Kicked Out - The Twelfth Day Ram

His story starts like many sheep hunt stories—the most challenging part is getting the tag. I had been applying for tags in the state draws for the last 20-plus years and coming up short. My buddy Dominic Rowley said he was going to Reno to attend the Wild Sheep Foundation’s 2024 Sheep Week and asked if l wanted to come along. Dominic told me there are many raffle opportunities, the <1Club social gathering, and other options for winning a tag. With my cousin Alan Piorobo retiring and moving to Reno, I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to visit Alan, and the three of us go to the Sheep Show®.

We arrived at the exhibit hall on Thursday. As we walked around the booths, we came across the Wild Sheep Foundation’s raffles. I bought a handful of tickets and put 11 of them in the hunt for Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep in Alberta, with Carter Outfitting. 
 

Fast-forward to Saturday afternoon, when the raffle drawing began. One by one, the winners were announced. They got to the bighorn hunt, where I had put my tickets in, and unbelievably, my name was called. Standing there and hearing my name didn’t quite register. I was frozen in shock. 

 
Dominic and Alan started hooting, hollering, and yelling at me, telling me to walk up and claim my hunt. Eventually, I broke out of my frozen state and did so. After completing my paperwork, I tracked down the Carter Outfitting booth and introduced myself to Scott. He told me all about the hunt, what to expect, and what paperwork I would need to enter Canada. Scott told me the hunt would occur in the fall of 2024 on September 1 and that we would be in contact. 
 
Near the end of August, Dominic and I started making our way to Hinton, Alberta, from my home state of Oregon. Upon arriving in Hinton, we met up with my guide, Rhett, to review last-minute details. With that taken care of, we headed out to the staging area, where they had a pack string of horses ready to go. It was a seven-hour ride to camp. That was hard on the bottom, with only one ten-minute break halfway in! 
 


Once in camp, we settled in, rested the next day, and acclimated to the altitude. It was quite an adjustment for this boy from sea level on the Oregon Coast. We spent a day scouting, and then the hunt officially began- every day with long horse rides and climbing mountains. We spotted many ewes and lambs with the occasional band of rams. It quickly became apparent that turning up a good ram would not be easy. A blister on the back of my heel on day one did not make things any easier! On the evening of day eleven, yes, eleven, assistant guide Nick and wrangler Trey finally turned up a ram worth investigating further. Nick spent a rainy night on the hill trying to keep track of him. The following day, we were up early and headed out for a long horse ride to the base of the mountain, followed by a long climb to the top, which killed me. We finally made it to the top of the hill and located Nick. Unfortunately, fog greeted us as well. We continued glassing through the fog breaks but could not find the ram from the previous night. 
 

Rhett decided we should ease down the ridge, looking off both sides as we went. Nick climbed higher, paralleling our ridge to glass across to us. The ram was gone. However, Nick looked over the other side of the ridge he was on, found the rams, and motioned for us to hurry over to him. I took one look at how far down we had to go and back up the other side, and asked Rhett “Are you guys trying to kill me?”

 
Quitting was not an option, so we both laughed and busted butt over there. When we arrived, Nick had the ram in the spotting scope. Rhett and Nick talked back and forth and quickly determined the ram was legal, and we needed to make a stalk on it. We moved down the ridge to get in a better shooting position. The closest we could get was just over 500 yards. I settled in behind my Night Force scope; I asked if everyone was ready for the shot. It was a yes, and the shot rang out. I heard, “You hit him good, but put another round in him!” I did, and then all I heard was, “He's down.” 
 
I fell over backward. The mental and physical struggles of the past few days dissipated. I heard Rhett and Nick screaming and hollering, “You got him, you got him!” A dog pile and celebration ensued. We went down to the ram through the rocks to find that he had slid down the hill about 150 yards and then fallen off a 40-foot embankment. Luckily, the ram stopped his roll because another, much larger cliff loomed just beyond. 
 

 
The pictures, caping, and deboning started as the first hint of darkness began to close in. After loading our packs, the rock climbing began, followed by the steep descent down the rock shale to the creek bottom. It was totally dark when we got to the creek bottom, and with at least another four hours of packing to get to the horse; we decided to stay the night there without our gear.

We started a big fire, ate sheep meat for dinner, and spent a long, cold, miserable, but altogether fun night on the mountain. Finally, morning came, and we loaded our packs to head up the canyon to reach the horses. Seeing Trey and Dominic coming over the ridge with the horses was an incredible sight. Back at camp, we packed up and rode out on Saturday. I had to stay until Monday, September 16 (my birthday), to have my ram checked by Fish and Game. What a birthday present! 

 

I arrived home at 4:30 in the morning after driving more than 15 hours straight from the Fish and Game office in Edson, Alberta. It was one hell of a hunt with great people. It was the most challenging and fun thing I have ever done! Patience and a never-give-up attitude paid dividends on this hunt.
 
Thank you to everyone who made this trip possible and to the Wild Sheep Foundation for providing opportunities like this, that allow a common person to have the hunt of a lifetime.

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