Legendary Hunts

by Boone

  At first light, I reached a vantage point overlooking the head of the drainage. Out came the spotting scope. Were the rams still there? You bet! There were 12 rams in all, with the big argali lying in the center. It was a most incredible sight.

  I packed away the scope. It was crunch time. The rams were a little over a half-mile above me. I backed out of sight, threw the old legs into gear, and headed up the mountain.

  I soon reached the lodgepole timber. Continuing on, I made sure that I was well above the rams. Then I cut across the slope in their direction. Eventually, I reached the drainage head. Grass appeared through the timber but I saw no rams. Like a snake in the grass, I bellied down the slope. A single horn appeared. More slithering, and more horns popped into view.

  They were only 70 yards away. From a prone position, I could not see the rams. The grass was too tall. Up on my knees, I could only see heads and necks — not enough for a shot.

  The biggest sheep on the mountain was right in front of me and I could not do anything. Man, was I nervous. I waited an honest 20 minutes as rams started getting up to feed. Finally, the big one got up. Caught in the open, I had to shoot offhand. Deer and elk running through the timber seem to be easy targets to me, but a huge ram, standing in the open, was almost impossible.

  Every ram but Flare was staring at me. I shot, missed, and all hell broke loose. The stampede was on. Just as he was about to disappear into a gully, I broke his back. I could hear rocks rolling. Then the ram appeared down below, and he was trying to get up. I put two more shots into the rolling ram. All was quiet.

  When I reached the ram, I was shocked. He was the most incredible animal I had ever seen. Unfortunately, I did not take much time admiring him. It was only 7:45 a.m. but the sun was already starting to feel hot. Hastily, I took some pictures and set about the caping and boning chores.

  The next 12 hours were pure hell. It was hot and dry. I ran out of water. I wanted to get the meat and cape off the mountain in a hurry. By maintaining a relentless pace and leapfrogging loads of meat and the head for short distances, I got closer to the car with each load. That way, I did not have to hike all the way back to the kill site once any one load was all the way out.

  I got back to camp with the last load just as it was getting dark. Rather than spend the night, I packed up my gear and drove home. When I pulled in late that night, Jo was up in a flash. The smile on my face said it all. Yes, I got one, a pretty good one.

  “You look worse than the sheep,” Jo said. “You certainly smell worse.”

  I was all scratched up and had a chunk of hide rubbed off my back from the friction of the pack frame. In addition, I had lost 10 pounds in 4 days of hunting.

  Next morning, I went down to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks headquarters to get the horns plugged. Fred King, an Official Measurer for Boone and Crockett, was in the lobby. When I walked in, he asked how the sheep hunting was going. “Come out to the car and take a look,” I said.

  The reaction when I opened the tailgate was, “Oh my God!” We carried the head into the lab. Soon, people were popping out of the woodwork to admire the sheep.

  “Is he a big one?” someone asked. “Yes, he certainly is. Maybe a new record!”

  He was plugged as 80 MT 361. When the tape hit the left horn, it stretched to 20 inches, 30 inches, and then 40 inches, with more to go. The tape finally stopped at 49-2/8 inches. Even the short horn measured 45-5/8 inches. Geez, what a sheep!

  Sixty days later, he scored 200-7/8, thus making him the new state record for Montana, the land of the giant rams.

  Friend and taxidermist Dale Manning from Missoula, Montana, did a superb job on the shoulder mount. Now, when I look at old Flare (or Oscar, as I prefer to call him), I relive the excitement and rigors of the hunt. I also dream of the day when I can again pursue great rams in the high country.

  Photo from B&C Archives

  Desert Sheep Scoring, 197-1/8 points, Taken by Arthur R. Dubs in Graham County, Arizona, in 1988.

  Desert Oasis

  By Arthur R. Dubs

  21st Big Game Awards Program

  AT THE AUCTION OF THE FOUNDATION FOR NORTH AMERICAN WILD SHEEP IN FEBRUARY OF 1988, I OBTAINED A PERMIT TO HUNT DESERT SHEEP IN ARAVAIPA CANYON, AN EIGHT-MILE GORGE THAT SLASHES THROUGH SOME OF THE MOST RUGGED COUNTRY IN SOUTHWESTERN ARIZONA.

