Create Your Own Sportsman’s Legacy

The Wild Sheep Foundation is proud to announce a new partnership with Sportsman’s Legacy,© one which introduces a dynamic source of conservation fundraising.

Now you can support the WSF through the donation of firearms, books, art and sporting collectibles. To simplify logistics, items are sent directly to Sportsman’s Legacy. Once received, they will be professionally evaluated and then presented to the national market. Proceeds will be forwarded to the WSF in the donor’s name and these funds can even be directed to a specific initiative or project. Sportsman’s Legacy is also prepared to assist with estate planning to ensure orderly and charitable monetization in the future. Donations to WSF through this program are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.

Contact Sportsman’s Legacy or Paige Culver of the Wild Sheep Foundation (406.404.8758) today to learn more about this program. Options are virtually unlimited and every level of donation is equally appreciated.

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406.212.0344 | sportsmanslegacy.com

It was Day 15 of a 21-day hunt and (to use my Texas vernacular) we were beginning to feel snakebit. As the stalk was just beginning on a group of four rams we had spotted feeding over a mile away, a big boar grizzly decided to make his appearance – crossing between us and the rams. The rams disappeared as the bear nonchalantly ambled over a couple of miles of ground it would have taken us hours to traverse before disappearing –and taking my hopes for a textbook ending to my hunt with him.

Were all the days of riding, hiking, and climbing going to be for naught? Was my quest for a bighorn to complete the final leg of my FNAWS going to remain unfulfilled? Only the Red Gods knew…

Growing up in east Texas in the 1970s, the only sheep hunting I was exposed to came in the pages of the Outdoor Life articles Jack O’Connor wrote. As I read them hanging out in my dad’s small town drugstore, in my mind I may as well have been reading science-fiction stories. The Yukon, the Sonoran desert, and British Columbia seemed as far away as Mars to a kid whose biggest dream was to kill more squirrels or a bigger whitetail buck than his older brothers.

But kids grow into men, and their dreams grow with them. In 2006, I decided I wanted to hunt sheep as a “bucket list” hunt, so I went to the Yukon and took a beautiful Stone’s (Fannin) sheep.

Lightning then struck in 2014 as I drew a nonresident desert sheep tag in Arizona and took a fine ram.

This opened the door to the possibility of taking all four, so I went back to the Yukon in 2017 and was fortunate to take a big Dall’s ram.

That left only the Rocky Mountain bighorn. Fate led me to a great visit with Bruce Ambler at the Sheep Show® back in 2019, so I booked a California bighorn hunt with him for the following year. As we all know, COVID changed those plans, and the wait for my hunt dragged on until the borders fully re-opened in 2022. It was finally time to go.

Bruce and his guides are all topnotch. Their willingness to do whatever it takes to put their hunters on a ram is matched by their ability to make you feel like you are a part of the team.

And you are – because these rams don’t come easy. Long days, horseback rides over unforgiving terrain, and hiking up to vantage points where the horses can’t go are all part of the adventure. And an adventure it surely is, as I have never felt more a part of the wilderness. It’s as close to experiencing what the mountain men must have felt as anything I can imagine. You learn a lot about what it takes to chase an elusive prey in tough country and, in the process, you learn a lot about yourself.

Watching Bruce, Dustin, Scott, and Bryan not only tackle rough country, but do it with ease and a friendly demeanor filled me with awe and admiration.

My journey began with a flight to Montana and a cross-country drive to Bruce’s beautiful home in Clinton, BC. The scenery on the way up was breathtaking, making the long drive seem less like a chore and more like an introduction to Canada’s remote mountain wilderness. The day after my arrival found us in the cabin that serves as the base of operations. The following day was spent riding and exploring some known sheep haunts. I was amazed at how the mountain horses navigated rocks, cliffs, and other treacherous terrain with ease. Learning to trust your horse was a process, but as the days went by I became comfortable riding in country I would have thought impossible to cross on horseback.

