Every good sheep hunt is a mixture of sweat, pain, hunger, adversity, exhilaration, and awe, followed by more pain and suffering. This one was no different.
Not everyone will agree with me, but I believe that a person has not hunted until they have hunted sheep. I also maintain they are not sheep hunters until they’ve gone in unguided, depending only on their grit and sinew to find, kill, and pack out their ram.
I didn’t feel quite right taking to the mountains with no means of killing a ram myself, but I was happy to accompany my buddy Frank on his draw hunt. I got to watch Frank take his first ram last year on opening day, and being hooked for life, he was chomping at the bit to get another one on the ground.
For two days, we saw only ewes, lambs, and small rams, then the snow kept us tent-bound. When we finally got out, we encountered a wolverine, miles of steady rain, and then, when the weather lifted, a basin full of sheep.
Watch the video from our trip to get a virtual seat on the mountain, and experience a little bit of the pain, hunger, adversity, and heaping doses of awe and exhilaration that we did. Spoiler Alert: Frank killed a grand old ram, and I caught the shot on camera. Then the work started, with miles of grinding country under our very full packs. It was a trying eight days, but as with any good hunt, it ended way too quick.