“Dad, Game and Fish has started hitting credit cards for tag fees. A couple of my buddies in Arizona drew deer tags, so you’d better go check and see if you drew anything.” The phone call from my son, Jared, caught me in the middle of an episode of “The Incredible Dr. Pol,” and although I thanked Jared for the heads up and told him I’d check it out, after years of rejections, I wasn’t about to interrupt my TV show and run for the computer. In fact, it was much later in the afternoon when I made my way to the office to check my emails and credit card statement. When I clicked on my credit card statement, it showed a charge from Arizona Game and Fish that could only mean one thing. After 45+ years of applying, I had drawn an Arizona Desert bighorn sheep permit in my home state. Even at 71 years old and with nearly 60 years of big game hunting experience, drawing a Desert sheep permit is not for the weak of heart. I stared at the computer screen in dumbfounded disbelief for several seconds, and I don’t really remember my total reaction, but it resulted in a broken arm to my office chair and was loud enough to wake my napping bird dogs. My wife, Diann, merely thought I was watching politics again and mostly dismissed my rant.
After a few minutes to compose myself, I called Jared with my great news. He told me there was nothing that could keep him from going on the hunt with me, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. He asked if I was going to hire a guide, and I said, “Absolutely!” I wasn’t leaving anything to chance with this hunt. Our search started that very day, and although we had to wait a few days to find out exactly which tag I had drawn, I started researching sheep guides and outfitters. There were quite a number of them, and I read several impressive resumes from all over the state.
I found out a few days later that I had drawn my first-choice area, which was for the Nelsoni variety of Desert bighorn, and narrowed my search accordingly. A name that I had become familiar with was Craig Steele, who, along with his partner, Lee Murphy, operated Exclusive Pursuit Outfitters. Craig was based out of Kingman and Lee out of Chino Valley.
I emailed Craig, and in his response, he offered to send some photos and videos of rams he had seen in the area in 2019, that and some YouTube videos of sheep hunts and rams in the area had me pretty excited. By the time we set up a phone call, I was very much convinced that Craig Steele was “my guy.” I committed to and booked the hunt at the end of our conversation. I couldn’t have made a better choice. Craig kept me totally informed on his scouting schedule and updated me whenever he found an interesting ram. Initially, Craig sent photos and videos of four nice rams. One he had located in 2019 was my favorite. It was a beautiful dark chocolate ram with what he thought to be nearly a 40" horn. The other horn had broomed back about 4". Craig had named the rams to identify them during our communications, and he called this beautiful ram “LR” (Long Ram). Hopefully this would be our number one target ram, and we had several other nice rams as backup.
Having left Arizona for Iowa seven years prior to this hunt, Jared and I stayed busy through the summer doing a lot of fishing and archery deer hunting into the fall. All of this helped pass the time to get us to Thanksgiving. We packed up our camper and checked handloads and zeros on my pair of Kimber .270 WSMs, had Turkey Day with the family, and then we were off on our long two-day drive to Arizona. The trip went smoothly, and meeting with my longtime hunting buddy, Sam Knoy, and his nephew, Jimmy Shaw, along with Craig at our pre- arranged campsite was perfect.
The next three days were spent scouting. We were able to locate quite a few rams, but only one made the cut. He was an incredibly heavy, wide old ram that Craig dubbed “Alien.” We had possibly found our new number one target ram. The night before the season opener, Craig shared some excellent news with us. His partner, Lee Murphy, had finished up his elk hunt early and would join us to help. This was great news and pivotal in the success of our hunt. Lee did indeed show up and with him was another far gone and crack sheep hunter, Hunter Haynes from Payson. Our luck didn’t stop there as a couple more terrific sheep hunters, Clayton Holloway and Caleb Boyett, joined in the fun. Sheep do that to guys, I’ve come to find out.
With Craig directing traffic on opening day, we scattered out in different directions all over the unit. Craig took Jared and me and paired up the three other teams all to look for something better than what we had found. Craig posted Jared and me on a high knob to glass a long ridge until around midday and then, as was his habit, took off for the highest ridge in the area to look at other stuff. Jared located two rams from our vantage point, one of which looked good, but he was on the move and didn’t give us much of a look.
Afternoon approached, and Craig returned to us with some incredible news. Lee and Hunter had found a fabulous ram in the far southwest corner of the unit. Craig said that he feared bad things would happen if we tried to get to them before dark and that he felt a better plan was to let the guys bed him and go in early on day two and try to kill him. “I’m 99.9% sure that this is the ram we want, but I want to look at more video and pictures to make sure,” Craig said.
Day two arrived, and Craig had seen enough. We were after this guy. We drove up a large sand wash to the edge of a wilderness area and then our entire entourage continued up the wash toward the mountain where our ram was left the night before. Lee and Hunter went ahead to try and relocate the big ram while the rest of stayed back as to not pressure the sheep any more than we had to. And locate him they did, and quickly! Craig, Jared, and I moved forward and met up with Lee and Hunter who were set up 550 yards away from the ram. We got our first good look at this giant, and he was breathtaking. Bedded in a shallow cave with two ewes, he was gorgeous.
Craig, Jared, and I dropped back into the bottom and moved to within 300 yards of the ram where we set up to the side of a huge boulder. The ram got up and moved out of the cave and on to the side hill, but before we could shoot, he quickly bedded again behind an ewe. With the rifle positioned perfectly on one of Craig’s prototype Rok-Stedi bipods, the waiting game continued. I was leaning back on the fine backrest Jared was providing for me when the ewe bedded in front of the ram stood up, and the ram quickly followed. A quick reminder from Craig to let those amazing horns clear before the shot, and there it was, the shot that I had waited 45 years for presented itself. At the blast of the Kimber, it was a solid hit. The sheep bolted hard to the left, and two more quick follow-ups had the ram of many lifetimes on the ground. We waited until the entire crew joined us and all climbed to the ram together. He was incredible. After a period of much, almost solemn, admiration, Craig knelt and put his tape on those magnificent horns. Looking up, he said, “Lee, he’s over 40 inches on both sides. I had him at 37 inches!”
I can never thank those guys enough for their hard work on my behalf, the highest praise that I can give them is they took it personal. I will never forget that! The way things worked, we never had a chance to name this ram. He’s only been referred to as “Larry’s Ram.” Works for me!
Later that afternoon, Craig carefully measured our ram and came up with a green score of 178 6/8". During the checkout process at AZDGF, they came up with a score of 178". Quite a ram.
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