[quote=smokepole]... Plenty of ways to ensure you find an animal that's hit, including having a spotter stay put and guide the hunter to the animal. And since we're talking about sheep chances are the hunter and/or guide will see where it goes down or be able to find it easily out in the open where they live...[quote]
Years ago I was DIY hunting in one of Montana's Unlimited Bighorn tag units. This day my hunting partner decided not to climb the mountain where we thought the sheep were, so I went up alone (but with my Golden Retriever). Earlier that morning I had met an Outfitter that had a guide and client also hunting up on that mountain.
About 3/4 of the way up the mountain I came to the edge of a wide avalanche chute and there were two bighorn rams out in the chute, not 20 yards from me. Both rams were legal but were smaller than the full curl ram that I had killed the previous year, so I let them go. Both rams ran up the chute and out of sight.
A few minutes later I heard a shot and one of the rams came running done the chute and turned south and out of sight. Then the other ram, which was the one that had been hit, came running down through the timber and turned north when he saw me. The client's shot had hit the ram in the guts, and several feet of his small intestines were dragging behind him like a rope.
I didn't know where the Outfitter or his guide and client were, and I didn't like seeing that wounded ram running away, so I followed it to the next avalanche chute where it had stopped, and I gave it a finishing shot.
I then went back and found the outfitter and the others and took them to their ram. The Outfitter had seen me just before I had originally seen the rams, and he said that when he heard my shot he thought it was from some other hunter on the north side of the mountain. They had no idea that the wounded ram had ran north, and they had gone off after the ram that had ran south.
All ended well, I took them to their ram and helped them pack it over and done the mountain to their camp. When I had met the outfitter earlier that ,morning he had been real skeptical of me taking my dog with me up the mountain. But after I had helped with their ram, he invited me to dinner that night at their camp, he gave me the biggest porterhouse steak, and made sure my dog got a big meaty bone.
My purpose of this lengthy rant is that there isn't always a guide or spotter to help find your lost animal. And contrary to what many think, bighorn sheep are often found in the timber.
Oh, and the next year I went back into that same area, just me and my dog, and I shot the other ram.
