gbear
08-02-2010, 09:32 AM
I posted on here over a week ago that I was heading up to the NWT to hunt with Jim and Clay Lancaster and Nahanni Butte Outfitters, and thought I would tell the tale of the last day of my hunt.
The third huntable day, started the same as the others, but we didn’t see any sheep close to camp. 3 rams were hanging out on this one mountain about 8 kilometres or so away. We seen them the last couple days and they weren’t moving much. So after checking areas close by camp, we decided to make a play on those 3. I figured it was going to be close to a 6 hour hike to get to them, so we took extra food and some clothes in case we had to spend the night. It was a pretty good sized mountain they were on and we had a long ways to go along our ridge and then drop down into the creek bottom and then hike up the other side.
Steep going, but we made it in a bit over 5 hours. We picked up on the spot they were last bedded, so I slipped out of my pack and held on to my gun as we eased along. Pretty windy up there and it swirled around quite a bit, so that wasn’t good. Unfortunately, over a 5 hour period, rams do move, and these ones did. All of a sudden, they stood up at 15 yards or less and started to make their escape. They did stop for a brief second and I could see 2 really clear. I put the gun up and had the cross hairs on the biggest of the 2 waiting for my guide Clint to give me the go ahead (they like to shoot the older ones). Unfortunately, when he did age them, he said to take the one on the left and that is the only one I didn’t see clearly for a shot. Then they were gone. Wow, close but couldn’t finish it!
We were somewhat dejected after such a long stock and re-composed ourselves and slowly started our hike back to where we came from. As we were making our way down, we seen the rams already on the other mountain closer to camp. That gave us a glimmer of hope that maybe we would see them again. Also, by then they were calm again and feeding along, contouring around the mountain. We lost track of them as we lost elevation, but we kept going and made it to the top of that mountain in pretty good time.
As we got there, we dropped down a bit from the ridge top, so we could see down to the bottom and started contouring in the direction they went. I would say in an hour or a bit less, we spotted the rams bedded down in front of us and a bit downhill. We were just coming up to a bit of a basin. We got ourselves to one edge of it, and they were on the other. From this point, there was no way to get closer. If we tried to contour along, we would be exposed. If we went up hill, we would be exposed as we tried to slip down on them.
My guide took a range on them and came up with 420 yards. He asked how I felt about it. I did practice a lot at 300 yards and had good grouping. I also invested in a new zeiss rifle scope with the rapid Z reticle which has yardage markers on it for aim points. So, I figured I would give it a go. I set up my pack and got comfortable and it felt steady. The wind was a bit gusty, so had to keep an eye on that. We had lots of time, and my guide wanted to wait until the rams stood up so he could get a good look at one that was hidden by some brush as he wanted me to shoot the oldest one.
While we were waiting, I just kept practicing with aiming and going through the motion of squeezing the trigger. I was steady, so it was looking good.
Finally the rams stood up and Clint told me the one on the left was the oldest. He also had the nicer flair, so that sounded good. I got steady again and we decided it was a bit downhill and that I should put the 400 yard line on him. That’s what I did. Clint was to watch my shots through the spotting scope. First shot went right over his back. Yikes! ok, I’ll use the 350 yard line. Lined up again and this time I hit him good, but now they started to run up the hill a bit. I lined up again, and hit him again, and then another time. The third hit was a bit off and hit him more forward in the neck. The ram kept moving, but he was slowing down and I could see the blood pouring out of him. Clint said one more time, so I did, and he was down after that. Hit him 4 out of 5 times. Only miss was because it turned out to be much more of a downhill angle then either of us had thought initially. I was so excited! It was after 5pm when I had taken the shots and we had started the stock at 9 am. Good thing was we were really close to camp at this point now.
Amazing place to hunt, and great people!
