I’ve never done a write up before, as I am not much of a fan of writing, but figured I’d give a short rundown of my first solo hunt/first sheep hunt since I love reading everyone else's. I have been planning and researching sheep hunting for the past few years, but always had something getting in the way (moving, university, or the past year, my wife was unable to work, so I couldn’t justify the time off work). This year I had 11 days set aside for an early season backpacking Willmore hunt. Originally it was supposed to be with some hunting partners, but both were unable to make it - including one pulling out 18 hours before I left. While a bummer at the time, it ended up working out quite nicely as I like both hiking alone and and I was able get my first ram anyway! I had spent some time scouting during the spring and summer in a couple of the staging areas, however decided to go in the one I had never been to. I thought the sheep I found scouting would be hammered opening morning, but I would only be leaving Edmonton then.
Day 1: Left my house on opening day at about 6:00am, running late as usual, and began the drive to the staging area. It was obviously quite packed upon arrival, as can be expected for opening day, but I managed to squeeze my truck into a spot, load up my gear, and happily set-off on my way. I had the next 11 days to simply enjoy the mountains and try to find some sheep - euphoric in my books. I had never actually been into this area before which always makes the hike in just a little more exciting. I bumped into 3 hikers on their way out who mentioned a good number of hunters were headed into the general area I had planned to hunt. This was expected, but for some reason, at about 18 or so km into my hike, I decided to head in another direction I had considered when their was originally going to be at least 2 of us hunting. I didn’t make it there, but set-up camp with a much shorter ahead of me the next morning into where I wanted to begin glassing.
Day 2: Packed up camp and humped it along the trail until I found an area that looked decent for busting through to the alpine. I ended up setting up camp and glassing from atop decent ridge until sunset. I saw what appeared to be sheep beds (maybe caribou beds though?), a small herd of 14 caribou walking in the alpine, and a couple of moose down in the valley. No sheep thus far, but I was liking the looks of the area.
Day 3: I glass early in the morning, then drop down to fill up on water. This was the first of many trips down. I only brought 3L of water capacity and assumed I would find plenty of springs and water sources up top as I have in other areas I’ve hiked. I was only able to find a couple high altitude water sources throughout the entire trip. I’d love to hear what other do when sheep hunting in the early seasons. Do you camp down closer to water sources, bring much greater water storage capacity, or do I just suck at finding natural high altitude springs(probably at least some of this)? Once I was loaded up again, I continued to follow a ridge line to an area that looked promising both on satellite imagery and from the binos. Stopping regularly to spend some time glassing, I spotted 3 other hunters high on a peak, and have to say that Sitka open-country pattern does the trick pretty good. I could barely spot them if they weren’t moving. I continued on glassing and hiking until I found a spot to setup for the night. It worked out quite nicely too, as I spotted about 20 ewes and lambs with a couple banana horns that evening less than a km from my tent. No legal rams though, and I wasn’t sure if these ewes meant I was getting closer to finding legal rams, or if they wouldn’t be anywhere nearby yet.
Day 4: The ewes and young males are back in the morning, but I decided to spend the full day picking apart the expansive area I could see from the peak I was on. Ewe heaven! There were also sheep trails going across nearly every mountainside. I was starting to think I’d spot a ram today. I counted over 40 different sheep (all ewes/lambs) that day, 5 mountain goats, some marmots, and 2 other hunters on horseback! Still nothing even close to a legal ram.
Day 5: I glassed the area one last time at first light, before beginning to hunt my way to the next area that looked promising. It was a bit of a gruelling day and when I setup camp for the evening I couldn’t find water anywhere nearby. Tomorrow I would drop down and work my way around to setup camp near an alpine lake I spotted. 8 Caribou came right by the tent that evening, but no sheep were seen that afternoon or evening.
