So you want to hunt sheep? Part 10 – Shots Fired

Kyle Sinclair-Smith

Back at home from the last sheep hunt, I dove right into scouting and guiding. We had two 10 day hunts for elk coming up so I began locating elk and finding big bulls. The hunts were great and our clients had some amazing opportunities. Unfortunately, bull fever got the best of our clients and no elk were harmed in those two hunts. They did how ever have some great opportunities and more importantly, they had a great time.

The last elk hunt finished up late in the first week of October and I immediately switched gears back to sheep hunting. Although I wouldn’t be able to get out right away due to my full-time job in Oil & Gas, I started making plans and putting them in motion.

The plans was for Chad and I to hike in Thursday night after work, setup camp, then hunt Friday, Saturday, and either come out late Saturday night or Sunday morning. As we got closer, the forecast showed the temps dropping hard down to -20C. At the time, I didn’t care as I needed to be out there sheep hunting. Thursday morning I loaded all my gear into my truck and headed to work. Once work was over, I grabbed Chad and we were on our way. We got to camp and our heart sank, there was someone else already setup. Since we had already got all the way in, we decided to find a different spot to at least see what was going on the next morning. We got up bright and early, well before daylight, and started heading up. The morning was cold and it was a balmy -23C with clear skies and a full moon. As we worked our way up the ridge, we ended up running into the guys who had the other camp. After chatting with them, there was only one legal ram on the mountain and they had been hunting him for a few days now. Not wanting to be “that guy”, Chad and I decided that we would head down, pack up camp and pull out and leave them to hunt the ram. I fully understand that it is public land and no one owns the spot but I felt it was the right thing to do. Had we stayed, it would have turned into a race and no one would have won with the ram being blown out.

We didn’t waste any time getting back down and breaking camp. I knew there was a couple other areas that were holding rams and we still had a full day left. We were back to the truck in less than two hours from the time we made the decision to head out. We hiked a couple more spots and we found lots of rams, just nothing that was legal.

This wasn’t the way I wanted to end my general season but I was ok with it. I knew that I had gone hard and I had a great time doing it.

The following week I was back at home when my wife asked what I wanted to do for my birthday. This year, my birthday fell on a Saturday in mid-November. All I ever want to do every year for my birthday is go hunting. I don’t want to have a party, special dinner, or anything like that; I just want to hunt. So this is where my wife’s quick obliging nature got her in trouble. I knew that she still had a draw tag (limited entry tag) for a non-trophy sheep that had not been filled. When she asked what I wanted to do, I simply replied that “I would like to go sheep hunting”. She quickly responded with something like “awe, that is great hun, you will have so much fun”. I never said anything at this point, I just sat there and watched her. About fifteen seconds past when she looked up at me with deer in the headlights look and said “wait!!!! I’m the only one here with a November sheep tag”. I just nodded, smiled and said “you already agreed to my birthday wish”.

My mother in law showed up Friday night as she was going to watch our son on the Saturday so we could head west in search of sheep. The next morning, we were out of the house by 5:30 am and at our destination by 7:00 am. This was the first time that my wife had ever held a sheep tag and we had only ever been out one previous day this season. I wanted to make sure that we had a good day and that she had fun. I felt the best chance was for us to spot sheep from the road prior to going up after them. I didn’t think my wife would enjoy hiking up mountains just to find that there was no sheep up there. Well, it didn’t take us long and by 8:00 am, we had found five ewes up on the side of some grass slopes. We grabbed our gear and started working our way up the side of the mountain.

My wife working her way up the mountain.

