StickFlicker's Arizona Desert Sheep Hunt
Wild Sheep
Contributors to this thread:
The Arizona ram I shot from the rocky outcropping to the top left of the picture! It was pretty open country as far as vegetation, and the decomposed granite made the stalking a noisy proposition, but I was able to take the first ram I stalked.
The Arizona ram I shot from the rocky outcropping to the top left of the picture! It was pretty open country as far as vegetation, and the decomposed granite made the stalking a noisy proposition, but I was able to take the first ram I stalked.
After about 33 consecutive years of applying for an Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep tag, I finally drew one. There was one other hunter in my hunt unit, and he had applied for 47 years! I almost felt guilty getting drawn after only 33... The hunt area was largely only accessible by boat, which proved to be a pretty limiting factor on my ability to take friends along with me on my once in a lifetime (by state law) hunt. I do greatly appreciate the offers from those that wanted and offered to help, but as I said the boat limitation kept me from being able to enjoy the time with others as I would have liked.
After the largest ram (of which we were aware) was killed by the other hunter with a firearm first thing opening morning, I watched another group of sheep for most of the rest of the first day. However, they were in an inaccessible place on the side of a cliff. There were at least a dozen ewes and three other smaller rams in the herd. On the second day, they were even higher and more inaccessible!
I did look for other sheep each day, but the ram with this group was among the biggest of the remaining rams it seemed, and I liked the look of him. Several of the other nice rams I'd seen during scouting trips were fairly broken-up, but this one seemed to have almost no damage to his horns. He had some battle damage to the bridge of his nose, but his horns were in great shape. Many people like those old battle worn rams, but between having to judge how the various chips and broken-out sections will affect the score, and just really not personally liking the look of busted up rams as well, I set my sights on the biggest ram that was with the herd on the cliff as the one I wanted to try to stalk this early in my hunt. I had some great photos and videos of this ram, so that added to my desire to maybe take him for my trophy.
On the third day, this particular group of sheep was no longer anywhere on the cliff. While we glassed all the surrounding country looking for them, they were nowhere to be found. We decided that there was a good chance they had topped-out and were on top of the mountain, one of the largest and steepest in the area... It took a few hours to climb to the top on the least steep side, and more than an hour on top to glass the smaller canyons where they could hide before we finally saw them two canyons to the north. The two of us circled the canyons and came in on them from above. I spooked them while trying to range and shoot at the biggest ram. As I had been told, sheep aren't big fans of danger from above, and they were right! Fortunately, they had run to the bottom of a small side canyon and started up the other side before settling down. The big ram was walking around checking ewes when he took a particular interest in one. This gave me the chance to creep out to a rocky point and consider taking a steeply down-angled shot at the quartering away ram. Since he was now on the other side of the small canyon, and I'm not sure if there would have been enough light left to circle around and come in on his side of the canyon, I didn't have much choice of trying to get a closer shot. I had practiced out to 70 and 80 yards extensively prior to the hunt, just in case I was presented with such a situation (or in case a long follow-up shot was needed), even though I normally try to limit my shots to under 40 yards during most hunting conditions.
I was facing almost into the setting sun, and the glare did not make the difficult shot any easier. Due to the sharp downward angle, I angled the shot toward the back of his rib cage on the right side and it exited perfectly just a couple inches behind the shoulder on the off-side. He went less than 15 yards before he was down for good (but not before diving into a patch of "jumping cactus" cholla…). I shot from the top of the rocky outcropping in the top left of the photo. The ram was on the other side of the Ocotillo (big green plant in center of picture) and down a little below it in the canyon when I shot.
He has about 36” horns and should make Boone & Crockett with a green score in the low 170’s. It was too dangerous to try to go down the mountain in the dark, and it was after 9 pm by the time we had skinned him and boned the meat. We decided to spend a long, cold, uncomfortable, miserable night on the mountain! Since he died on one of the steeper sides of the mountain, we decided to take him down that side and see if we could find a way down between the cliffs. It took close to five hours to get him down, but it all adds to the memories of a once in a lifetime hunt, right!
Great Ram and nice write-up! Hope you didn't take too many cholla stickers during pics and field dressing. Congrats!
That's an awesome ram! Congrats!
Great ram! Congratulations!
Congratulations, beautiful ram!
Outstanding.... Congratulations Marvin. Ed F
Holy smokes! As one who has tried to do the same and failed, I truly understand your accomplishment. Big time congrats to you.
Grats on a great ram and a dream hunt!
Way to go Marvin!! Beautiful ram!! Hunt
Wowza!! Awesome animal and hunt!! Congrats!!!
That's fantastic...Awesome...Huge Congrats!
Awesome. I figured that tag would end up filled. I would have guessed you would have stretched it out a bit to enjoy. Congratulations Marvin!
Thanks guys. I had read the Desert Sheep stories of several Super Slammers before my hunt, to get an idea of what I might be in for hunting them with a bow. Tom Miranda's hunt took 36 days and four hunts before he was successful, Dennis Dunn took 19 or 20 days, but Chuck Adams got it done in a shorter period. Last year a former P&Y elk world record holder had tried to bowhunt in my unit, but failed after about 28 days of trying. All these things weighed on my mind as I considered whether to take the long shot at this ram so early in the hunt. I did spend quite a bit of time scouting over several months, so I was at least able to enjoy spending some quality time in sheep country prior to the hunt.
Good job Marvin What is left in Az for you to Bag
Excellent Ram and hunt there Marvin. A big congratulations to you for pulling it off so nicely. I want to hear all about it over a beer buddy! Rich
That's a great ram. Congrats
Wow! Congratulations on a real accomplishment!
