Took a few days after the season ended for myself to hang with the fam and reflect a bit.
Sad news, I didn’t end up filling my tag. I appreciate y’all bearing with the radio silence for the last couple of weeks. I won’t bother with a day by day recap but the last I saw those rams was on the 17th. I spent the my time from the 20th to the end of the season descending and climbing back up ridges, glassing up top, and working timber and the treeline checking out any bench that had a sort of “sheepy vibe” to it. And I had zero luck in turning up those rams which really came as a shocker to me. I definitely was surprised that out of 23 days in the field I only saw that 3/4 curl twice (especially since I was seeing him pretty regularly throughout July). I was also taken aback that the last time I saw the 3/4 curl, he ended up taking my back up plan 1/2 curl with him! Ah well, thus is the way of the sheep.
I had a lot of fun, and was able to creep into the herd of ewes and rams within 30 yds multiple times. I knew this hunt would be challenging with the total number of sheep being so low, more opportunities certainly would have been nice considering I was able to get within 40 yds of that 3/4 curl in July.
It certainly sucks to have failed in filling my tag and I can see how some guys could fall into the “I should have done this differently” trap.. to be honest, if I could do it all over again, there’s a lot I would have done differently, things I realized towards the end of the season but wasn’t able to implement cause of the weather. That said, it’s hard to walk away from this hunt feeling anything but an overwhelming amount of gratitude. Sure, I only got 3 legitimate stalks in.. but that’s three more than the archery hunter last year got. I got to spend over three weeks in a beautiful landscape watching sheep, elk, deer, and bear (not including all my time scouting). I met a lot of cool people, I got to report an asshole on an ebike in the wilderness (that’s a whole different story), and I get to go back up this month to help the rifle tag holder find these rams with a bear tag in my pocket.
I appreciate you all following along, I wish I had a sweet grip n grin to share with ya but I have memories that’ll last me a life time and if I ever get lucky enough to get this opportunity again, I’ll be sure to put my lessons to use.
PS.
Some quick side notes I forgot to include. After speaking with the warden in the area and showing him pictures of that ram, he said that was the largest ram he’s seen since covering the area.
I got turned on to marmot hunting so that’s neat.
This season, even without a tag punched, has shown me how cool and impressive these critters are and how amazing of an experience chasing them around in the mountains can be.. for this reason I’ll be a heck of a lot more active in the RMBS. People that share a passion for these animals are just awesome people.
