WA Ram

[Backcountryhunter]

Since I know everyone loves seeing some pics of sheep I thought I would share with you my 2010 California Bighorn from Washington. After over 12 years of applying I was wondering if my name would ever come up and thankfully it did. I was able to do extensive preseason scouting and had my pick of rams, after looking over all of them I decided I liked this guy the best and ended my hunt on the first afternoon. Now unfortunately I've got that sheep fever everyone always talks about.

 

[AKDrifter]

Congrats! Thats a great looking ram and it sounds like a great time scouting out your tag.

 

[Art Vandeley]

Awesome looking ram! Thanks for posting

 

[CabinFever]

Great looking California, thanks for sharing!

 

[Big Fin]

Congrats on a great ram. Very cool hunt.

 

[mdunc8]

Beautiful ram. Congrats!!

 

[Brock-ID]

Great looking Ram, congrats!

 

[Jon Boy]

Awesome Ram. What tag was it? Looks like clemans area.

 

[Randy49er]

Verry cool, Congrats on a good lookin Ram.

 

[MNHunter]

Nice ram! Congrats!

 

[Mac7]

Congrats on a great Ram.

 

[treedagain]

way to go....beautiful ram....

 

[bnkwnto]

Nice Ram!! Thanks for sharing. Give us the full story, rifle used, how far, the stalk etc.

 

[huntbux]

Congrats on the awesome ram.

 

[recon6036]

That's great. Congrats!

 

[High Country]

Fantastic! Very nice Ram!

 

[PeteE]

You beat huge odds in WA to draw. Nice Ram

 

[Oak]

Great looking ram. Congrats!

 

[Much2hunt]

Great ram...your livin the dream man.

 

[Backcountryhunter]

And now for the rest of the story.

Like most opening mornings, it this one came very quickly, with not much sleep the night before. We were up on the mountain at first light and within a few minutes of arriving at our glassing spot a band of 11 mature rams were spotted feeding around a rock band on the steep hillside. It didn’t take long to get the spotting scope on them and confirm that the ram I wanted was among them. Matter of fact my top 3 rams were all in the same group. The next three hours were spent watching and analyzing the rams to make sure that he was the one that I really wanted. Finally at 10:30 once the rams had settled down to their beds the stalk was on. It took the better part of an hour to move over into position only to watch the rams feed across the canyon to a point just outside my comfortable shooting range. Had we been 10 minutes earlier we would have caught them in their beds. Now the waiting game was on, the rams did not have a clue we were around so all we needed to do was wait them out. After a couple of hours of sitting in the hot sun watching the rams, I decided that we needed to get a little more aggressive and move in on the rams. It took us a couple of hours but we were soon to within 180 yards of the rams.

The next half hour was filled with adrenaline rushing through my veins as the ram never gave me a shot. Each time I thought he might break away from the herd he didn’t. At one point, he laid down and went to sleep. Unfortunately there was another ram directly behind him so a shot was out of the question. Finally as the hillside started to get covered in shade, the rams were all up and on the move, unfortunately they were feeding away from us. I watched as they got farther and farther away, finally when they were approximately 280 yards out my ram broke away from the other rams and stopped broadside. My first shot hit home although just a little lower than I would have liked. The rams took off running and in the excitement of the situation, I missed my next couple of shots. The ram was hit hard and quickly laid down about 500 yards out so I was able to move in and put a final round in him which sent him tumbling down the mountain.

It was a great day on the mountain for sure, thankfully it was videoed so I have a great movie I can watch again and again. It wasn't until late that night that I finally put the tape on the horns and when I did I realized just how big of a Cali ram he was. There is much more to a hunt than the tale of the tape but I was pleased we had conservatively scored him while scouting.