On Friday, September 27th at approximately 4:00 p.m. after five days of hiking/climbing and hunting, laying mostly prone shooting off his backpack and at a distance of 350 yards across a deep, steep, rocky canyon, Kody fulfilled his 2019 Colorado bighorn sheep ewe tag. We were hunting in bighorn sheep unit S33 in the Rio Grande National Forest in the rugged San Juan Mountain Range about an hour west and south of Creede, Colorado, five hours from home.
In the five days, we hiked/climbed well over 30 miles, going up to 12,200 feet each day. Kody went on up to a distant peak and ridge at 13,200 feet in search of sheep on the last two days. This was a completely unguided trip. It was just the two of us. In the months prior to the actual hunt, he spent countless hours planning every aspect of the trip from where he would hunt, the best sheep habitat, equipment and gear we would need, weather, etc. While I am sure there have been other 15-year-olds who have killed a bighorn sheep, I doubt that many of them planned and executed the entire hunt. All I did was pay the bills and provide the transportation.