Only old people hunt sheep in Wyoming. After applying for the tag, or preference points, for 22 years, on May 10, 2017, I was successful in drawing a bighorn sheep tag for unit 19. I booked the hunt with Mike Wakkui of Elk Mountain Outfitters. Mike and his family have been in the outfitting business for many years, and, in fact, Mike said my sheep would be his 75th successful sheep hunt.
I was scheduled to arrive in Wheatland, Wyoming on September 11, 2017 to begin my hunt. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans as Hurricane Irma, a CAT 4, approached Florida. My family and I have a lumber yard and building material store in San Antonio, Florida, and the eye of the hurricane was projected to cross directly over our business and small town. I rescheduled my hunt to later in the month as I didn’t know how the storm would affect our business, customers, or employees. Thankfully, damage to our area was limited, unlike other parts of Florida that endured much devastation.
Mike and I went out on the afternoon of the September 23rd and all day on September 24th, only to be greeted by the cold, rain, and fog. These were not ideal conditions for sheep hunting. On September 25th, the weather cleared and we began to climb the mountain. Unfortunately, after many hours of climbing, the fog came back in and we knew we would have to wait another day to proceed with the hunt.
The next day was a clear and cool fall morning, perfect conditions and hopefully our lucky day to harvest a ram. After hiking up and down the opposite side of the mountain, we spotted a group of rams. We identified a good area where we sat and waited for hours for the sheep to start feeding. Three hours later, we spotted a small group of rams walking towards us. The only issue was that they were very close to the private/public land line. Due to Mike’s expertise, he knew the sheep were grazing on the public land side. We set up on a boulder, and when the sheep came into view, I had a 260-yard downhill shot to take. The sheep were butting heads, circling each other. Just as the large ram cleared, I rushed my shot and missed. After my initial shot, the rams started heading our direction. As they approached, I took the ram at 100 yards.
After admiring my ram, we took some photos to document this long-awaited hunt, cleaned, loaded the ram in our packs, and headed down to base camp in the dark. My sheep green scored 182” and was estimated to be 11 years old. Thanks to Mike Wakkui for a great sheep hunt.
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