Well, sad to say I am done sheep hunting. It was a race to see if I could tag a ram before I lost the ability to climb a hill and it was pretty close. I shot this awsome animal Sat evening at 21 yards. He was chaseing a ewe up in the rocks and cliffs above rock creek road. He finally cornered her in some trees and rocks and that allowed me to move in close enough for a shot. Naturally when he died he tumbled and rolled half way down the mountain but he wasnt damaged. Pretty un-nerving watching something like that. It took me about 30 min to ooze my way down to him only to send him rolling down another 150 feet when I touched him. He finally cam to rest in a clump of brush. We pulled him out, proped him up, tagged him and since neither of us had a light and it was now dark we slowly made our way down to the road. I called a good friend who agreed to come up and help my buddy get him off the mountain. The next morning we took some pictures and strapped him to a sled and belayed him down the talus slope the rest of the way to the bottom. I have to say thanks to my two buddies Rich and Paul, as they did all the work except for the field dressing. I could not have done it without them. As for the ram, he is the same ram I passed up that is in the pictures in my previous post. However, I slighty underestimeated his score. LOL I had originally judged him to be 184-185, but I had though he only had about 15" bases. It turns out his bases are 16" and the mass carries through his horns. The Left horn is 39 3/8" and the right is 40 2/8" his gross green score is 189 5/8 and he nets out at 188 7/8. After the 60 drying period he should be in the top 10 archery rams in MT. Forget about his score, this was an incredable experiance and I didnt want it to end. All I have to look forward to now is back surgery next week. Ye ha!! that should be fun. NOT
As you look at this picture realize that this slope is in excess of 60 degrees. We had to block him up with rocks to keep him from rolling
As you look at this picture realize that this slope is in excess of 60 degrees. We had to block him up with rocks to keep him from rolling
