Hunter: Adam Brennan
Species: Dall Sheep
Location: Yukon Territory
Method: Traditional archery (longbow)
Holding on to a small rock feature, I worked my feet along a ledge, trying to ignore the near-vertical fifty-foot wall below me. I had travelled a few hundred yards along this cliff already, with only a narrow fifteen-foot ledge between me and the bench I expected the rams to be bedded on below. It had taken me thirty minutes to convince myself I could make it across this final ledge. I was fully committed and fully regretting the exposure.
Earlier on in the hunt, I had made commitments silently to myself about the level of risk I would be willing to take as a new father with a second expected to arrive in early 2026. I was breaking these promises.
I’d missed a large ram the day prior while he was bedded on a small ledge with two other rams, one of which had long, twisting, flared horns, maybe 41" or 42", but that lacked the mass and character of the ram I had planned to take. After this missed opportunity, I climbed back up the 800-foot-long spine bordered by cliffs and loose rock on either side, fighting back the negative thoughts that my one chance this season might have just been squandered. A few hours later, I resolved to keep going and hope another chance might present itself.
With my right hand holding onto a solid rock and both of my feet planted on the ledge, I launched myself forward, knowing that my momentum would carry me to the grassy bench at the terminus of this final traverse. I jumped, clearing the remaining portion of the small ledge, and landed silently on the flat and grassy bench. I knew the rams were close; as I’d worked towards them from the previous bench, I had estimated they were about eighty yards below and to my right. This meant that if I had timed it right and they hadn’t seen me, heard me, or smelled me, they should now be immediately below me.
Moving slowly, I worked myself into a small crack in the vertical face. Smeared against the rock wall and completely concealed, I moved one eyeball width at a time into the open area to confirm the rams were all where I expected them to be.
Working my way from right to left, I craned my neck and confirmed each of the nine rams and their location in the band. The two large rams that had never been more than a few feet from each other had stayed true to this behavior. Bedded closest to me was my ram, or at least the one I had been planning to target. Next to him, the long, looping ram was standing, looking out over the valley below. Five other rams of various sizes were all bedded around them. It was now or never.
I had spotted these rams at 5:28 p.m. as I reached my favorite camping spot in the entire Yukon Territory. I laid my bag down at what a very select group of close friends and I call “High Camp”. Knowing that High Camp was a great glassing spot, I elected to glass for a few hours before I set up camp and tucked in for the night. Seconds after setting up my spotter, I saw what looked like four rams—one mountain over and across a small valley from me.
The rams were in a great spot for a stalk, and, having killed my previous ram with an arrow from this same longbow in 2022 on that same mountain, I felt very confident in the terrain and my previous experience. In a matter of minutes, I had sneaked back out of sight and set up my tent. Rapidly, I threw everything but the overnight essentials and my bow into the tent and started my stalk towards the rams.
At 7:30 p.m. I was above them, but with a small ram just fifteen or twenty yards away, all I could do was curl into a ball, press myself into a small depression, and think of all my favorite rocks, praying I turned into one. Between good wind, a solid backdrop and cover, and staying completely still, the ram fed past me in an arc down to the other eight rams about sixty yards below me. The group continued to feed away from my position to a small series of jagged ledges and benches.
I made my way to a hidden vantage point and confirmed their direction of travel. All nine rams were feeding slowly towards a prominent spine with grassy benches and cliffs on either side of it. I made my way back around the other side of the mountain until I was out of sight. The wind was blowing from the rams toward me. Closing in on the spine, I could smell sheep and knew they must be close, as the contour of the mountain was funneling all the scent in the area directly up to the small saddle I was hidden behind.
Knowing the terrain and how difficult the climbing was going to be, I decided to leave everything but a warm jacket and my bow on that saddle.
I never leave my pack in the mountains. I have considered it many times but found that a stalk takes on a life of its own. As it changes and evolves, you can lose track of gear or travel further than you expected—potentially dangerously far from critical gear. However, this situation called for it, and my pack would be waiting for me between the rams and my eventual route back to camp regardless of how this stalk unfolded.
I worked my way toward the rams that had now been feeding on an angle parallel to me for almost two hours, inching closer and closer. Finally, after numerous overhanging ledges and one previously described hairy section, I reached a small grassy bench above them. With my target ram located in the band of nine rams, I worked myself into a concealed position where a shot would be possible. Moving imperceptibly slowly, I moved my left hand and bow into position. Canting my bow to avoid the rocks around me and further hide my silhouette, I started to draw. Slowly, I progressed through my shot sequence and picked my spot. Hitting my anchor point, I started to bear down on the largest of the nine rams. My arrow screamed towards the ram.
Smack! It hit the ground directly next to his body, perfectly left and right but six inches low. The exact same location my arrow had landed when I’d missed the bedded ram previously.
The mountain exploded with a cascade of rushing sheep moving to my right over and off a series of boulders and adjacent ledges. The rams collectively looped around and stopped. There was no way they could have seen me, but they were looking now. My suspicion is that they were looking for falling rocks, as I had seen this behavior previously.
In my experience, when sheep see a person, they run. When they smell a person, they run. But a cautious hunter can sometimes get away with some noise.
Glassing the band of rams as they moved slowly away, I noticed my target ram was not with the other eight rams. In the commotion, he’d moved out of sight to my left while the other rams all spilled off the ledge to my right. To my surprise, as I peeked over the edge, my target ram stepped over my previously shot arrow and stopped in the bed he had just blown out of.
I nocked another arrow and came to full draw, creeping slowly over and around the cover I had been using. The ram came into my view within my sight picture above my left hand. Having just missed this ram seconds before, and with him standing in roughly the same location, I knew what to do.
Rolling through my shot sequence again, I moved my left hand the smallest amount up and settled into my anchor. Once again, my arrow screamed off the cliff towards the ram, its large feathers and broadhead cutting through the wind. I heard the unmistakable sound of an arrow passing through the chest cavity of an animal. Like pulling your boot out of a muddy quagmire. Ksloosh!
I watched my ram run off after the other eight rams, carrying my arrow by the feathers on the exit side. At 9:30 p.m., my hunt was over, but the real work was about to begin. I immediately messaged my wife and a few close friends on my satellite messenger. As a new father, it felt good to break the loneliness of this hunt with an update to my family and friends. Twenty-four hours later, my good friends Cole Johnson, Toni Pickerell, and Greg Sanderson had me and my ram back to my vehicle and on my way home with what may be the ram of my lifetime safely in my hands.
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