Sitka;
Top of the morning to you sir, I trust that you and your fine family are well up there.
Thanks for sharing the story, it made me chuckle and recall a few similar experiences I've been present for.
Here in the south it's always been a curl restriction and not annuli, but the Stone sheep up north had and might still have an either/or age/curl provision.
When I took my California ram in to get plugged, the bio put it into the infamous "Yukon Jig" and fooled with the skull for awhile while I looked on hoping I'd been correct about it being a 3/4 curl. It was and by a fair bit, I want to say more than 35mm on the short side, but interestingly when buddy took his ram last year, the horns were bigger diameter and longer than my ram 31 years previous and his was only 5.
A father and son taxidermist shop who were friends of our family had helped me cape the thing and would subsequently find a buyer for the half mount cape for me. The son had aged the ram at 7½ but there were false annuli on both sides that gave him pause.
The bio doing the measuring also went back and forth on the age for a bit, finally aging it at 7 on the form filled out during the plug installation.
On some of the sheep hunting social media groups I wander through, it's not uncommon for some fairly animated discussions on the age of some rams for sure.
Thanks again for the post and the memories it twigged.
All the best to you all Sitka.
Dwayne
