It started back mid June when the draw results came out for Montana's big three. No goat or moose and I wasn't eligible for a bighorn ram yet. On the upside I hadn't even known I could put in for a bighorn ewe till I was filling out the application. Low and behold I had drawn a bighorn ewe for up on the north side of the Missouri Breaks. The Breaks are incredible country, like upside down mountains and plenty rugged enough for anybody. I was very excited to be able to go chase sheep again even if it was just a ewe. Come on Sept...
Low and behold I had a terrible time getting away this fall, just too much going on at home and even though it's in the same state it was a seven hour drive to hunting unit. After a few false starts I saw a break in the weather, said heck with it and just took off. One thing you have to consider in the Breaks is if it's wet nothing moves, the gumbo mud is pretty much impossible. I have a friend up there that many times has to chain up a vehicle to get to the mailbox.
Taking advantage of the weather was a must and I happened to time it perfectly with several days of fantastic weather. I arrived at my hunting Unit early morning and started glassing where my research had shown the sheep should be. After a day and a half and nothing but a couple dandy mulie bucks and a ton of elk I found a high spot and made a couple calls. One incredible thing is even though your 60 miles from the nearest town you still have pretty decent cell reception.... After talking to a buddy and the local FWP Biologist I learned the sheep had moved a couple drainages to the East.
I drove twenty or so miles of the jeep trails headed east and found a new camp that I hoped would be closer to the sheep. It was noonish so I headed back into the breaks to see what I could find. Five miles or so of hiking and glassing later I rounded a bend and saw a dozen light colored sheep butts going away from me. I was pretty sure I hadn't been busted as they were still 400 yards away. I dropped down off the rim to keep from skylining myself and moved as fast as I could after the sheep. In the coulee the sheep were leaving I found the reason they were there. A beautiful pond with tracks all around it was hidden right in the bottom of the canyon. I circled thru the terrain to get ahead of the sheep but it was noisy going and when I peeked around the rocks I was using for cover nearly every eyeball was looking my direction. Time to back out and wait for a better opportunity...
I was up and out early the next morning so when first light arrived I was glassing the bedded sheep a half mile away. They were bedded in a perfect spot for the stalk backed up against a cliff with the ground sloping away and the wind in my favor. Thirty minutes later I was above them crawling on my belly to the edge of the cliff. It was sketchy going when I realized a half doz young rams had gotten up and were grazing out from the cliff base. This put them where they could see me as I worked my way in for the shot. After a couple suspicious stares I decided to back out and come in at a different angle that would put me out of their line of sight. I finally started to rise up behind a burnt off pine snag getting ready to draw on the first ewe I saw. As I looked over the ten or so sheep all I saw were young rams. That's when I caught movement to my left and saw several ewes a hundred yards away grazing their way back in the direction of the pond I'd found the evening before...
I thought there still has to be a ewe right here below me and continued to raise up ready to take a quick shot. A couple of the rams finally spotted me and bolted down the slope with the rest close behind. Then out runs one lone ewe and her lamb from right under me. She stopped 25 or 30 yards out at a hard quartering angle. I thought no problem, drew, shot and watched my arrow zip into the dirt just to the left of her shoulder. Needless to say that was the end of that stalk, I couldn't believe I'd blown the shot.
I plopped down right there and watched the rams and one ewe bound to the edge of a nearby canyon and disappear over the edge. Looking over my shoulder I could see the nine ewes that had gone around me slowly grazing away toward the pond. The ewes were out in the wide open with no chance for a stalk. Time to sit down, eat an apple, kick myself in the butt and regroup.
After thirty minutes or so I decided to go check out the ram herd and see how far they had gone. I eased to the edge of the canyon and peeked over into a place I knew I wasn't going to shoot a sheep. Then I spotted the ewe, lamb and three of the rams bedded on a bench a hundred yards nearly straight below me and they were probably only half way to the bottom. Having nothing better to do I circled around one of the mounds and went over the edge to see how close I could get to them. I climbed down sheep trails to just above them and peeked over the edge. There were five sets of eyeballs staring right at me with very little concern. These sheep feel pretty secure out on the cliffs knowing they can out maneuver pretty much any other critter they encounter. Shooting any of them would have been pretty easy but it would have taken a helicopter to get them out. They eventually got nervous and bolted over the edge going down three nearly vertical steps out of sight. I slowly climbed back up to check on the little ewe herd.
Topic: Missouri Breaks Sheep Hunt (Read 2200 times)
