Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Let's talk about sheep...

Seen plenty of sheep around Big Sky, used to be an unlimited unit, now I understand it's a draw unit? how are the odds?

Brad,
Was thinking as good of a backpack hunter as you are have you considered some of the unlimited units in the Beartooths?

Odds aren't especially good.

I have, but it's a race. It's you against the clock and other hunters. That kind of pressure isn't appealing to me, and not how I ever intend to hunt. No trophy is worth that to me. I'd rather just backpack...

It's a race to beat the quota cutoff, plenty of rugged country to get lost in.
Would be surprised if you saw other hunters if you went far enough and high enough?
Could be wrong? haven't hunted sheep there, only deer and elk and generally at the lower elevations.
Also fished some of that country, Beartooths are my favorite mtns.

Here's a ram I found in the spotter a few springs ago. He was down and apparently not able to get up. A friend and I made the 1+ mile hike to him and found that was for certain the case. Called FWP, and the next day they came out, though the ram had died in the meantime. They took him out via snowmachine.

I'm fairly certain some immature male wolves had run him down the mountain and he'd gotten hung up in some barbed wire and cut himself open real good. The autopsy FWP conducted definitely confirmed the barbed wire part, but they weren't willing to speculate on the wolf part. Thing is, I'd watched those wolves try to stalk the group this ram was part of.

Surprising how fragile these animals are, despite the terrain they inhabit.

I believe it "depends" which unit you're hunting. Big thing is per-season scouting and being setup at first light.

Maybe Pat will chime in and share his experience.

Aside, this is a great thread! The photos are outstanding...

Brad,

Your assurance that you'll eventually draw a Montana ram tag is heartening, but this year will be my 40th time applying, and Pat is well ahead of me, even though he's a little younger. After high school I lived in South Dakota and Wyoming for a few years after high school, so couldn't apply as a resident and couldn't afford to as a non-resident.

Then I started college in Missoula, about the time the Rock Creek herd started producing huge rams and became THE place to apply in Montana. I hunted deer and elk in that drainage, and a buddy drew a few ewe tags, and I went along on one of those. After seeing some of those huge rams (one standing on a rock less than 50 feet above us, watching as my buddy field-dressed one of his ewes) I couldn't imagine going after a ram in the unlimited areas, even though I was somewhat familiar with them from backpacking during my high school years in Bozeman.

Looking back on it, maybe I should have started hunting the unlimited areas, but seeing really big rams does tend to spoil you. After college I also spent a lot of time along the Front (where I helped my wife fill a ewe tag 24 years ago) and in the Breaks, and got to know some of those sheep well, and like you had extreme confidence in eventually drawing a tag SOMEWHERE.

I did draw a ewe tag in the Elkhorns a few years ago, and during that hunt saw a bunch of good rams, but the next winter the herd got pneumonia and almost disappeared; there haven't been any tags since. The Rock Creek herd isn't what it used to be either, for the same reason.

Will turn 63 this upcoming hunting season and by now don't regard drawing a Montana bighorn ram tag as essential to existence. It would be nice, but I've hunted everything else on my "life list," both in Montana and elsewhere. Maybe I'll draw a ram tag this year, but somehow doubt it, even with maximum points, because despite being lucky in many aspects of life, drawing special tags ain't one!

I need to try an Unlimited unit one of these years... I'm thinking 2016.

Tanner

JB, I was kind of wondering how spooky big horns really are in Montana? Guessing it's a unit dependent kind of deal?

I know a cowboy from over north of the lake and he says it's no big deal to ride a horse right by them at a pretty close distance.
I've never seen a Breaks sheep so have no idea but from what him and a few other people have mentioned getting close enough for a shot is relatively easy.

Of course finding the best ram in all that country might be a little trickier.


Mountain goats are also another 'tame' critter in certain units as well?

Goats out here aren't to spooky of folks either, apparently.

Some fella ran across one on a trail in the Olympics. The goat wouldn't give way and when the fella pushed the issue, the goat killed him.

In fairness though, I bet he drove a Subaru

Yeah MM, the goat probably did us a favor!

I bet it had an Obama sticker!

Still, getting horned in the guts in front of your family has to suck.

Hi Sam,

I have a slide somewhere in my files taken in the late 1980's, when a buddy and I used to float the Breaks from Judith Landing down to Fred Robinson Bridge during the first week of the deer rifle season. My buddy is aiming his rifle offhand at a BIG ram, maybe 50 yards away, which just stood there looking at us. (Of course, no bighorn was harmed in the taking of the photo.) When I drew my ewe tag in the Elkhorns a few years ago, my stalk up to some nearby cliffs where I'd found a ewe herd took me past six mature rams, bedded on the slope. I passed within less than 150 yards of them and they never stood up.

Could give you a bunch of other examples of the same basic stuff, and they get even dumber during the rut, like the one that stood above us while field-dressing the ewe. When we dragged her back down the mountain (there was snow on the ground and sometimes she dragged us) we ran into about 10 other mature rams, all within 250 yards at most, and the spookiest any of them got was to mill around a little, then stop and stare at us some more.

Except in the unlimited areas, the chance of any individual ram (or even any individual ewe) ever getting shot at is pretty slim, so there's no real reason for them to fear humans.

Great thread guys... didn't catch it the first time around.

If you can stand a few more (can't remember which of these I've posted before).

Top of Atigun pass (taken from the truck):


Just off the highway in Turnigan Arm:





Up a little higher:

One of my favorite AZ desert pics

JB, that's kinda what I was figuring.

That float trip sounds like a lot of fun!



And great pictures from everyone, cool thread.

An Idaho Hell's Canyon ram...

DA-YUM!