  As I have done in the past, I wanted to capture the excitement and spectacle of the hunt on film. I could not wait to pack my camera, along with my .300 Weatherby Magnum rifle, and head for Arizona. I was determined to search out and take the largest desert ram in Aravaipa Canyon and to share the experience with my fellow sportsmen.

  My guide, Floyd Krank, who lives in Globe, Arizona, had been hunting and scouting the area since the Arizona Game and Fish Department opened it to hunting in 1980. Three years prior to my hunt, Floyd had spotted a huge ram and named him Chiphorn, because a large piece was missing on the back side of his left horn. In succeeding years, while Floyd was hunting with clients, the old ram managed to escape all efforts to track him down. Floyd finally caught another glimpse of the ram on a scouting trip the previous summer, during the height of the rutting season. The ram was lean and haggard from running off young upstarts. At the time, Floyd had serious doubts whether Chiphorn would be able to make it through another winter.

  I arrived in Aravaipa Canyon on December 1, 1988, and met Floyd a day before the season opened. He had already set up a comfortable camp, and we both had a serious dose of sheep fever. We sat up late that night, exchanging ideas on how we might be able to outsmart the ram. If he was still alive, we had 21 days to find him before the end of the season.

  Five o’clock came early. Before sunrise, Floyd and I were dodging cactus and slipping on rotten volcanic rock as we made our way through the jagged rims overlooking the canyon. Soon, golden rays of sunlight spread a brighter path for us to follow along the canyon rim.

  As we cautiously peeked over the edge, we were treated to a spectacular view of the canyon, and we could hear Aravaipa Creek bubbling 2,000 feet below us. A group of a dozen ewes and lambs grazed contentedly on an outcropping only a few yards from us. We skirted around them, leaving them undisturbed as we kept moving under cover of the rocks, glassing every draw and crevice. The sheep were scattered and we saw several small rams. We arrived back at our cozy camp two hours after sunset with new scratches and an accumulation of cacti.

  After three days of hunting from daylight to dark, we ended up with no leads on Chiphorn. Floyd and I were beginning to wonder if the old ram was still alive. We had photographed and passed up several trophy rams that would have scored well up in the records book, but we saw nothing that approached the stature of Chiphorn.

  It was a nice awakening when, at sunrise on the fifth day of the hunt from the top of the rim above Aravaipa Creek, we spotted a heavy-horned ram with a group of other sheep. They were more than a mile away, at the head of Javelina Canyon. The ram was on a talus slope, feeding on a barrel cactus.

  We rushed to set up our 60x spotting scope. There was no question of identification. Even from the great distance, we could see the ram’s massive broomed horns. We knew we were looking at one of the largest desert rams on the continent.

  The ram had not only survived the summer’s rutting season, but he had bulked up considerably and was robust and healthy. He was banging heads with two younger rams, showing his prowess in view of a half-dozen ewes and one small lamb. He looked out of proportion, holding up his huge load of yellowish horn. We were amazed by his ability to carry such a heavy set of horns with such agility.

  We quickly took a series of telephoto film sequences. Then, we wasted no time in moving around the rocky rim to get closer to the old ram. After an hour of weaving around the heads of several scabrous side canyons, we still found ourselves 600 yards away, looking down on Chiphorn 1,000 feet below us.

  We went around the last possible side canyon in the vicinity of the ram. Again, we were overlooking the ram, but the range was no
more than 250 yards. Luckily he was still with the other sheep, continuing to dominate the herd and flirting with the same ewe.

  I quickly placed my tripod and camera in position and ran off a few feet of movie film. Then, the thought struck me: I had an opportunity to bag the largest desert ram I would ever see, but how would we retrieve him if I shot him? We agreed that even if we had to resort to mountain climbing equipment, we were not going to pass him up.

  I quickly chambered a cartridge and carefully crawled out as far as possible over the edge of the rim. I steadied my rifle on a rock. The crosshairs of my scope found the great ram, and I squeezed the trigger. As the rifle roared, the ram dropped in his tracks, never flinching.

  Floyd yelled, “You got ‘em!” as the echo of the shot bounced off the canyon wall below us. The rest of the herd scattered and disappeared.

