Gnarly Country Ram

As tag application season rolled around, I reached out to a buddy (who shall remain nameless)
as to where he would recommend applying in CO for a sheep tag as he had more knowledge on
sheep units than I – Or so I thought! He suggested S5 as it was a new unit and there were
pictures of huge rams supposedly in this unit. So I put in for S60/S5.

Well, draw results came out and another year was going to pass without drawing a sheep tag.
Then the season took an unexpected turn! Last week of August rolls around and I get a call
from CDOW that a tag was turned back and I had the choice of taking it. I had just 48 hours to
decide so I started making calls to everyone I could find that might have knowledge of S5. All the
information that I was getting was not at all encouraging. Lots of private, hard to access, not a
lot of sheep, smaller rams, thick timber, and oak brush and on and on. But my buddy said I was
crazy if I didn’t take the tag. It’s a sheep tag! Well it wouldn’t be long and I would be second
guessing my decision and thinking he was the crazy one.

S60 and S 5 are not typical sheep country. They are steep and deep loaded with lots of oak
brush, timber, cactus, and boulders the size of houses with limited good vantage points. S5 is
some of the gnarliest roughest country you will set foot in for sheep. Extremely difficult to
navigate and glass making it difficult to locate sheep.

After the 1st 2 weeks in September scouting in S5 without seeing any sheep, I turned to
scouting S60. S60 is primarily private and most of the good sheep country that was private I
was unable to gain access to. However I did start to find sheep but only ewes, lambs, and very
small rams. I would spend the next couple of weeks hiking everything I could access in S60 and
glassing but still not seeing any shooter rams.

More than halfway through the season now and starting to feel the pressure I decided to pack
back into S5 and give it another look over on the 3rd weekend of the hunt. I reached the area I
was going to hunt early in the morning and hiked up to the spot I had previously used for
glassing. After about an hour of glassing and not seeing anything, I was really starting to hit the
wall. I had hunted hard so far for almost 16 days, not including scouting days and was really
starting to get discouraged. I had pretty much decided there was a good chance my tag would
go unfilled. I decide to change my position a little for 1 more look from that spot and finally
spotted some sheep. I just knew there would be a big ram! As luck would have it, I could only
see about 6 sheep but could see movement in the timber behind them, so knew there were
more there.

I decided that I could work my way up my side of the canyon to a point that would put me right
above them and across the canyon. I spent the next hour getting to that point and not long after
getting into position something spooked the sheep out of the timber out onto an open slope
where I could see all the sheep clearly. Complete let down. Only a small half curl ram. So I
spent another hour watching these sheep and glassing the area and then decided to go check a
couple other vantage points and head back to set up camp.

Once camp was set up I headed back to my 1st glassing spot to see if that group was still there
as rut was coming on and there was always the chance a ram might cruise through checking
ewes. As I watched the smaller ram bath in the sun on a rock, I noticed movement in the timber
and then a nice ram stepped out. It was now 4:30 in the afternoon.

I had to make a quick decision. Do I sit tight and hope he would be there in the morning or do I
hightail it to try and get in range before dark and still give myself time to get off the mountain.
You don’t want to be caught on the mountain after dark in this country. Lots of cliffs and easy to
get yourself in a bind. I decided the ram’s position wasn’t going to give any better opportunity
than now so I lit out.

I worked myself to just over 200 yards across the canyon with about 30 minutes of daylight left,
rested my rifle on my backpack and squeezed off my shot. It felt good and looked good but the
ram showed no sign it was hit as it moved off up-slope. So I chambered another one and
squeezed off a second shot and still no sign he was hit. The ram now turned and was moving
downhill. In my scope, I could see blood on his right side high up just behind the shoulder but I
squeezed off another round square on his spine and he went down this time. All three shots
come to find out later would have done him in. I was now out of the <1 Club and had a beautiful
Bighorn Ram.