2025 Colorado Bighorn Sheep Hunt

[npaden]

You have better patience than me!

He is smoked…. When it doubt, back out! I like the patient slow approach.

It took a lot to be patient for sure. The guide was really helpful on this. Part of the reason I was able to be patient was the huge stakes that were in play if I rushed something and blew him out of there. The only thing I seemed to not be patient on is my shots! I think both times from seeing him to pulling the trigger was about 2 or 3 seconds.

Congrats!!!. Thanks for sharing the stress.

The stress was there for sure with this being a once in a lifetime tag. Add in the cost of the outfitter, tag cost, tip, etc. and at one point in my mind second guessing my first shot I thought of it as a $12,000 trigger pull.

I just love everything about this thread. It captures all the great things about western hunting -- the stalk, the thrill, the anticipation, the worry. I love that it didn't go exactly to plan but that you stuck with it and made it happen. We get spoiled with all the videos of textbook hunts, but it's great to follow along with one where not everything goes perfectly (but ends up the right way)!

Thanks. I am sure happy that it ended up the right way! Having the full day between trigger pulls sure had a million different things going through my head.

Bet you had one of those special moments when you laid eyes on that magnificent trophy.

I did a little video on my pocket gimbal camera. I didn’t use it very much since 90% of the time I had a trekking pole in both hands and was trying to keep from falling down but I sat and recorded my thoughts when I found him. Nothing too deep, for a split second I thought I might cry but I kept it together!

Way to go! Man this was worth following! I thought you were toast after the initial reports.... nice plot twist to keep it interesting!

Quoted this just because it was pretty much how I think most all of us felt including me. Very thankful for the plot twist!

When you said you were going to have an insane fall, I wonder if this roller coaster event was factored into that?

I was actually more concerned that I wasn’t going to get the full experience of a true sheep hunt with me going guided and the guide already having a good line on some decent rams he wanted us to be on first thing on opening morning. He did tell me that if I had made a better first shot he would have kept his streak of having his client tag out on opening morning alive.

Congratulations, Nathan. Way to persist. Great-looking ram. Those Colo high country sheep hunts are something special. You’ll have a memory and story to tell.

For sure!

Man, what a darn hunt from the excitement of finding a big ram to another hunter busting up one of the herds, then making it happen only to find out the worst possible news of a wounded ram and the lowest of all lows and gut wrenching worry about an unknown hit to this. Huge congrats on the trophy of a lifetime and I don't mean just the ram but also the hunt!
I could have never had that type of patience the guide would have to tie me down probably. Y'all 100% made the best decision that country is thick in the bottom it appears. When I saw that I thought you were toast to be quite honest.

It sure was a roller coaster. My guide said that if I hadn’t been posting this as a live hunt no one would believe the twists and turns it took!

Thanks so much for sharing. Congrats and you shared some lessons we can all learn from.

At some point you would think at 57 I would be done learning these lessons but here I am still learning them!

Absolutely amazing hunt and we'll earned trophy. This was a heck of a hunt with all the mental and emotional fortitude required to take it to the end. Im happy for you.

Don’t forget the physical fortitude! It was way harder than I expected and I expected it to be pretty hard.

He's probably passed out.

Or his phone is dead.

That’s about the only thing I actually helped the guide out on. After originally forgetting the right cord for my phone charger his chargers both died in like seconds so he used my battery pack to charge his phone up. At the end we were both down to under 20% on our phones when we got back to the trucks with our packs.

 

[npaden]

I know you're relieved to be off the mountain with a punched tag. What a roller coaster ride of a hunt. I never would have thought it was a back whack. Those are typically back 100% within a few hours. I've seen pictures of whitetails feeding or chasing does while the wound is still bleeding from a shot like that.

View attachment 384847

There must have been some spine affected or maybe the top of the scapula as he moved or something. Watching him walk it was very gingerly. Almost like he didn’t have the muscle to push his front left leg forward. Him laying his head down like that he was obviously hurting even just bedded down.

Congrats again on the ram.

Just curious what bullets and caliber you were shooting.

.300 WSM, 165 grain Federal Trophy Copper.

Very impressive hunt, especially your vivid recounting of what has to happen after the 1st shot. Given all the ups and downs (p.i.) this could be the hunt of your lifetime. I bet you were generous with your guide, that guy is a man among men.

