I started hunting Unlimited sheep in 1978. A lot has changed since then. Back then the sheep tags were $25 and over the counter. You could apply for a draw unit and if you didn't draw you could buy an Unlimited tag. There was no 7 year wait if you were successful in killing a ram. There were more units, and the sheep season would open in early September and if the quotas weren't filled, the season wouldn't close until the last Sunday of November.
We didn't know just how good we had it back then. I bought a tag just about every year for almost 15 years. I also didn't take it as seriously as I should have. I would usually go in the opening weekend, and if I didn't find a ram, oh well, I'll try again the next year.
There also weren't as many people hunting sheep back then as there are now. Many years I would not see another hunter the whole time I was in there.
In 1978 I drew a goat tag in the unit north of Quake Lake. Back then that area was also Unlimited sheep unit 302, so I bought a sheep tag there. I started scouting there for goats in August and continued through September and October, but because I wanted a goat with long hair, I left my goat tag home until November. The whole time that I was scouting for goats, but with the sheep tag in my pocket, I only saw one other sheep hunter in there, and he was a local from West Yellowstone in for a day hunt.
My second Unlimited tag was in Unit 303 east of Gardiner. I backpacked by myself into the Hellroaring drainage in the A-B Wilderness. The early elk rifle season was also open in that area. I didn't see any sheep, but I was seeing elk every day, and shortly after I had left my camp on the third morning a heavy dark antlered with white tips 6x6 came walking through the scattered timber toward me. He stopped broadside about 75 yards from me and bugled and a 117 grain Sierra from my .257 AI ended both my elk and sheep hunting for that year. I only saw one other person in there on that trip, and he was a guy from Gardiner who had an elk camp higher up the drainage.
In the early '80s I think there were three other years that I had Unlimited sheep tags in Unit 302. I horse packed a camp into that unit for opening day of those years, and each year I only saw one other camp in there. The first year one of the guys in the other camp killed a ram, and I also killed one.
The second year I hunted a different part of the unit and I got within 20 yards of two legal rams, but they were smaller that the ram that I had shot the year before, so I didn't shoot one. A hunter from the outfitted camp that was in there gut shot one of those rams then lost it, and I ended up killing it for her.
The third year that I went into 302 I shot the ram that I had passed up the year before, and I think that was the last year that 302 was unlimited.
The last year that I hunted any of the Unlimited units was also the last year that you could make the Unlimited tag your second choice in the drawing and be given that tag if you were unsuccessful on your first choice. That was in the late '90s and I went into unit 300. A friend of mine had killed a good ram in there the previous year and he told me his secret spot.
I saw a great full curl broomed ram not 50 yards in the timber below me the day before the season opened, but when the sun came up the next morning that valley was full of guided hunters on horseback, 5 or 6 tents in the meadow across from me, and orange pumpkins scattered all around the valley. Then there a group of hikers that had climbed the back side of the peak at the head of the valley and they were yelling that they made it. The local game warden was also riding on horseback through there as was a Yellowstone NP pack string that was bringing supplies to the park rangers in full camo that were watching to make sure no hunters crossed the line into the park. Not my idea of wilderness hunting.
As for the unit ram quotas, some years they fill them, some years they don't. Some years they might go over. It pretty much evens out over a period of years. Much of the Unlimited unit country is very remote. There is absolutely NO cell phone service. Even with horses, it took me a full 48 hours to get my camps out and to get two of my rams to the FWP headquarters in Bozeman. Its not like hunting in the back 40 back east.
Sheep hunting gets more popular every year. Enjoy these Unlimited units while you can.
?), I'd be surprised to learn that political correctness is a good fit for many of our number.