  Congratulations were followed by the challenge. We had to climb down to the talus slope to retrieve the ram. After attempting to backtrack through several side canyons and changing our route several times, we discovered a faint trail that revealed fresh sheep tracks. I have taken several bighorn sheep, but the tracks Floyd and I found were as large as any we had ever seen. We knew they had to have been made by Chiphorn and his band. We followed the tracks through a narrow passage hidden by boulders and continued by crawling through a jungle of undergrowth. We knew that if Chiphorn and his entire band, including the small lamb, had made their way through the canyon and onto the talus slope, we had a chance to do so as well.

  We continued our descent through the rocky passage and finally broke out into some of the most beautiful terrain we had encountered in Aravaipa. There were several water holes. The canyon was an oasis, a paradise for birds and sheep and rattlesnakes too, for we met some of them.

  It had been almost three hours since the shot. Soon, we rounded the last talus slope and saw the fabulous desert ram.

  I broke out my measuring tape. Both of the horns measured more than 42 inches in length. More impressive still was the massiveness of the horns. They were broomed off as big as coffee cups, with 11-inch third quarters and bases of more than 16 inches. He had only four teeth left and all but one were extremely loose. We aged him at 12 years old. Yet the muscles still rippled over his dark-furred body. We concluded that his enormous front hooves were essential to support the weight of his horns.

  We took a complete set of field measurements before fielddressing him. I wanted the end result to be the truest representation possible of a ram in a full mount, as he appeared in the wild.

  A few days later, the horns green-scored 198-5/8 when measured by a Boone and Crockett Official Measurer in Tucson, Arizona. On May 20, 1992, I was informed that a panel of Boone and Crockett scorers had officially confirmed the score at 197-1/8 points. I was delighted that I had shot the largest desert ram ever taken by a modern-day hunter in fair chase.

  Photo from B&C Archives

  Stone’s Sheep, Scoring 176-4/8 points, Taken by James M. Peek near Tuchodi River, British Columbia, in 1993.

  Play Hooky Ram

  By James M. Peek

  22nd Big Game Awards Program

  I SENSED IT WAS ABOUT TIME TO HEAR FROM ROSS PECK OF FORT ST. JOHN, BRITISH COLUMBIA, ABOUT A HUNT FOR STONE’S SHEEP. WE HAD INVITED HIM INTO THE TAYLOR RANCH IN THE CENTRAL IDAHO WILDERNESS LAST WINTER TO SHOW HIM A BIGHORN, BUT TIME AND WEATHER PREVENTED HIS VISIT. HE ASKED ME UP TO THE TUCHODI RIVER AREA OF BRITISH COLUMBIA FOUR YEARS AGO, BUT I DECLINED BECAUSE OF TEACHING COMMITMENTS. IF HE TOLD ME HE HAD SPACE THIS TIME, I KNEW I WAS GOING, COME HELL OR HIGH WATER.

  At 57, my knees were beginning to go, and there weren’t too many 60-year-old sheep hunters rattling around on a mountain. I couldn’t be certain of health or another sheep hunting invitation. So when Ross extended another invitation, I accepted.

  The hunt began on Ross’ landing strip. The pilot circled the sky to see which way the wind sock pointed and to make sure no horses were in the vicinity He pulled his flap lever and smoothly landed his Cessna 185. As we taxied to the corrals, my eyes wandered towards those high, sharp-sculpted crags in the distance that sheltered sheep. I had just arrived, and the trip was a success. The country is honest-to-God, bona-fide, top-quality, big-game country!

  Our pack outfit left the horse camp and pulled out onto a series of parks or grassy meadows that paralleled the high ridge we were to hunt. We camped where there was no sign of a previous camp. A small group of ewes on one side kept popping over the ridge so we knew we’d see sheep tomorrow.

  The next morning our horses carried us through wet brush up a forested section of the slope until it became too steep. I worked hard and stopped often. I gradually got my legs under me and caught my breath as we broke out into the alpine tundra. Rain became heavier, and we saw a series of snow squalls coming our way from the northwest. We walked up the hill through the squalls.

  “Well, let’s see what the ridge top looks like. This light snow won’t hurt us,” Ross said.

  We trudged out of the scrubby spruce onto the ridge in 10 centimeters of new snow to look for sheep. No self-respecting sheep were loitering around on the windy side of the mountain; only dumb hunters.