He was amazing! Always positive and encouraging. He’s 44 but was hauling a heavy pack the entire time. Packed in water up high for us not to have to drop to filter, scouted super hard, just really loves to sheep hunt. I struggled to come up with the right tip amount, but ended up right around 30% of what I paid the outfitter. He seemed happy with that.

Next time you get a chance to gut a deer look closely at the chest cavity and that artery that runs under the spine. The “void” does not exist under the spine. That’s most often an actual backstrap hit that doesn’t penetrate the spinal column.

I think this is true. I shot a whitetail deer twice 2 years ago and the first time was right through the back strap above the shoulder.

With that extra 2” or so hump on their shoulders it’s even more noticeable on sheep it seems. The scapula must be right up to the top of the back strap.

This is what I was thinking...you would think the bullet shock or whatever it's called would have at least rattled that spine enough to plant as fake ded

At the shot he just headed downhill at full speed. Not even a hint of a limp or anything. I thought I might have noticed a slight stumble on maybe the second step but wasn’t sure.

 

[npaden]

Just a couple more pictures. I may end up reusing some of them as I do my narrative but just going to share some of them here for now without a lot of narrative.



Ram heads don’t fit in coolers.

 

[ImBillT]

Looking at that first shot more closely, that is so unlucky to have gone through what you did. It looks like the bullet went just under the spine on a pretty level path thru. A smidge higher and that animal is anchored on the ground where it stood. A smidge lower and his lungs would have collapsed and he wouldn't have gone far. A smidge further forward and both shoulder blades would have been destroyed and he couldn't be able to run anywhere. Archery hunting this is often called the VOID because there is a pretty large area up there where an arrow can go in and not do enough damage to kill an animal. I can't really recall many instances that I know of where a rifle bullet can pass through any of that area and not provide a kill or at least significantly cripple the animal to recover them. Which I suppose is what ended up happening with you thanks to your perseverance.

I’m as surprised as you are that the first shot didn’t put him down. I’ve had two deer, one mine, and one my wife’s, where the hit was above the lungs, and below the spine, but the deer died instantly anyway. I assume it’s a disruption of the spinal column. I guess the “temporary wound cavity” included the spinal cord, and that damaged it, but not to the naked eye.

Considering that he was using a 300WSM and 165gr bullets going pretty fast, I’m surprised that didn’t kill the ram.

Either way, it worked out!!! Congrats @npaden!!!!

 

[npaden]

Ended up throwing together another video like I did for my son’s antelope hunt instead of writing up the narrative today. Much less footage because I didn’t video much since my hands were on trekking poles 95% of the time, but added a bunch of pictures in and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

I will try to get the narrative written tomorrow. We all know the ending already!

 

[teamhoyt]

Congratulations @npaden Your story was amazing!

 

[rjthehunter]

Can you do it? In those conditions?mtmuley

I could and would. I'd never send the first round at that range, but I'm more than capable of it.

 

[mtmuley]

I could and would. I'd never send the first round at that range, but I'm more than capable of it.

Okey dokey. And I might have missed it somewhere, but what is your set up as far as rifle and such. mtmuley

 

[MTLabrador]

Can you do it? In those conditions?mtmuley

715 is an awful long shot in the real world… And I wouldn’t trust that trophy copper to open up at that range either. Getting close to finish him was the right call for sure.

 

[rjthehunter]

Okey dokey. And I might have missed it somewhere, but what is your set up as far as rifle and such. mtmuley

338 wm, 230 gr eldx at about 2880fps being pushed by 69.5 grains of h4350.

It'd be 13 moa at 715 yards for my rifle.

 

[mtmuley]

338 wm, 230 gr eldx at about 2880fps being pushed by 69.5 grains of h4350.

It'd be 13 moa at 715 yards for my rifle.

9 even with mine. I've been shooting and hunting with this rifle for 25 years. One kill over 700. I would have done what @npaden did. mtmuley

 

[passinthru]

Wow!

Congratulations sir, Good work keeping after it and bringing that ram home!

Well done.

 

[TOGIE]

338 wm, 230 gr eldx at about 2880fps being pushed by 69.5 grains of h4350.

It'd be 13 moa at 715 yards for my rifle.

Without taking that 12.5-13k feet into consideration at 700+ yards you just missed, or wounded it worse.

