Billings man culminates lucky year with trophy bighorn By BRETT FRENCH
Of The Gazette Staff
Shawn Hall thought his luck had finally run out as his Chevy three-quarter-ton pickup slowly inched backward off the McClelland Ferry in the middle of the Missouri River, pulled by the now-submerged trailer full of four ATVs attached to the truck's hitch.
"I had the brakes locked up and everything, and it was still dragging me," said Hall, 32, of Billings. "I thought about jumping out. I had my window rolled down."
The ferry crosses the Missouri north of Winifred, one of only two public ferries still operated in the summer on the river. Hall and family members were on the way to hunt bighorn sheep in Hunting District 680, north of the Missouri, on Sept. 30 when the ATVs turned into submarines.
Up until then, Hall was riding high on a string of good luck. It started in June when he married Ashley. In July, he found out he'd won Montana's coveted SuperTag for bighorn sheep. His good luck continued into September when his daughter Gracie was born.
"It's been a heck of a year," Hall said.
Tag of a lifetime
Not to make little of Hall's marriage or the birth of his daughter, but the odds of drawing a SuperTag for a bighorn sheep in Montana are very slim.
The SuperTag is a lottery conducted by Fish, Wildlife and Parks. For $5, hunters can purchase the chance to win an unlimited tag that allows them to hunt game anywhere allowed in the state. The number of chances a person buys is limited only by his or her pocketbook.
In Montana, SuperTags are offered for elk, moose, bighorn sheep, bison, deer, mountain goat, antelope and mountain lions. But the bighorn tag is the most coveted, simply because it's so hard to draw a sheep tag in the state by regular means. In Hunting District 680 alone, 3,633 people applied for 20 permits this year, making the odds of drawing the permit about half a percent.
"It's a real tough draw," said Ron Aasheim, of FWP. "It's not as tough as the SuperTag, though."
The SuperTag is an even longer shot. Out of 22,429 chances sold for the bighorn SuperTag, Hall bought two, in addition to chances for an elk, bison and moose, a total expense of $25.
"I missed the original drawing deadline for a tag," said Hall, who has been applying for a bighorn tag off and on for the past 12 years. Then he saw the SuperTag, and decided to buy a few chances.
"I never thought I'd draw it," he said. "I got lucky."
Christmas in July
In July, he got the call from Aasheim that he'd won.
"Typically it's like Christmas in July," Aasheim said.
The drawing was made even sweeter for Hall considering that the Governor's Tag for bighorn sheep, an unlimited tag that is auctioned off to the highest bidder, sold for $190,000 this year.
Aasheim said the interest is due to the large bighorn rams in Montana.
"It's remarkable the type of rams we're growing in Montana," Aasheim said. "Guys interested in big rams, they know that if they draw here, their chances are good. We're getting rams in the 200 class and an unbelievable number above 180."
According to the Boone and Crockett Club, which tracks trophy big-game records, Montana has more record-book bighorn sheep than any other state or Canadian province. A score of 180, judged by measuring the animal's horns, is considered a minimum bighorn sheep score for Boone and Crockett's record book.
Hunting the Breaks
After his close brush with swimming in the Missouri, Hall settled into his bighorn sheep hunt on Oct. 1. The first day he counted 21 rams, six that would make the record book, and crept to within 80 yards of one ram that he hoped to shoot with his bow. Unfortunately, the ram shied and took off before Hall got a shot.
The next day, Hall hiked into the rugged badlands country of the Missouri Breaks about two miles before spotting a large ram about 300 yards away and 200 feet below him.
Taking aim with his .300 Winchester magnum, Hall shot and hit the ram in the back. After dropping and rolling about 30 feet, it got back up and walked another 40 yards before Hall shot again and killed the ram.
"Then he rolled another 100 feet to the bottom of a draw," Hall said. "There was a big hole about 10 feet deep that he rolled right into the bottom of. It was just big enough that two of us could get in the bottom and bear hug him out of it."
Unusual horn
It was then that Hall got a better look at a flat spot on the back of the bighorn's right horn that he'd noticed from afar. Apparently the 10-year-old ram had chipped off a portion of its horn in a fight during the breeding season. During the summer, flies had laid eggs in the horn and by October maggots were infesting the ram's headgear.
"It probably wouldn't have lived another month," Hall said.
Despite the flaw, Hall couldn't be happier with his big sheep.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's probably the ultimate big-game trophy," Hall said. "I personally think it's the most sought-after. And it's one of the hardest to get a tag for."
The sheep's curled horns measured 42 inches on the right, 40 on the left with a base of 15½ inches on the right, 16 inches on the left. Measurements will be taken again once the horns have dried, but Hall expects the ram's overall score to be in the 190s.
The Montana record for bighorn sheep is 204 7/8 taken in Granite County in 1993.
Hall caped the ram and is having a full body mount created of the bighorn.
"I saw this one and knew he was definitely the one," Hall said. "He's definitely a pretty sheep."
Back from the deep
As for the ATVs and trailer, Hall and his stepfather, Ron Marty, were barely able to keep the truck from being pulled into the river. As the front of the ferry reared up from the weight in the back, Marty quickly tied a rope around the pickup and hooked it onto the ferry. Since the back of the ferry's ramp was down, the front ramp was locked upright, preventing them from driving off once they finally reached shore.
Since their work space was limited to the deck of the ferry, the hunters had to chain up the two trucks to pull the pickup and trailer out of the water a couple of feet at a time, hooking and rehooking up the rigs until the trailer was far enough forward to allow the ferry's back ramp to rise and the front ramp to descend.
"It was pretty exciting for a while," Marty said.
Blaine County, which owns the ferry, has offered to pay to repair the machines, only one of which was still operable, Marty said. The others had their crankcases flooded with water, and the headlights looked like fish tanks. The trailer, although arced off the end of the ferry at a 60-degree angle, was not bent but had to have its wheel bearings replaced.
"That started off the hunt real interesting," Hall said. "A word of advice: If you ever go across the ferry, make sure all the wheels are on the ferry, that none are on the loading apron."