Tremendous ram for an even more outstanding individual! Super happy for you Marvin!
Way to go Marvin!! Very happy for you!!! C
you are a monster killing machine. wow!
you are a monster killing machine. wow!
Outstanding!! Did you shoot while standing, or from a kneeling position? if standing, were your knees shaking? LOL Absolutely fantastic table fare....you are going to be one popular dude as long as the meat lasts!! Again, well done!!
Wow. What a ram!!!! Sounds like a darn good shot too .. congratulations sir!!
Excellent! An animal of a lifetime!
Congrats. Very nicely done
Congrats on a beautiful ram and thanks for sharing!
Running out of superlatives here....outstanding ram and great trophy pics!
Fantastic ram, congratulations.
Do you know how old he was?
Congratulations, great ram.
Incredible accomplishment, Marvin........big time congratulations!
What a wonderful Ram!
Congrats Marvin
Good luck, Robb
Excellent, making the most of your oportunidad.
Fantastic! This is why I check in on Bowsite from time to time. Great hunting adventure stories. Congratulations.. 33 years to draw a tag.. I don't have that much time left on this planet! LOL
Beautiful Ram Marvin! Sounds like a hell of a shot too. Have you taken all of Arizona's species now?
Congrats on one heck of a ram!!!!! Great story!
Mark
Congrats man. Great ram!!
Congrats on a perfect ram!
Very beautiful ram. Congrats on a very nice trophy of a lifetime. Great write-up.
Thirty three years and three days in the making. And a ram that makes it worth every bit of the wait!!
Congrats on a fantastic bighorn! You certainly didn't "settle" with that one.
Pretty amazing animal. Insane the decades you had to wait to finally green light this hunt. Congrats!
CONGRATS!! Hell of a ram!
Big congrats! Most will only dream of that hunt
What a fantastic accomplishment!
Thanks for sharing!
Much of the area has so many shear rock faces, it can be difficult to find a way to get to the sheep if they are very far up the mountain.
Much of the area has so many shear rock faces, it can be difficult to find a way to get to the sheep if they are very far up the mountain.
Medicinemann, I think I stood for the shot, but the shot itself is all a little bit of a blur. I just remember ranging it, then he would move around, then ranging it, then he would move again, and suddenly I was shooting! I think your training and experience just sort of takes over in a moment like that.
Sticksender, the G&F Dept. aged him at 7 years old. It's tough to find a ram in this unit much over about 8 or 9 that aren't pretty broken-up. The ram we saw that we thought was the oldest, was missing the entire top of one horn. He would have been a really nice ram, had it not been for that, and another smaller broken chunk on his other horn.
Here's a what much of the country looked like. There were only certain areas where I could climb out of the canyon, due to all the shear bluffs in the area. Sometimes it was necessary to go quite a ways around to find an area that a person could find their way up to the next level of the mountain. The sheep could cover it in minutes, however!
Sometimes, you could find a slope that only looked like this, and if you're careful you can find a crease between the bluffs to scale through in order to get to the elevation where the sheep were at.
Sometimes, you could find a slope that only looked like this, and if you're careful you can find a crease between the bluffs to scale through in order to get to the elevation where the sheep were at.
Sometimes, you could find a slope that only looked like this, and if you were careful you could find a crease between the bluffs to scale through in order to get to the elevation where the sheep were at. This ram turned out to be on the very top of one of the highest mountains in the area, which required us to spend the night on the mountain before attempting to pack the ram back down through the cliffs to the bottom.
Amazing. Congrats Marvin. Very happy for you.
Awesome ram and congrats!!!
Wow. Congrats!
33 years, truly a "once in a lifetime" accomplishment...... thanks for sharing it with us!
Great accomplishment! Can you give us a little info about your set up?
Wow. That's worth the wait! Congratulations!
Thanks again guys.
Bigdan, the only major species I haven't taken in Arizona now is Bison. I have 27 bonus points for the species (same amount I had when I drew sheep), but I was already rejected for the 2017 season, so at least another year or so... I haven't taken all the subspecies of things like turkeys (have 12 bonus points) yet, but again I have never drawn the tags to do so.
longbeard, I was using a Hoyt Carbon Matrix, set at about 67 pounds, 29" draw length, Easton FMJ 400 arrows, Rage Hypodermic 2". Although it buried the arrow to the fletchings (quartering away), in the video the blood was flowing around the fletchings pretty heavily.
Marvin is there only one Goulds turkey tag in the state Rucker was full of them when I hunted coues there
There are about 70 tags total, scattered over quite a few hunt units in southern Arizona. There are a few in each hunt, but you only have two hunt number choices. I know people that have drawn it three or more times, but I've never managed to pull a tag. There are also a total of 4 Rio tags, which I haven't drawn either. A friend of mine, who has killed at least three Gould's, just drew one of the Rio tags this year (he also had a bison tag last year). I have another friend that has taken all three turkeys with a bow too (and both bighorns), but I haven't drawn a Rio either. I think there are only 16 Rocky Mountain Bighorn tags, so I probably won't be able to draw one of those in my lifetime either, since I'm just now starting over on bonus points.
Marvin, You mentioned a video...maybe you posted it and I missed it?
Would love to see it!
Mark
Awesome Ram and hunt! CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Congrats! You are truly a blessed man and obviously know how to put down big animals with a bow.
What a dream hunt! Congratulations on a beautiful ram and an excellent shot!