him and drag him under a tree, but I resisted that devil and instead watched the entire day as they slowly made their way up the mountain and bedded beneath a far off peak that evening. As friends and family arrived to help me hunt the following morning, I showed them pictures of the ram and we all reveled in anticipation of opening morning and harvesting that ram. Opening morning had other ideas. We awoke to inches of new snow and all the surrounding mountains socked in with clouds. By the afternoon when the clouds finally dissipated, the herd was nowhere to be seen. We spent the rest of that day scouring the mountainside for the giant ram and finding routes that would allow us access to him.
On day two, we awoke before dawn and enjoyed freshly made breakfast burritos and cowboy coffee as we climbed behind our spotting scopes and aimed them to the top of the nearby peaks. My heart jumped as I spotted the herd again near the top of a mountain east of camp. There he was bedded on the edge of a cliff, watching the other rams and ewes meander around him. My 76-year-old father and my good friend Bray volunteered to stay in camp and keep eyes on the old ram while Cameron, PJ, Heath, and I set out to try to get to a peak we believed would be 700-800 yards away.
After hours of hiking up to the peak, we arrived only to find the ram was not visible, but camp reported to us that he was still bedded, so we pressed on. We worked our way across a valley and were able to set up 375 yards away from the ram. Over the previous months, I had watched hundreds of videos of rams being taken and falling without breaking, but I needed the old ram to stand up. I set up and watched him through my scope for what seemed like 15 minutes when suddenly an elk hunter’s shot went off miles away. The ram stood up, and my heart rate accelerated. I waited until he turned broadside, facing downhill, and slowly squeezed the trigger. The report of the shot echoed through the canyon, and the ram took one final lunge forward and fell. My father told me later that he could hear our shouts of success at base camp miles away.
As I approached the downed ram, I was overwhelmed by the profound experience that had just occurred. The ram was exactly what I had worked for, prayed for, and imagined in my mind for many months. He was an old warrior with the mass and battle scars to prove it. We quickly got our trophy pictures and went to work caping and getting the quarters secured for the hike out. We made it out of the steep mountains with only our headlamps to guide us the last quarter mile. The sense of accomplishment we all felt sitting around the campfire that night is not something I can put into words, it has to be experienced.
Boone & Crockett scored my ram at 187 4/8" gross and 186 4/8" net at 11.5 years old. He will make an impressive wall mount, but as I reflect on the six months of time that I held a magical sheep tag in my hand, the real prize to me is the relationships with friends and family who joined me every step of the way and the memories we made in the mountains of the Blue River Hunt Area.