First Sheep Hunt

Yukon Unguided is a grassroots educational platform that aims to inspire an ethical and passionate community of DIY hunters and anglers.

A HUNTER’S FIRST RAM

For many hunters that live outside of the Yukon, having the opportunity to hunt and harvest a mature Dall sheep is merely a pipe dream

Growing up on the East Coast of Canada, I envied western hunters that revelled in these adventurous pursuits and I dreamt of one day having the opportunity to harvest a mature ram myself. These dreams were put on hold for eight years while I completed my schooling at Dalhousie University, and despite having fallen in love with Halifax’s charm, I knew that the time had finally come for me to “head out west.” Five days after graduation, I found myself packing my truck and hitting the highway. I was moving to the Yukon.

After living in Whitehorse for a year, I was finally eligible to hunt as a Yukon resident. Despite being able to purchase the tag that allowed me to legally hunt sheep, I knew there was still tons of work that needed to be done before I’d actually be able to pull it off. I lacked the necessary mountain fitness, my long-range shooting needed work, I barely knew anything about sheep biology, and my “backcountry skills” were rudimentary at best.

For the next few years, I made training a priority and spent virtually all of my spare time hunting and fishing in the mountains. I was fortunate enough to find success early on in these endeavours and harvested several caribou, black bears and moose in this time period. This surplus of meat allowed me to not only fill my freezer, but also helped me to fulfill the lifelong dream of no longer having to buy any red meat from the grocery store. As time went on, I found myself completely enthralled with the entirety of the process, and my understanding and appreciation for the wildlife, the vast Yukon landscapes and for spot and stalk hunting, all grew simultaneously.

In August of 2021, I embarked on my first serious fly-in sheep hunt, with my hunting partners and great friends Rory Allen, Steve Hossack and Sean McEwen. Steve, Rory and I had done a lot of hunting together and were confident in one another’s abilities, and our buddy Sean had many years of mountaineering experience on us, which helped to fill in any gaps that we had in mountain navigation. We hunted hard for eight days and found many sheep, but only managed to come across one

A good night’s sleep after a long hunt

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PHOTOS: Casey Donovan

Casey Donovan with his first harvested ram

barely legal ram that we couldn’t get to. Once shooting a sheep was no longer in the cards, we changed gears and managed to harvest a mature bull moose that was lower down in the valley. Despite not tagging a ram, I learned more in those eight days about sheep hunting than I had in all my years prior and immediately got to planning the following year’s trip upon our return home.

On July 29 of this year, it was finally time to get after it again. With Rory and Steve out of town, Sean and I set out as a two-man team and ventured into an area where I had glassed up several legal rams a few years prior. That night we quickly set up camp and did one last gear check as we mentally prepared ourselves for the task ahead. The next morning we got up early and began our journey up the creek and into the mountains.

On the hike in we were treated to mild weather and blue skies that offered unobstructed views of the surrounding mountaintops. We were delighted to find that the creek that we followed, up into the hills, would be the perfect water source for our trip, as it was easily accessible and spanned the entire length of the valley. We were pleasantly surprised by how smooth the hiking was and were lucky enough to find several caribou sheds on the way in. Just before we punched into the back of the mountain bowl, a break in the alders offered us a clear view of an alpine meadow where we spotted our first ram of the trip. It felt like things were coming together. Sean and I laughed as we finished off the last few kilometres of the hike before setting up camp.

That night we were treated to more action as we watched seven rams feed around the alpine meadow opposite the valley from our base camp. We watched them for several hours and determined that while two of them were pretty close to being legal, none of the sheep were obvious “no-doubters.” Distracted by the sheep across the bowl, we nearly missed two more rams feeding directly above us, less than a kilometre away. One of them was clearly too young, but the guy he was travelling with had a lot more mass and appeared to be an older sheep. They only offered us a quick look; but with all this action, two days away from the season opener, we couldn’t possibly have been more excited.

The next morning we headed up and over the mountain where we finally got to look back into the next range. Within minutes we got eyes on another band of rams sitting 1.5 kilometres below us and feeding straight up in our direction. Too good to be true. We hunkered down in the rocks and watched them for an hour, prepared to spend the night shadowing the sheep if we found one in the bunch that was legal. They continued to feed into our direction and forced us to retreat when they got to 400 yards, as we feared that we might spook them and stir up the area. We returned to base camp that night and found a large bull caribou hanging out at our tent, where he fed along and grazed, about 200 yards away from us while we cooked supper.

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With all of the action that we had been having, it seemed like nothing could go wrong … but pretty soon our luck would change. After the morning climb, on August 1, and after several hours of glassing from the mountaintop, we spotted a large storm system heading in our direction and decided to hike back to camp. Midway down our descent, we were met with heavy rains, strong winds and crashing hail that forced us to retreat into the tent—a humbling reminder for us that mother nature was indeed still the one in charge.

