My brother and I spotted my ram early on the second morning on the next trip to the sheep area. We got above him from the access road, hiked out to a vantage point where we spotted the ram again. He was out in the open, grassy basin above the cliffs and steeper country below. I was planning a stalk while Mike got a few pictures of him through his spotting scope. He was gradually working his way toward the rougher country as I began closing the distance. Mike had his three boys (still sleeping) that he had to get back to so he decided to stay back and watch until he had to leave. He was planning to do some bear hunting with his boys. The ram moved ahead of me out of sight feeding slowly down the rocky ridge. I finally spotted the ram about 35 yards in front of me and he hadn’t spotted me yet. He crossed the ridge in front of me at about 35 yards but it felt a little far so I passed. The ram crossed the rocky ridge in front of me and made it into a rock slide and up into another small ridge spine about 60 yards away. I tried to stay with him, following him when he was walking straight away. But, I think they have eyes in the back of their horns and he busted me again. I thought I might get away with it because I was screened by a small tree. The stare-down lasted about 5 minutes it seemed, and then he turned and ran down a few benches to about 150 yards away. I watched him for about an hour until he finally bedded there. I started my next stalk on him. When I got in about 50-60yards, he heard me and headed downhill again. I lost sight of him so I scouted the benches below sneaking and peaking over ledges, but had no luck finding him. I finally gave up after about an hour of looking and started to head back up the mountain toward my truck.
I stopped to take a rest after about 5 min of climbing and ended up spotting the ram out in the middle of a huge cliff across on the next ridge from me. He was about 400 yards away, not looking in my direction, but I think he was probably watching me the whole time from that vantage point. I thought about trying to get to him but there was a huge rockslide between us. Besides that, he was bedded on a small shelf on the face of a cliff. There was no way I was going to attempt that. I was starting to feel a little discouraged and beaten by this point so I opted to head to my truck and leave the ram. After reaching the truck, I headed back to the bottom to watch to see if he would move and possibly give me another opportunity. After about 5 minutes of looking at him through my spotting scope, he got up. He then walked up the small shelf and out onto the top of the ridge where he then began to feed. It was about 3:30 or 4:00 with a few hours until dark so it took me a few minutes to decide if I should try again or leave him alone and look for another ram. The next thing I knew I was heading back up to the top to go give it one last try before the day was over. I hiked over to the same ridge he was on and started still hunting down the ridge to the ledge where he came out and where I last saw him. I thought I would see him if he was out feeding somewhere but I didn’t. I figured he must have gone out onto the side of the ridge, so I started side hilling through the small cliffs and benches. After about 100 yards I peaked around a rock and there he was bedded on a large rock about 30 yards away looking straight at me. Between the small ledge I was standing on and the rock wall I was against, I could not draw my bow. I immediately nocked an arrow and climbed a few steps to the next little bench above me. As my feet reached the bench, the ram began to stand and I was at full draw when he turned broadside. The arrow was on the way and buried up to the fletch. The ram took off away from me and disappeared behind some small rock cliffs about 30 yards from where he was bedded. It looked like he was heading for a small saddle in the ridge that I had come down. I ran to intercept him but I did not see anything or hear anything. On the other side of the saddle there was a huge rockslide and I figured he would be visible if he went out on that. I waited and listened for a minute, checked the saddle for blood and did not find anything. I slowly began working my way back to where he was when I shot him. I was scouring the hill below but I was looking too far. The ram was right in front of me about ten yards away. He had fallen just as he went out of sight only about 30 yard from where I hit him. I could not believe that I finally was going to be able to walk up and handle that awesome animal. It was like a dream. I feel really fortunate and thankful to have hunted such a magnificent animal and will never forget the experiences from that sheep hunting adventure.
Another image of a group of rams
My ram taken from a scope
Topic: Dave Windauer"s Beautiful Bighorn!! (Read 5236 times)
