Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Sheep - Realistic Ranges

I like that. Very well said. We all have different abilities.

Where did you come up with your name here on the Campfire?

Of the 14 sheep I have guided or hunted, I would guess that the average shot range is around 350-300. Some as close as 90 yards, and some as far as 600. Like most things, I would much prefer to be up close to them.

Tanner

265 on a Dall, 400 on the Stone.......

I agree with the quote above, 100%.


I don't agree with the quote below at all, it's 100% a value judgment and just reflects someone's personal preference. I teach hunter education and I do my best to keep those types of value judgments out of the dialog, or at least make it clear that it's just my personal preference and there's more than one legitimate way to skin a cat. To say that someone who doesn't share my personal preferences is "not a hunter" is arrogant and myopic in my opinion. It all goes back to why we hunt and what we each want to get out of it. And there are almost as many reasons why we hunt as there are hunters.

If a guy stalks to within 50 yards of a deer or elk and can say to himself "I've practiced for years and I know I can make this shot," then making the shot doesn't mean he's "not a bowhunter." If he lives for the stalk and wants to get closer that's great, more power to him. But he has no place to say another guy who stops and makes the shot "is not a bowhunter."

I've been fortunate enough to have been in on 26 ram kills over the years, and I'd say the average shot was around 200 yards.

I have hunted 28 different species and subspecies of sheep and goats from the far west Brooks Range of Alaska to the Koryak Mountains of far eastern Siberia and most of my shots, I mean the overwhelming majority, has been closer than 250 meters,
Most of the times I had de option of shooting 350-450 but decided to get closer just for the spell of it.
Other times I just passed and looked for another animal, or took de shot if I was running out of time or stamina.
I hunt the mountains with a Blaser K95 Kipplauf or break open single shot and use either its 6,5x57R or .270 barrel.
Alvaro

My one Sheep was killed @ 348 lazered yards. The incline was so great, however, that I held as I would for a 200 yard shot (this was before ballistic ranging) and made a perfect lung shot..


I've never killed an Elk or an Antelope @ over 200 yards and I've killed a bunch of each.

I've never hunted sheep. I've only seen a handful of them in real life. But I do remember JOC saying something like "When I first started hunting sheep, I always saw them at long range because I had not yet learned how to hunt sheep."


Okie John

[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.

A couple of points in response. First, I never said a guide or spotter is always there to help. I was responding to someone who made a blanket statement questioning the ethics of long shots due to the difficulty of recovering the animal. My point was, it's not always difficult and long shots can be just as ethical as short ones.

Second, I was assuming a good hit. If an animal is gut-shot and runs a long distance all bets are off, short range or long.

Single Colorado bighorn, 40 yards. Spotted him from about half a mile, had to drop down below timberline to get close without being seen, spent 3 hours getting to where he was. By the time I got over near where he was, he had moved and bedded and I came up below him. I did’t realize he had moved till I crawled up over a ledge and there he was. If he had not of moved my stalk would’ve brought me to about 100 yards from him.

My one and only Dall ram was at 250.

I have 5 sheep with the bow, two bighorns, and one each Desert, Stone and Dall, first four were do-it-yourself, the Dall was guided. Closest ram was 35 yards and the furthest was 60 yards. That said I spent a lot of time sheep hunting over a 37 year period to get an archery grand slam! About 1 in 7 stalks got me into archery range.

Goats were a bit easier to get close to for me as a bowhunter. I got two...both about 25 yards away...but the terrain was a whole lot more vertical than the sheep country I hunted. I also had better success stalking close on goats than sheep with about 1/4 of the stalks getting me to bow range.

Good luck on your hunts!

My archery Rocky was 63 yds and my archery Dall was 53 yds. Guided but alone on both stalks. After years of rifle hunting bow hunting sheep is a whole different ball game. With a 200 yd shot rifle hunting your hunt is over. Bow hunting it is just getting started.

320 yards on mine, we stalked to the edge of a sheer cliff, and couldn't get any closer.

450 yards. We watched the group (2 rams and 3 or 4 ewes) for a few hours till they got up and started to move. We waited till they got out of sight then headed up a drainage trying to cut them off. They came out ahead of us and had us pinned down, looking at us. Outfitter ranged them and I slid my pack on a large rock (about the size of a small table) and had a great rest with little to no wind.