Here are a few pictures
http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/medium/IMG_0323_1600x1200_.JPG (http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/showphoto.php?photo=19903&size=big&cat=500)
http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/medium/IMG_0322_1600x1200_.JPG (http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/showphoto.php?photo=19902&size=big&cat=500)
http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/medium/IMG_0319_1600x1200_.JPG (http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/showphoto.php?photo=19901&size=big&cat=500)
The third huntable day, started the same as the others, but we didn’t see any sheep close to camp. 3 rams were hanging out on this one mountain about 8 kilometres or so away. We seen them the last couple days and they weren’t moving much. So after checking areas close by camp, we decided to make a play on those 3. I figured it was going to be close to a 6 hour hike to get to them, so we took extra food and some clothes in case we had to spend the night. It was a pretty good sized mountain they were on and we had a long ways to go along our ridge and then drop down into the creek bottom and then hike up the other side.
Steep going, but we made it in a bit over 5 hours. We picked up on the spot they were last bedded, so I slipped out of my pack and held on to my gun as we eased along. Pretty windy up there and it swirled around quite a bit, so that wasn’t good. Unfortunately, over a 5 hour period, rams do move, and these ones did. All of a sudden, they stood up at 15 yards or less and started to make their escape. They did stop for a brief second and I could see 2 really clear. I put the gun up and had the cross hairs on the biggest of the 2 waiting for my guide Clint to give me the go ahead (they like to shoot the older ones). Unfortunately, when he did age them, he said to take the one on the left and that is the only one I didn’t see clearly for a shot. Then they were gone. Wow, close but couldn’t finish it!
We were somewhat dejected after such a long stock and re-composed ourselves and slowly started our hike back to where we came from. As we were making our way down, we seen the rams already on the other mountain closer to camp. That gave us a glimmer of hope that maybe we would see them again. Also, by then they were calm again and feeding along, contouring around the mountain. We lost track of them as we lost elevation, but we kept going and made it to the top of that mountain in pretty good time.
As we got there, we dropped down a bit from the ridge top, so we could see down to the bottom and started contouring in the direction they went. I would say in an hour or a bit less, we spotted the rams bedded down in front of us and a bit downhill. We were just coming up to a bit of a basin. We got ourselves to one edge of it, and they were on the other. From this point, there was no way to get closer. If we tried to contour along, we would be exposed. If we went up hill, we would be exposed as we tried to slip down on them.
My guide took a range on them and came up with 420 yards. He asked how I felt about it. I did practice a lot at 300 yards and had good grouping. I also invested in a new zeiss rifle scope with the rapid Z reticle which has yardage markers on it for aim points. So, I figured I would give it a go. I set up my pack and got comfortable and it felt steady. The wind was a bit gusty, so had to keep an eye on that. We had lots of time, and my guide wanted to wait until the rams stood up so he could get a good look at one that was hidden by some brush as he wanted me to shoot the oldest one.
While we were waiting, I just kept practicing with aiming and going through the motion of squeezing the trigger. I was steady, so it was looking good.
Finally the rams stood up and Clint told me the one on the left was the oldest. He also had the nicer flair, so that sounded good. I got steady again and we decided it was a bit downhill and that I should put the 400 yard line on him. That’s what I did. Clint was to watch my shots through the spotting scope. First shot went right over his back. Yikes! ok, I’ll use the 350 yard line. Lined up again and this time I hit him good, but now they started to run up the hill a bit. I lined up again, and hit him again, and then another time. The third hit was a bit off and hit him more forward in the neck. The ram kept moving, but he was slowing down and I could see the blood pouring out of him. Clint said one more time, so I did, and he was down after that. Hit him 4 out of 5 times. Only miss was because it turned out to be much more of a downhill angle then either of us had thought initially. I was so excited! It was after 5pm when I had taken the shots and we had started the stock at 9 am. Good thing was we were really close to camp at this point now.
Amazing place to hunt, and great people!
Here are a few pictures
http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/medium/IMG_0323_1600x1200_.JPG (http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/showphoto.php?photo=19903&size=big&cat=500)
http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/medium/IMG_0322_1600x1200_.JPG (http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/showphoto.php?photo=19902&size=big&cat=500)
http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/medium/IMG_0319_1600x1200_.JPG (http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/showphoto.php?photo=19901&size=big&cat=500)