Luckily for her, as she is not a fan of hiking mountains, the ewes were only about an hour hike from the truck and it was not a hard hike. As Murphy’s Law would go, we got up there and there was no ewes to be found. We decided to keep hiking around to see if we could locate them. Although we didn’t find the Ewe’s right away, we did find some fresh tracks and fresh scat so it was looking promising. After about an hour of exploring, we decided to sit down and have some lunch. While we were sitting there, I managed to glass some Ewe’s a ways away. They weren’t so far that we couldn’t make a play on, but they were far enough that it would take some effort. I finished up my lunch first and told my wife that I was going to go and take a quick look around to see if I could see anything while she was finishing up. I had gone about 300 yards away from her to a nice spot where I had a good vantage point. I sat there for fifteen minutes, but I didn’t locate anything new. I was about half way back to her when in the meadow, I noticed 2 Ewes and a half curl ram. This was great, the only problem was is they were between me and my wife. I decided to drop down lower than them and circle around in hopes that I wouldn’t spook them off. When circling around, I did get within 50 yards of them and they didn’t seem too concerned. As I started putting more distance between me and the sheep, my pace picked up dramatically. My wife had now seen me running towards her all while I’m doing hand motions signaling a person shooting a bow. To anyone else I would have looked like a crazy person but she got the gist of what I meant and grabbed her bow. I pointed out the general area as to where the sheep were and we started moving in. As we got closer, we could see that they had moved over to the edge of the meadow and were just grazing. We got situated along the edge of the trees and kept working towards them. Once we got to about 30 yards, the sheep had fed into the trees and we didn’t quite have a clear shot. We slowly moved around the trees closing the distance in the thick trees. Finally, we got where we needed to be. One of the Ewes was feeding behind some trees but pointed up hill. If she kept feeding the direction she was headed, we would have a clear 17 yard shot. I showed my wife where I figured she would clear the trees and told her the distance. By this time it was easy to see that she was getting excited. He breathing had increased to rapid and she was getting the shakes in her hand. It was getting worse as the Ewe fed towards the clearing. Just before the Ewe made the clearing, I told her to take a couple of deep breaths and try to calm herself; that did nothing. The Ewe was now fully clear of the trees and the other sheep; I told her to take the shot. She drew back, settled the pin and squeeze the release. I wish I could tell you that it was a perfect shot and the Ewe made it a short distance. What really happened is that in her built up excitement, she pulled the shot and the arrow flew high just cutting the hair on the Ewes back. The Ewe really didn’t know what happened and was more spooked by the arrow hitting the rocks behind her. She ran about ten yards and went back to grazing. My wife was pretty upset that she had miss but I got her collected quickly. We slowly started moving in on the grazing Ewe again. This time, we were offered a 21 yard shot that was slightly quartering away. She was in a good sized clearing so I took a bit of extra time to talk my wife through the shot. She got drawn back, I told her to settle into her anchor, pick a spot, bring the pin down, and slowly squeeze the trigger. The bow went off and I watched the arrow burry to the fletching right behind the Ewe’s shoulder. The Ewe took off running and I knew it was a good hit. We quickly followed the sheep to try and keep eyes on it. It went down a little dry creek and up onto the steep ledge on the other side. By the time we got there, the Ewe was already laying down. I wanted to make sure she didn’t get any were so I tried working around to find a good angle for my wife to shoot again. As we were working around I heard a rock fall and immediately thought the Ewe had gotten up and was going higher. We looked up just in time to see the Ewe rolling down the hill into the creek bed. It was all over. The emotion of getting her first sheep and her first mountain hunt, hit her all at once. It is such a humbling experience watching someone accomplish a goal and be successful in the field, especially when it is a first.

My Wife taking it all in.

My Wife with her first sheep.

We made sure not to rush this time and just sat there taking it all in. It was amazing watching my wife put her hands on her first sheep and study every part of it. We started discussing getting it down to the truck and I told her I would just field dress it and then pack it out whole. She asked if we could quarter it as she really wanted to help pack it out. It was her tag, her sheep, and she wanted to help with all aspects of the hunt. I was very proud of her. Even though it was more work to get it broke down, I didn’t want to deny her any of this experience. About 45 minutes later, we had the sheep broke down and put it in the game bags. The hike out went quick as it was all downhill. We got the packs loaded up in the truck and we were headed back home by 3:00 pm. I can honestly say, there was no other way I would have wanted to spend my birthday.

The Trophy of a Non Trophy Hunt.

My Wife packing out the front shoulders and the head.

Not everyone agrees with harvesting Ewes and some comments have been made to us about shooting a Ewe. There are people out there who will draw their Ewe tags with no intention on shooting a Ewe. They want to burn their tag as it will possible keep one more Ewe on the mountain and that is their full right. Sometimes as hunters, we may not always agree with the decisions that others make. I think it is very important to remember that as long as it is legal, that we must be respectful of their decisions. A Ewe hunt is a great opportunity to introduce either someone new or a youth to mountain hunting. We had an amazing day and had a lot of fun making memories; exactly what we set out to do.

As of now, this is the end of my sheep hunting series. Although this series is now concluded on the first year, the second year of my sheep hunting adventures are just starting. I have already been out in the hills checking out new trails and new areas in search of rams. I will be keeping notes on my outings and I will trying out some new gear that I would love to share with you all. Stay tuned for year two as I search for my first ram.