  “Now, keep your head down or the sheep will see you!” Ross said quietly

  Crisp air created some image distortion as the sun’s heat waves wafted from the melting snow on the black rock. Ewes and lambs were below us. I wasn’t pleased because ewes and big rams usually don’t mix this time of year.

  “Don’t forget to watch the brush below us on that slope,” he said. ‘They’re apt to be down in the brush on a day like this.”

  Ross has the eyes of an experienced hunter. As we examined the country he pointed out three groups of ewes and lambs. Elk were below us in the spruce. I focused on big game with the binoculars but Ross pointed them out using only his eyes. Then I saw the first ram bedded in a little shady shelf below a ridgeline. We studied the curls and determined it had horns that ended below its nose. Were there more rams?

  We found a game trail the next day that wound up the ridge. The sky was clear, and we walked to the ridge. We examined the other side of the ridge and went to the same ledge where we saw the sheep. Ross motioned me to stay down while he slowly looked over the ridge.

  He instantly ducked and whispered, “Rams!”

  We raised up and Ross motioned to the ridge where seven adult Stone’s sheep rams were resting or feeding. We set up our scopes and examined their horns. They were about 1,000 meters away, but all were less than fill curl.

  None of the rams were full-curl (the magic size), but we started to whisper about what to do next, realizing we hadn’t seen all of the drainage from this vantage. We moved slightly and I got bolder about appearing above the ridgeline. Ross pointed to the birch below where he spotted four rams slowly moving away from us. I couldn’t be sure if we had disturbed them. Ross studied them and I tried to get my scope set up. We did not think they were spooked.

  We spent an hour walking across the cliffs and rocky side of the ridge. Every now and then we’d walk up to see over, then drop back down. We had to keep from disturbing any of the sheep in the drainage, knowing their sharp eyes were looking in all directions. When seven sets of sheep eyes are on a ridge, you can bet they’ll notice any move. Whether or not movement disturbs sheep is another matter, but once you’re spotted, they may stare at you for a long time.

  Ewes and lambs were below, but there was no evidence of rams. We found more ewes but the rams were on the other side of the drainage. A rough mountain ridge has a million places for sheep to bed, so we had to examine every bit of the broken terrain; no rams. We moved down the ridge.

  We continued this pattern, and I wondered if the rams had hightailed it out of the area when they first walked over the ridge. We decided to move where we last saw them. We slowly inched to the ridgeline, the last place to try to locate the rams today.

  Ross doffed his hat looked over the ridge and ducked back down. He saw them. He put h
is fingers to his lips in the shush signal, and we slowly looked over the ridge. Below in a muddy bank lay a Stone’s ram. The angle was steep, and we couldn’t determine whether it was full curl or not, but it was at least close. Where were the others?

  We studied the ram in silence. It moved its head a little one way and then another, but we were never sure whether those big horns crossed the bridge of its nose or not

  “He’s legal,” Ross said “Slip down to that green spot when I tell you. Wait!”

  I had moved. “If I whistle, stop. Now go!” he said.

  I inched down on my back, rifle resting on my chest, hugging the ground. I slid into a solid prone shooting position. Ross whistled, a bit too loud I thought, so I froze. The ram turned its head toward us, but didn’t move. As the ram looked away I settled into a solid rest, slipped off the safety of my rifle and viewed the ram through the scope.

  I knew shooting downhill meant different trajectories than if I shot across level ground, so I aimed low. The rifle was dead still. I concentrated on squeezing the trigger. At the shot the ram got up and ran over the crest of the spur ridge above it.

  “You shot in front of him!” Ross said.

  I snapped off another shot but knew it missed, too. Hunting, like any sport, is a series of highs and lows. The absolute low is missing a shot. This missed shot was the lowest point in my 45 years of hunting experiences.

  “Well, let’s go down and look. You may have nicked him,” Ross said.

  I couldn’t figure what went wrong. I thought I had compensated for the steep angle, but I knew better than to blame the rifle. I was wondering what to do next. I asked my friend to expend a considerable amount of time and energy on my behalf, and he had done more than I expected.

  We needed to check if the ram was hit or not. We dropped down the hill to scout out its tracks for any signs and examined the bed. I wondered why we hadn’t heard the ram clattering across the slide rock.