I seldom find a hunter and woodsman who cannot spin a good yarn about both the successes and miserable failures of his/her hunting exploits. I was “busting a gut” to retell the story of my recent Yukon Dall sheep hunt to family and hunting friends. As I settled into my airline seat for the trip home to Indiana, the thrill and excitement of the hunt still had my heart rate up. As I closed my eyes in the seat, still holding a smile, I mentally reviewed my adventure that had proudly made me a half slammer in the sheep hunting fraternity.
Sheep hunters are humbled by Mother Nature, the mountains, and the sheep and seldom beat their chests proclaiming to be good. Rather, most will proclaim how hard they worked and trained, how much they prepared, and mostly, how blessed, fortunate, and lucky they were in their success. My story only begins because of my luck and blessing of having a seven- time grand slam sheep hunting legend in my Southern Indiana backyard. This being the now ageing Jimmy Craig. Upon my initial approach with Jimmy to express my interest in sheep hunting, he actually rolled his eyes and gave me one of those “yeah, right” looks as he had heard this over and over again. The wisdom, knowledge, and advice locked in his mind was not going to be wasted on me, the non-deserving. However, he didn’t count on how driven and passionate I am about hunting. He didn’t count on meeting a true competitor. After learning of my hunting club, the conservation efforts, the year-round work with youth in the outdoors, and swapping stories of exotic big game, monster whitetails, and my love of waterfowl hunting, a friendship was formed and I became worthy of Jimmy’s knowledge. I, like many other successful hunters, had paid my dues and endured the countless hours of misery and failures, and in turn, I earned the respect of both him and those who had gone before.
With a lifetime of experiences, my mentor helped me with advice and the many pitfalls to avoid in wild sheep hunting. Introductions were made at the Sheep Show to a couple of guides well known by my new mentor. Some of those relationships within this fraternity of sheep hunters spanned some 30 to 40 years. These successful guide services mostly cater to clients who are both sheep hunters and competitors. My dad, forever the old high school coach, professed that you are born a competitor and, not unlike a sheep hunter, “you either are or you ain’t.” You see, according to him, a competitor can be beaten but never defeated. As in athletics, hunting, and life, you might be bested one day, but with practice, adjustments, training, and perseverance, you will overcome all until you are successful. Hunting can be a humbling sport. According to the same coach, you cannot appreciate success until after countless hours investing in practice and giving your very best effort, you fail!
“Getting there is half the fun!” was the cry of old timers making cross country trips mostly due to the unreliable autos of their day, rough state highways, and tires with tubes. O’Hare Airport screwed up my flight, resulting in me getting into Vancouver so late that, despite running with a gun and baggage to my connector flight, it was too late. There would be another flight in five hours. Exhausted and mad, I looked for a place to flop when I spotted a man sitting with his head in his hands. He was elbows on knees and bent over, and his gray t-shirt was soaking wet. I sat down next to him and asked if he too had missed his flight. Thus was the beginning of a great friendship with Brian Ford from Utah who, ironically, was headed to the same guide service, Mervyn’s Yukon Outfitting.
A floatplane trip for my new friend and me put us at a base camp where it would then be backpack and horses only. We met the owners, Tim and Jen, who have successfully operated the business for over 23 years. As I eagerly stepped out of the floatplane, I was met by their daughter, Emily, who at age 20 was making her first ever hunt as a guide. My concerns that I would get slighted because I was a female hunter were dashed following an afternoon one-on-one trip with her to glass for sheep. My enthusiasm, effort, and training for this hunt were matched with her preparation, professionalism, and soon to be discovered skill as a guide. She was worthy of the opportunity as she was not given the job, but rather, she had earned this right by serving as a wrangler in the family business for over eight years. It didn’t take long to figure out that, like myself, she was a competitor, and I was sure this trip would be a success.
Early the next morning, I was sitting a plug named Willie. The wrangler, Emily, and I, along with my adrenalin, rode for a few miles in the direction of where a group of 36 sheep had been spotted a few days earlier. After making it to the top of a ridge, we glassed a few times and spotted a group of four and a second group of five sitting on a hilltop. They were a bit too far to thoroughly examine, so Emily suggested we skirt the mountain, staying out of sight of these two small groups, and search for the larger group known to be in this range. She was pleased and surprised when I agreed to leave the horses and backpack.
We went up and down, over, and around in search of the larger group but had no success. After a few hours and a good sweat had been worked up, we decided we should head back to the last location where we had spotted the two small groups. We snuck back into viewing position, set up the spotting scopes, and found our groups. The group of four on the right held ewes and lambs, while the five on the left were all rams feeding in and out of sight over a ridge. After carefully studying each ram one by one, we sat, anxiously waiting to see the fifth and final ram. As he walked into sight, we quickly realized he had the mass and size I was after, plus he had broomed tips. The problem was that we were exposed and there was no depression or natural drainage to cut the 1,200-yard distance. Emily suggested we wait and hope they would graze out of our sight and we would close the distance as quickly as possible.
After an hour, the last of the group holding our shooter disappeared over a small ridge and the race was on. As we neared the ridgetop, the anxiety was high, but it was soon holstered as there were no rams in sight. As we made our way completely over the ridge, we spotted the rams 500 yards to our right. We had hit the ground to attempt to hide in plain sight. We quickly spotted a large rock formation 100 yards away and monkey crawled into position. After setting up, we could just make out the tops of their horns. Then, the most unique thing happened that made this stalk so very special. Two rams rose up on their rear legs and head butted and crashed into each other with a loud “ker-clack” that echoed off the range walls. They kept this up for over 30 minutes as we watched in amazement. Now all we could do was wait for the rams to show themselves. All at once, like a flip of a switch, they began walking straight towards us. The heavy breathing and rush of adrenalin was pumping in full force as I leveled my Kimber 6.5 Creedmoor. My first ram was shot at 533 yards, so there was no way I was going to miss this shot as he was standing at 170 yards. Wrong! I missed! I shot over him a couple of inches. After he ran 60 yards, I settled in and was able to harvest this beautiful ram with my next shot.
After much celebration, we posed the ram for the once-in- a-lifetime photo with my first Dall sheep and Emily’s first successfully guided hunt. In a matter of seconds, two great competitors had found hard-earned success.
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