We weathered the storm through the night and well into the afternoon of August 2, logging over 16 hours hunkered down in the tent. When the storm finally let up, visibility was still at an all-time low, as thick clouds had completely socked in the valley. As the clouds slowly began to lift, Sean made the suggestion to pack up camp and move farther down the creek, which would allow us to hunt the hills a few kilometres closer to where we would have to hike out in a few days’ time. With limited opportunity to glass through the fog, I agreed with Sean that this seemed like the most efficient use of our time.

By the time we moved camp, we only had four to five hours of daylight left to work with and we decided to make the most of it with another climb into the alpine. After navigating a sketchy boulder field, we finally made it to the summit to glass. Just as we pulled out our scopes, more clouds moved in and socked us in once again. With all our days’ efforts seemingly wasted, we stubbornly sat around and tried to get eyes on the one saddle that we could see sporadically. Just before the clouds eliminated our view entirely, we picked up six white dots on the hillside.

With the fog threatening to stick around, Sean decided to hike around the peak to see what he could find. I sat tight on the rocks, in hopes that the clouds would clear up enough for me to get eyes on those six white dots again. When Sean returned, I was thrilled to report that not only were those six white dots sheep, but they were all rams and I was pretty confident that one of them was the “no-doubter” we were looking for. We watched the sheep as they continued to feed into the saddle and, with the daylight hours dwindling, we were forced to make a play. We decided to tuck down behind the ridgeline and out of sight, in order to close the distance. With the sheep out of sight, we were banking on them getting tired and resting up in the saddle, which looked like a great spot for them to potentially bed down for the night.

It took us two hours to close the gap. As we tiptoed in for those last few-hundred yards, we were thrilled to see that the rams were bedded down right where we wanted them. A quick look with my rangefinder confirmed that we were sitting 334 yards away from our target, with no option to get any closer without spooking them. We did our best to stay calm, and we confirmed one more time, with the spotting scope, that he was indeed a legal ram. PHOTOS: Casey Donovan

A true Yukon Surf n’ Turf

Once I finally grabbed my gun and got him in the crosshairs, I was forced to exercise more patience as we waited for the bedded-down ram to stand up and offer a clear shot. To further complicate things, we were forced to guess the speed of the howling winds, which I knew from that distance would have a significant impact on the trajectory of my solid copper, 180-grain .30-06 round. With Sean in the spotting scope, at my left, I was finally able to get a good shot off as the sheep stood up and turned broadside. As the gun went off, my bipod malfunctioned and I briefly lost the ram in the crosshairs. Sean was able to confirm that it was a good hit in the bread basket, but, to our surprise, the ram appeared to barely flinch and walked another 50 yards into the rocks, where he bedded down yet again— this time, clearly hurt and staring straight at us.

In an attempt to end the animal’s suffering as quickly as possible, and for fear of the ram jumping off the nearby cliff, I loaded the gun immediately in an attempt to make a follow-up shot. In a moment of panic, I hastily forgot to re-acquire my new yardage which, now that the ram had moved, was closer to 400 yards rather than the previously acquired 334. Coupling this mistake with the howling winds, I proceeded to miss two follow-up shots, cleanly, before Sean jumped back on the glass and told me that my bullets were hitting low and left. I made the necessary adjustment in my scope and took another shot, this time hitting the ram directly in the heart, killing him instantly. We breathed a sigh of relief as we walked up on the ram, for the first time, and confirmed that he was a legal sheep. Phew.

It took us two hours to field dress the ram before we hiked down off the mountain and hung the meat in a tree along the creek. We then hiked back up the valley where we spent the night and grabbed our camp. The pack out took us the better part of the next day, and music from our nearly dead cellphones helped to keep our spirits high as we completed the “victory march” back out of the mountain block. That night we hooked into several grayling on the fly rods, while we slowly smoked the sheep ribs over an open fire, before enjoying a proper Yukon surf and turf. Once back in Whitehorse, we butchered the animal in Sean’s garage, with the help of a few of our good friends who came by to congratulate us on a successful hunt and to hear the story of the trip.

Sheep hunting is a truly unique experience that challenges both your mind and body. Overcoming the odds and seeing the other side of a successful sheep hunt is a feeling that I find difficult to put into words. While I still have so much to learn about these amazing animals and the rugged landscapes they call home, it is the promise of the unparalleled adventure, the overcoming of adversity and suffering, with your close pals, and the excuse to spend time exploring such beautiful places, that will forever keep me coming back for more.

To this day, I’m still not able to reach into the freezer and pull out one of those beautiful packs of sheep meat without my mind travelling back to those days, in August, when Sean and I ran ridges and harvested our very first ram— memories of an adventure that I will cherish for the rest of my life.

If I could teach one thing to any new sheep hunter, about the lessons that I’ve learned in the hills, it would be to make patience your friend. Stay patient in your preparation, in your training, in your planning and when you’re in the hills judging that legal ram for the very first time. It’s easy to let emotions cloud your decision making, when the margins for error are so small, but taking the time to do things right can be the difference maker between a fun and successful harvest or having things go south and going home emptyhanded. n