Written by Ray Maack | Aug 2, 2025 6:00:00 AM
This story starts out like many other sheep stories. The hardest part is getting the tag. I had been applying for tags in the state draws for the last 20+ years and coming up unsuccessful. My buddy, Dominic Rowley, said he was going to Reno for sheep week and asked if I wanted to come along. He told me there were many raffles, a Less Than One social gathering, and many options for winning a tag. With my cousin, Alan Piombo, retiring and moving to the Reno area, I thought this would be a cool opportunity to visit him and the three of us could go to the Sheep Show.
Off to the show we went on Thursday. We went to the exhibit hall, started walking around, and came across the raffles Wild Sheep Foundation had. I bought a handful of tickets and put 11 of them in the hunt for Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep in Alberta, Canada with Carter Outfitting. Fast forward to Saturday afternoon and the raffle drawing began. One by one, the winners were announced. They got to this hunt, and my name was called. Standing and hearing my name, I just stood there in shock. I knew I had heard my name, but it was not registering in my brain.
Dominic and Alan started hooting and hollering and yelling at me to walk up to get my winning hunt. Carter Outfitting had a booth there, so after filling out my paperwork, I went and introduced myself to Scott. He told me about the hunt – what to expect and what paperwork I would need to enter Canada. He also told me the hunt would be this fall, the first of September, and we would be in contact.
At the end of August, Dominic and I made our way to Hinton, Alberta. Upon arriving, we met up with my guide, Rhett. He went over last-minute things, and then we headed out to the staging area where they had a pack string of horses. We went through our gear and started packing horses. It was a seven-hour ride to camp. That was hard on the bottom with only one 10-minute break halfway in. Once in camp, we settled in. I took the next day to rest and get adjusted to the altitude as this boy came from sea level on the Oregon coast.
After a day of scouting, the hunt began. Every day had long horse rides and climbing mountains with many ewes and lambs spotted along with the occasional band of rams. It quickly became obvious that turning up a good ram was not going to be easy. A blister on the back of my heel on day one did not make things any easier.
On the evening of day 11, assistant guide Nick and wrangler Trey turned up a ram. Nick camped up on the hill all night to keep track of him, and it rained that night. We were up early with a several hour horse ride to the base of the mountain. The long, steep climb to the top about killed me. Once we arrived to where Nick was on the top of the mountain, we were greeted with fog. Glassing through the fog breaks, we could not turn up the ram. Rhett decided we should ease down the ridge, looking off of both sides as we went. Nick climbed higher, paralleling the ridge to glass across to us. The ram was gone.
Nick looked over the other side of the ridge he was on and found the ram. He motioned us to hurry over. I took one look at how far down we had to go and back up the other side and then asked Rhett, “Are you guys trying to kill me?” We both laughed and busted butts over there.
Once we arrived, Nick had the ram in the spotting scope. Rhett and Nick talked back in forth and quickly determined the ram was legal and we needed to kill it. We moved down the ridge to get in better shooting position. 514 yards was the closest we could get. I settled in behind my Nightforce scope and asked if everyone was ready for the shot. It was a yes, and the shot rang out. I heard, “You hit him good, but put another round in him!” which I did. Then all I heard was, “He’s down!” I fell over backwards.
The mental and physical exhaustion felt like it had just released from my body. I heard Rhett and Nick screaming and hollering, “You got him!” This was followed by a dog pile and celebration. This was all on the 12th day of the hunt (September 12, 2024).
We made our way down to the ram through the rocks to find he had slid down the hill about 150 yards and then fell off a 40-foot embankment. Luckily, he had stopped there because he would have fallen off a 200-foot embankment from there. The pictures, caping, and deboning started as darkness was not far away. After loading our packs, the rock climbing began followed by the steep descent down the rocks to get to the creek bottom. It was almost dark when we got to the creek bottom, and with at least another four hours of packing to get to the horses, we decided to stay the night there. We started a big fire, had sheep meat for dinner, and then it was a long, cold, miserable, yet fun night. Finally, morning came and we loaded our packs to head up the canyon to reach the horses. After at least a four-hour pack, it was a great sight to see Trey and Dominic coming over the ridge with the horses.
Back at camp, we packed up and rode out on Saturday. I had to stay until Monday, September 16th (which is my birthday) to have my ram checked by Fish and Game. What a birthday present! From Fish and Game in Edson, Alberta to home was a 15 and a half-hour drive straight through. I got home at 4:30 in the morning. It was one hell of a hunt with great people. It was the hardest, most fun thing I have ever done hands down.
Having patience and a never give up attitude is what paid off for this hunt. Thank you to everyone who made this trip possible and to Wild Sheep Foundation for having opportunities like this for the common person to be able to have a hunt of a lifetime.