Day 6: Dropping down off that ridge sucked. I found a drainage that looked like my best bet, and it was overgrown and steep. Easily some of the most miserable kilometres I’ve hiked in my life. It also reminded me how out of shape I was. After I re-hydrated and was slowly working my way around the base of the mountain to find a way up to the lake I spotted I decided to take a break and do some glassing from down low. I spotted 3 rams after only about 10 minutes behind the binos. The spotter came out, and I could tell one was a couple inches too short, one was about half an inch too short, and the other looked like he just might be legal! I pulled out the topo map, made a plan and off I went after them. After about an hour and a half of hiking, I’m at a point on the steep scree where I take 2 steps up, and fall/slide back 1 step. It was at this point, being exhausted and out of shape that I made a series of gloriously stupid decisions. First, I decided I would ditch my pack and make a quick run up with just the binos to see if they’re still where I spotted them. Second, instead of going up wide around and above them, I took a much shorter route - so short I ended up less than 100 yards from them. Third, instead of going back down to grab my spotter/rifle once I found them there, I decided I would try and judge the one with just my binos. Fourth, to get a little better view I tried to clamour higher up the scree when I was so close to them, instead of taking an extra 30 minutes to go back, out of their range of hearing and sight and then up above them to a good position. Needless to say, these were all terrible attempts to save some energy/time/work that resulted in them busting me scrambling up the scree. Off they went. I spent the next hour pondering the stupidity of trying to save 30 minutes or an hour of time and effort when I had given myself 11 days to invest in chasing them. Lessons learned. After glassing the area one last time, I headed down, grabbed my pack, and made my way up to the alpine lake to setup camp and glass for the evening.
Day 7: I glassed the entire day from the saddle where the lake was, taking a mid-day nap to recuperate some energy! The wind was unbelievable that day, hammering my shelter, and not giving me the greatest peace of mind at the time. However, the Mountainsmith LT tent stood strong (with some generous sized rocks atop the stakes), and I have a lot more confidence in the thing now. I saw no animals beside marmots all day until 15 minutes after sunset, when I was staring back at the mountain I spooked the rams on the day before and I spotted a couple sheep! They appeared to be rams, but with the fading light, and smoke from the fires I couldn’t be 100% sure. I put them to bed and set an alarm for early in the morning.
Day 8: The smoke was so thick in the morning I could barely see the mountain. Thankfully the wind was present and it was a little clearer after a couple hours. Finally, I spotted the rams on the same mountain, but this time I counted 6! I quickly headed in that direction to get a better view through the spotter. About half-way to the rams, I found an area I could get a decent sightline on them. After an hour of glassing them through the spotter I was 90% that 5 rams were short, and that one was legal! They were bedded down right below where the rams were two days prior. This time I made a new plan, to climb up a different drainage that would take longer, but allow me to come up above them undetected. I unpacked my non-essential gear to make the hike a little easier, leaving it at the bottom of the drainage and headed up. Once I made it up to where I had a good vantage of where I last saw them, I pulled out the binos to ensure the legality of the one ram, but to my dismay I couldn’t see them anywhere. I glassed the rocks and trees for 45 minutes straight, but never even caught a glimpse. Finally I decided they must have dropped further into the trees, or the mountain is playing an illusion on my, and I’m not actually look at the correct spot. I decide to hike to a little higher vantage point just to ensure I wasn’t looking at the wrong spot. As I’m clamouring up the scree, I see 6 rocks 200 yards to me right all stand up! Unbelievable! They had just moved up to bed down in the rocks much higher than I was looking and now I was busted again, simply because I never gave the higher area a good combing with the binos! I froze, expecting them to take-off, but after couple minute stand-off they all settled back in! What a break for me! I was able to slowly sit down, and set up the spotting scope to ensure legality. Unfortunately the potentially legal ram never gave me the side view I wanted for another 90 minutes, by which time he had moved down to 315 yards below me. He was legal and I had ram-fever! I’ve shot deer and elk before but never had the shakes like. Probably partially due to the sitting at a steep incline, and attempting to use my pack as a rest. Finally I was able to settle down put the ram down! A surreal feeling for sure - my first solo hunt, first sheep hunt, and now I had a ram down. I don't think my heart stopped racing for another hour. I boned out the meat, loaded up the ram and began the journey down and out. My original plan was to leap-frog the ram out if I got one, but it was about 25*C out and I wanted to get the meat cooled off and out ASAP, so everything went in 1 trip. I made it down to a creek where I could cool the meat and setup camp for the night. I don’t know if my head even hit the sleeping pad before I was asleep.
Day 9: Loaded up the sheep and hauled it out. Met a lot of great people on the way out as well. Shout-out to the fellow at Nomad-Outfitting for offering to ride the load out for me (I declined). I didn’t think I could lug a 100lb load 22.5km out of the backcountry, but I have to say, there is something sweet about the misery of it all. I think by the time I reached my truck I had sworn I would never do this solo again though. However, not even 30 minutes into the drive home I was planning the next one… go figure.
Needless to say, I am hooked on sheep hunting. I have learned tons from reading others insights into sheep hunting and I certainly have tons more to learn and look forward to gleaning as much info and tips from everyone as I can for next time! Thanks to all who post and share on the forum! I certainly feel blessed for getting a ram on my first attempt, and part of that is due to the helpful community members.
First Sheep Hunt
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