 

[npaden]

Without taking that 12.5-13k feet into consideration at 700+ yards you just missed, or wounded it worse.

It was only 11,400’ where he was that day. But on the stalk over there sometimes I had a fairly good breeze at my back and sometimes it was in my face. It just couldn’t figure out what to do that morning.

Not trying to get into a long range shooting discussion. There wasn’t ever a doubt for me, I knew me or my rifle were not ready for a shot like that.

 

[npaden]

Okay. I got everything typed up last night. It's a 12 page word document so I will be copying and pasting a little bit as I go. Also going to try to edit some of the pictures and draw lines and circles on them to explain some stuff as well. HuntTalk has a 10,000 character limit so I'll try to keep things together as I go, but some days will need to be split up into several posts.

As usual, I type these up as much for my own benefit as anyone else, I will still go back and read some of these old threads of mine and revisit old hunts just for fun. I should be getting caught up at work but it shouldn't take me too long to post this as I already pretty much have it all typed up.

 

[npaden]

Pre-hunt thinking, with antelope hunt immediately before the sheep hunt

Not really sure where to start on this, but thinking it through, I think one of the key ingredients to this being a successful hunt really started with my son’s Nevada antelope hunt. We had the antelope hunt planned and dates set with flights booked long before I even knew I was going to have a Colorado Bighorn tag, so I didn’t want to change that up. I had changed my plans up to leave possibly one day early on his antelope hunt so I would be able to get there for opening morning of the sheep hunt, but in retrospect I was probably setting myself up for a beating with those plans. I would have had to have left the hotel at around 3 am and would have been pulling into the trailhead at close to midnight, 21 hours later. I don’t think I would have been in very good shape for opening morning under that scenario.

As it ended up playing out, my son shot a very nice antelope on opening morning, we were able to get it taken care of, get the meat frozen and ready to fly home and moved our flights home so that I was able to be home and sleep in my own bed before being able to leisurely drive to Colorado to be there in time to pack in and set up a spike camp the evening before the opener. We still could have been successful if we had started the hunt later, but probably not in the same basin where we ended up killing my sheep.

 

[npaden]

Target shooting issues, and getting the rifle ready to go

So, one thing I’m not sure that came across clearly in the original postings, but before my son went on his Nevada antelope hunt, we shot our rifles at our range at our house. Really it is a 100 yard range, but there is one place where we can set up for a 390 yard shot. We had done some shooting earlier in the summer, but really wanted to be confident before we both had our big hunts. We have previously pretty much limited ourselves to 300 yard shots, but have been stretching it out a little and would like to get more confidence in a 400 yard shot if it was needed. My son did very well and shot 3 times at 390 yards and all would have been kill shots. I shot and didn’t even hit the cardboard that the target was placed on. Moved to 100 yards and still didn’t hit the cardboard. WAY high. Kept spinning my turret down and down and down and finally after we moved all the way to 30 yards from the target I hit the target. Once I did, it was dead on and moved back to 100 and was dead on there too. I don’t have a zero stop on that scope and the 0 is off a little bit so that I have a picture of where it is supposed to be set at, and in the end I had it back to exactly where it is supposed to be set. The process of getting it back to that point had taken me spinning the turret approximately 4.5 full turns though! It had seemed odd that I had left the turret set at 23 clicks from the last time I shot and after missing the cardboard completely, I had turned the turret back down the 23 clicks to get it to where it should be and it wasn’t even close. I had left the rifle in the corner leaned up against the wall (unloaded with no ammo nearby) and we have had several visitors over that time and the only thing I can think of is that someone (probably a younger someone) spun the turret around and around and around. But this whole process sure didn’t inspire a lot of confidence. I ended up just taping the turret with electrical tape and planned on not adjusting anything and just keeping my shots to 300 yards or less and using hold over if needed on my sheep hunt. No time to mess with anything else.

