After taking some time to look, knowing we probably didn't have long before one of those sheep spotted us, we decided the ram bedded to the left was certainly the biggest in the group. Range was 325 yds. We could also tell he was a beautiful dark chocolate brown color and his horns looked like what we came for. Judging sheep is difficult for us amateurs, so of course you are never 100% sure just how big he is, just the real question has to be, am I going to be happy to put my tag of a lifetime on that sheep, regardless of what anyone else thinks or what the tape measure says. Dad knew the answer was yes.
The problem was, with the sheep bedded like he was, dad didn't have a good shot, and the steep angles made things awkward at best. Long story short, when the sheep finally went to move, they went quick and the shooter ram went from bedded to butt in one quick movement. The whole group of maybe 30 sheep was off and moving down across the draw.
When they stopped moving again they were in a mass of bodies across the canyon, ranged at 350. We had to wait for the biggest ram to separate himself from the group. The other problem was, the second biggest ram was also dark brown and difficult at a glance to tell apart from the ram dad has his eye on.
Finally, the ram cleared the group and stopped at 380 yards. Dad let him have it, and it was immediately obvious...."you hit him, great shot". He started the long roll and slide downward.
After the high fives with everyone, it came time to assess the recovery. We quickly determined there was no way we were dropping straight down to him, nor were we bringing him out by going up. That country is hard to believe unless you are there looking over the edge for yourself. Our only choice was to come at him from below and take him out along the river bottom.
