It had been 51 years from when I first applied for bighorn sheep in my home state of Montana until I finally drew a tag for the California subspecies in Utah’s Newfoundland Mountains. Now as a Utah resident for over two decades, I had built the required number of points to pretty much guarantee me a tag for the unit, and I decided I wanted to go sheep hunting!
When I got the official notification, I excitedly told family and friends, including an old friend, Dave Heft, of New Mexico. We have known each other for over 25 years and had half-jokingly promised whoever drew the first bighorn tag, the other would come along and share the hunt. When I told Dave my number had come up, he said he would definitely be there as long as I had a case of Cokes in camp. I assured him I would and bought a case that very evening.
I started contacting biologists, past hunters, and anyone who knew anything about “The Island.” Located west of Utah’s Great Salt Lake, the appropriately nicknamed range is isolated and narrow, circled by rough two-track roads. The area mostly is managed by the Bureau of Land Management; however, the extreme southern end is fenced off and controlled by the Department of Defense. Contacting Travis Jenson, the Chapter President for the Utah Wild Sheep Foundation, led to a cascading list of contacts and an invitation to a guzzler completion project.
I made three solo scouting trips over the summer. I saw sheep on each of those trips, mostly ewes and lambs. Several people told me that the large open face on the northwest corner of the mountain always held sheep, but on all my trips, I only saw one radio-collared ewe anywhere close to that area. I planned to hunt the last of the season to avoid the other hunters, maybe catch the start of the rut, and to focus my attention on the southern half of the unit where I saw most of the sheep.
Finally, on October 19th, Dave and I rattled out to the unit in my overloaded Ford Ranger trailering my Kawasaki Teryx. We had the unit to ourselves and set up camp on the mountain’s north side to give us easier access to the entire range. With about an hour of daylight left, we headed out for a quick reconnoiter. Like before, no sheep were seen on the large, open northwest face. We continued down the dusty road to a large semi-circular bend in the mountains called Miner’s Basin. As that last sliver of sunlight crested the ridgetop, I spotted a few sheep high up the mountain. When I got my spotting scope on them, they were moving into a finger canyon and almost out of sight. We saw them just long enough to tell one was a mature ram, but he disappeared into the shadows before we could tell much more.
Getting up the next morning, we decided to hold the Miner’s Basin ram in our back pocket and head down the east side with the plan to drive to the military fence line and glass our way back, hiking into the hills if we spotted anything interesting. When the stunning sunrise gave way to daylight, we were about a third of the way down the length of the range. We broke our own plan on driving straight through to the southern end and occasionally stopped to glass the hills.
On the second or third stop, we spotted a 4 to 6-year-old ram cruising around the hillside, seemingly heading to some water guzzlers I knew were behind the saddle above. At this point, we weren’t too interested in him, but we soon spotted another ram with half a dozen ewes in a basin further to the south. He was pushing the ewes around, and soon, they disappeared behind some topography. We thought this ram needed a closer look, so we geared up and headed up the mountain on foot. After a five- mile trek, we never were able to catch up with the group.
We made it back to the Teryx with half the day left, so we continued the drive south. A couple of miles short of the military fence, we found another group of sheep feeding on a small patch of green. The band included several ewes, a couple small rams, and yet another 4 to 6-year-old ram. I told Dave if we didn’t leave, I might shoot that ram, so we left. We didn’t see any other sheep on the rest of the drive to the boundary fence.
The next morning, we left camp just as sunrise arrived. We had decided to try the west side, starting to glass at the infamous northwest open face. Once again, we saw absolutely nothing there. We continued driving towards Miner’s Basin, and after rounding a corner, Dave yelled, “Sheep!” I quickly saw where he was pointing, and a dozen or so sheep were feeding on some green grass at the foot of the mountain. They were only about 300 yards away and couldn’t care less that we were there as they alternated between feeding and half- heartedly chasing each other around. We counted 23 sheep, including 8 rams. One ram was definitely bigger than the others, broomed back on both sides, and looked to be at least 7 or 8 years old.
After watching them for a while, I told Dave I was going to take the larger ram. I lay down in the dirt, popped up the bipod legs on my 30-06, and found the ram in the scope. With the crosshairs tucked behind his shoulder, I squeezed off a shot. A cloud of dust erupted behind the ram. The sheep ran off a few yards, but I quickly found the ram again and sent another bullet as soon as he stopped. Another volcano of dust flew up, and this time, I heard Dave clearly yell, “You shot high again!” No way! The ram paused again, much further out, but one more shot ended up with another clear miss. The sheep disappeared over the ridgetop. The word “dejected” does not describe how depressed and low I felt at that moment.
As we drove down the road, cooler heads prevailed and we thought maybe I should check the zero on my rifle. Two shots at 100 yards showed I was hitting almost nine inches high! The problem now was I had only brought along 10 bullets for the day’s adventure. I was already down five, so I clicked my scope down, took one more shot at the target, and my gun seemed sighted in closer to the normal three inches high. We didn’t see any more sheep the rest of the day.
On day three, we wanted to hunt our way down the east side again, hoping to find the mystery ram or maybe a larger ram might find his way into the group on the green grass towards the southern end. First, we thought we might as well go check the area where I missed the ram the day before. There seemed to be plenty of feed there, and it was only a few miles from camp. We didn’t even pause at the northwest open hillside but went directly to the drainage from the day before. I quickly glassed up a young ram and a ewe skylighted on the ridge. Dave shortly added that there was another ram just below them. Almost as soon as I found the second ram, he took off straight down the mountain and seemingly straight for us. I watched as he ran into another group of sheep near the foot of the mountain. There were now six rams jockeying for position with an apparently hot ewe about 300 yards from where we stood.
One of the rams was obviously the larger one from the previous day. Without much hesitation, I settled with my rifle in the powdery dirt and watched through my scope as the rams pushed, kicked, and shoved each other all while trying to keep the ewe corralled. Dave kept telling me the range and which position in line our target ram was changing through. After a few frustrating minutes, the ram separated and paused broadside just under 300 yards. A moment later, a bullet left my rifle barrel, followed by the much anticipated “Thwack!” echoing back to our ears. The ram couldn’t keep up with the rest of the retreating herd but still stayed on his feet. A second shot ended my 51-year wait for a Rocky Mountain bighorn.
After collecting some biological samples for the DWR and breaking him down, the pack out was a short walk across the valley floor. When we got him plugged at the DWR offices a couple of days later, they aged him between 8 and 9 years old with a B&C score right at 150". I can’t thank all of those enough who helped me with reams of information on the unit, my friends and family who encouraged and shared my excitement for the long-awaited opportunity, and especially my hunting partner, Dave Heft, who kept his decades-long promise and helped me fulfill a lifelong dream.
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