Since we got back early from my son’s antelope hunt, I decided it would be a very good idea to get some more shooting in. That evening I got setup at our 390 yard perch and held what I thought was 24” high and fired 2 rounds. Get over there and found the hits, still above the target but actually on the cardboard, they were about 12” high of where I intended to be hitting. Holding 24” high just guessing was going to be difficult. Still, my rifle drops right around 10” at 300 yards go I felt that I could just hold just above the top of a sheep’s back at 300 yards and be okay. After sleeping on it, I thought I should shoot some more in the morning before heading to Colorado. A friend had helped me talk things through and we were thinking that I could use the transition from the thin part of the reticle to the thicker part of the reticle as an aim point. I tried that again at 390 yards and actually hit the target 5 times in a row! The problem was that the transition from thin to thick was a taper and I was ending up with 2 different groups, one about 9 inches higher than the other. Moved to 100 yards again to verify our reticle measurements and it was still shooting on at 100 yards and the difference in the reticle measurements was matching up with the chart we were using. Lots of shooting to end up deciding to just go ahead and tentatively keep my shots to 300 yards or less and if I had too, I think I could take a 400 yard shot but would very much prefer not to.

 

[npaden]

Last minute packing and headed to Colorado

I’ve been thinking about this hunt for the last 2 months and have been thinking through what I needed and even somewhat got things ready to go before we even left on my son’s antelope hunt because I thought I might be getting home and throwing things in the truck and taking off. Well after spending about an hour shooting that morning, that’s still about what I ended up doing. Pretty much just threw everything I thought I might need in the back seat of the truck, coolers in the bed of the truck. Did bring my son’s rifle just in case, and decided I had what I had to have. I’d been in contact with Nathan my guide and he was excited for us to be in play on opening morning but were waiting to commit to exact plans until I actually gave him an ETA with me in the truck headed that way. We had talked through options and really decided that a spike camp was going to be best but I needed to be there by 4 pm or so and it looked like it was going to be tight but I was going to make it.

 

[npaden]

Evening before the opener

The drive went very smoothly. Left the house at 9 am Central time and just over 8 hours later I pulled into the trailhead and met up with my guide Nathan.

Those are the mountains I'm headed toward!




We had met earlier when I came up to scout in mid August and I think that was well worth the trip even for just the one day of scouting, if nothing else just to meet up and get a feel for how we would work together. We sorted through gear and ended up taking my 5 man Shangri-La teepee tent for our spike out camp and loaded up packs and hit the trail (although we were only on the trail for about 50 yards before cutting off and heading up the mountain).

This was where the rubber was going to meet the road. I have lost almost 30 pounds since January and was up to being able to run 4 miles in 40 minutes on flat ground but the steepness and elevation was going to be the true measuring tape. It wasn’t even a quarter of a mile heading up and I was starting to breathe a little hard. The terrain wasn’t bad at all for bushwacking at the start and it wasn’t very steep but starting at 8,900’ makes a difference. Nathan was very understanding and was very positive and we kept plugging along just at a little slower pace. We hit the base of the ridge we needed to climb a little over a mile and having gained 800’ of elevation in about 40 minutes. Not terrible but we were just getting to the steep stuff. We climbed up the ridge then, it wasn’t “steep” but it was a very steady incline and we climbed 1,200’ of elevation in just over a half mile.




I’ve always used the “1 hour for every 1,000’ of elevation climbed” as a guide but I was a little slower than that. Not terribly slower though. We got to where we were going to camp at 10,900’ a little over 2 hours after leaving the trucks. Total gain of 2,000’ in just over 1.5 miles. We actually have near perfect weather for the hike in with overcast sky and a light breeze, but I’m sweating so bad that I’m completely soaked and have to take my cap off to help me cool down. It sure doesn’t sound like much on paper and it really wasn’t that bad but I was VERY glad we had been able to get that done the night before the opener and we didn’t have to do that in the dark on opening morning!




We setup camp, ate mountain house for dinner and did a little glassing. About the only thing we saw was another hunter on the next ridge to our south. At least we thought he was a hunter. He was way off any trail and was in the process of setting up a pretty decent sized tent. We never saw a rifle or bow or even a spotting scope but it sure seemed like an odd place for a random person to camp.



I circled in red where the dude was setting the tent up on the top of the ridge line.

Since we had already made most of the climb and the guide had seen sheep not much further up than we were camping on previous trips we were planning on waiting until first light before heading the rest of the way up so no need to get up super early to get started. Set alarms for 5:30 and 5:45 and shooting light was supposed to be at 6:04 so we were ready to go. Backpacks ready, just need to get some sleep.

 

[jwatts]

We already know then ending, but I'm still tuning in for the play by play