March of 2022, I found myself heading to the famous Tiburon Island of Mexico to hunt giant Desert bighorn sheep. Along for the ride with me was my longtime good friend, Colby Egge. We both knew what this island had to offer, and we were both willing to give it all we had in hopes of turning up a giant ram. When we arrived in Kino Bay, we quickly jumped onto a boat to cross the ocean to head to the island. A quick 15-minute boat ride across and we made it. The first thing I realized was how hot, dry, and humid this place was. Not to mention the steep, rugged, thorn-invested mountains on the island. Oh man, we were in for a treat.
Day one approached, and as we hiked for a few miles, we went to where we wanted to glass. Derick, the owner of the outfit, took Colby with him, and another guy and I went the other way. We were not split up for more than 10 minutes when I came around the corner and there was a giant ram. A no doubt 180"+ ram and a 175" ram were standing there. I quickly tried getting into position to get a better look and get set up for a shot, but both rams disappeared, never to be seen again. Did I just mess up? Should I have just raised my gun and shot when I had the chance?
Day two approached, and it was a very windy day with 30+ mph winds. We went into another location and glassed up a few 170" type rams. They were beautiful sheep, just not what I came to the island for.
On day three, we decided to go back to where I saw that big ram on day one. This time, I did not let Colby get out of my sights. I knew if we were going to kill a ram, we would need to be together to get it done. About an hour went by, and Colby found a few rams about three miles away and one of them looked like a giant. We knew we had to get a closer look at him. We decided to pack up our bags and hike on over there.
Hiking through the terrain on the island is not an easy task. Finally, we made it over to where the rams were last seen, and we found some smaller rams but not the two bigger rams. We glassed for a few hours, patiently waiting to see what would happen. The morning hunt was fading away, temperatures were getting hotter, and most of the sheep we were seeing were bedded up for the day. We decided to have lunch.
After lunch, our game plan was to hike all the way up to the highest peak, circle around, and head back to camp. As we finished lunch, I noticed movement down in the flats below us. I found a rutting buck pushing four does. A tall, deep, heavy 4x4, what I would think was a 185" buck, Colby for sure thought the buck was bigger than I did. Nonetheless, he was the picture- perfect island buck. It was such an amazing sight to see. After the deer moved on, we decided to get a little western and roll some boulders off the mountain to see if anything would get out of their beds. Nothing happened at all, so we continued to hike to the top of the mountain. We didn’t go 500 yards when I looked over to my right and there was a ram walking away from us. He looked big!
I got Colby’s attention and said, “There is a ram!”
He quickly looked over and said, “That’s the ram from this morning. Shoot him.” I told Colby he better put his BTX on him and make sure he was a giant and big enough to shoot on day three. He replied to me, “He is giant! Shoot him now!” I quickly ranged the moving ram at 260 yards, grabbed my gun, and let him have it. Boom! The ram tipped over the edge. It sounded good.
As we hiked over to the ram, all I could think about was hopefully the ram was a giant. As I finally made it to my ram, I was in shock. He was giant at 15 7/8"x 38". He was officially scored at 180 0/8" gross, 179 5/8" net. He was a true giant ram-of-a-lifetime!
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