It was again another afternoon at one of my favorite sheep areas I like to call the “trough.” It’s already August 24th and my summer vacation is nearing its end quite fast. After the great conclusion to my Lanai trip earlier, I was out to try and top it. After a few hours of waiting and glassing I began to see some sheep grazing around at about 3 in the afternoon. Then out in the distance I saw an eye-catching white spot. Turns out that it was a nice ram with three ewes, but not quite what I was looking for. So I didn’t approach him and decided to wait another hour to see what else the afternoon may bring. Well an hour passed and this ram, with the white face, was feeding a little closer to my position at about 300 yards. I took another look at him and around the area and concluded that this is probably all the day will bring, so I’ll go and stalk this ram.
As I neared the 100 yard mark, I couldn’t help but notice how cautious this ram was. He seldom put his head down to feed and scanned the area with his ever so keen eyes. At the 50 yard mark, I found myself pinned down behind a bush and in a hole because this ram just wouldn’t put down his watchful eyes. He would take two or three steps and then scan the area again, making a move for me pretty much impossible. Well it was about 5:45 pm and my legs were beginning to cramp up but I couldn’t move without jeopardizing the stalk, so I bit down and tried not to think about the pain. I was stuck in this position for a good hour and by then I didn’t think I had any legs left; the feeling was gone. Then finally they started to move a little closer to me 40-30-then 20 yards, but the ram stood on the other side of the bush and the ewes were in clear sight at 10 yards. The ewes seemed to sense something was wrong at that time and started to look around everywhere and at one point even straight at me; thank god I was partially in a hole or everything would have been lost. Then as the ewes moved off, the ram decided to move as well and came out of a small bush no more than 6 yards in front of me. Now I couldn’t help but notice that I had some anxiety building up and my heart was racing like I had ran a marathon, but all I was doing was sitting there with no feeling in my legs. After so many larger rams shot, I couldn’t believe that I was let’s say “trippin’ out” on this ram. Anyway as he turned toward the ewes, I fumbled around with my arrow like a first year bowhunter and drew on him. As he was slowly walking away I took my shot at about 12 yards and hit him way back. I thought it was such a bad shot that I would lose this one. Not to mention dark was rolling in fast.
I waited a good 5 minutes and decided to check out the area for some blood. And to my surprise there was a lot of blood scattered over the rocks and bushes. The trail was quite easy to follow and I almost stepped on the ram while I was following the blood. When I got there I saw that the shot was indeed a bad shot, but since my arrows were nice and heavy and my Mathews Black Max was set a little over 70 lbs., the arrow went all the way up to the lungs and totally buried itself in the body lengthwise. I estimated the ram to be about 25 inches in horn length, but very impressive on the mass. These were about the thickest horns I have seen on a ram of this length, so I was pretty satisfied with the mass and thought it made up for the length. Like always, I never seem to have a camera in the field for these so I found myself once again packing out a whole ram in the dark. Needless to say I was pretty tired after that pack and as you can see in the picture, I could have used a larger pack-frame. He doesn’t even fit on the thing! I was also praying the nylon string I tied him with didn’t break.
When I got home, I ate a big dinner. Compliments of my mother who can COOK! Then I went outside to clean up and measure up my ram. To my amazement, he measured a little over 30 inches on each side. I couldn’t believe it at first because he doesn’t have the curl, but the mass of him made the diameter and circumference bigger. Maybe that could have explained my anxiety upon the shot; he was a lot bigger than I thought! Upon thinking back, I was glad that I had not moved to fix my cramping up legs and stuck it out to success. Now I take a way closer look at rams before estimating length. Patience and a little fortitude can take the bowhunter a long way!
*Ram measured- 30.75 inches (right) & 31 inches (left)