The same was true for the hikes up to the vantage points even the horses couldn’t go. As with previous high-country hunts, my strength and confidence grew with each passing day. And the days passed quickly as we traveled to various camps across the range looking for a ram, seeing some of the most beautiful sights imaginable along the way. From colorful mountain meadows to mint blue glacier fed lakes to snow-capped peaks – this country had it all. We were finding sheep but the big rams we were looking for managed to elude us. That all changed as we rode out of camp on the morning of the 15th day, tied the horses up to glass the country we were about to ride through, and spotted the group of four rams described at the beginning of the story feeding on a distant mountainside. Even from far away one ram stood out from the rest, so a plan was made and the stalk began. It didn’t last long, as Mr. Grizzly decided at that moment to throw a monkey wrench into the works. But that’s sheep hunting, and our disappointment soon turned into resolve. We decided to stay with that group and camp on the mountain until we found them again. This we did – hunting them by day, laying down saddle blankets and rolling out our sleeping bags when night fell. Our picketed horses served as grizzly alarms. Despite several days of effort and some additional Herculean hikes by Dustin checking every possible hideout where they might have gone, those rams proved to be ghosts. We never saw them again. I was beginning to slowly come to the realization that this grand adventure might end without a ram. Again, that’s hunting – especially sheep hunting. Nothing’s guaranteed even when no effort is spared.

But sometimes perseverance pays off, and our luck was about to change.

That change came in the form of a midday message on the inReach from Bruce that they had located three rams and one was definitely a ram I would want to take back to Texas. But that meant we had to bushwhack out several miles without a trail. Not only that, we had to go now to have any shot at making it to camp by nightfall and make a play on the rams the next morning. So we packed the horses and headed out, busting brush, walking the horses over blowdowns, and slowly closing the distance to the other camp. Would we make it in time? Or would darkness catch up to us, forcing us to camp in the bush and miss this last-minute chance? Again, the answer came from Bruce – not via text message this time but in person, as we met him about halfway out. He was on foot, having walked in from the opposite direction, cutting and blazing a trail along the way so we could make it out in time. I have been fortunate to have some great outfitters who gave every effort on my behalf. But seeing Bruce coming through that tangle of timber on foot and then riding out on the trail he had made told me all I needed to know about his commitment to success. It is second to none.

The next morning’s dawn found us glassing the mountainside where the rams had been put to bed the night before. Just when we were beginning to think they may have given us the slip, they appeared out of the ravine just in front of us, feeding and totally unaware of our presence. For the first time in the hunt, the odds appeared to be in our favor. A plan was made for Bruce, Dustin, and me to ride horseback all the way around the mountain behind them, tie the horses, and come in from above. Textbook, right? And it mostly was, with a few glitches thrown in.

The first glitch was the rams decided to feed right up and over the mountain. This almost caught us with our proverbial pants down. We scrambled first up, then across, then back down the slope we had just ascended trying to stay ahead of them. This mad dash finally came to a head as we raced to get behind a huge boulder before the rams fed over a tiny ridge barely big enough to shield us from them. We made it with seconds to spare, throwing ourselves behind the boulder just as the rams’ backs crested the ridge.

As Scott and Bryan watched all these goings-on through spotting scopes from their vantage point over a mile away, they couldn’t believe their eyes. Why were we running around like banshees with the rams right on top of us? How did the rams not see us? Why didn’t we just stop and shoot the big ram? Of course, the answer was that folds in the terrain invisible at that distance were hiding the rams from us, and vice versa.

But surely we had them now. We were hidden, I had settled in with a solid rest, and the rams were feeding our way. A few more minutes and the long journey for my FNAWS would soon be over. Not so fast, because this was a story that simply refused to end.

Just as I was settling in for the shot, the rams decided to bed down for the day. Not in a little while, not in a meandering fashion, but right then. They abruptly turned, headed up the face of the mountain (conveniently hidden from us most of the way by a draw) and bedded down just over 300 yards directly uphill from us. Of course, the big ram bedded behind a boulder of his own – completely shielded from view except for his head. We were stunned by this sudden turn of events.

“Well boys, we are pinned down now. It looks like we are going to be here awhile,” Bruce said. And we knew it.

I won’t bore you with all the thoughts that run through your mind as you wait for the ram that would fulfill a lifelong dream to stand up, but they run the gamut. First you are up, then down as the adrenaline ebbs and flows like the tide. I couldn’t help but wonder how it would be when the time came to shoot. Would I be calm and steady? Or a nervous wreck? I have always tried not to overthink the shot at a ram by focusing on the stakes, but to just treat it like any of the shots I’ve taken on any other game animal. Would I be able do that this time?

Three-and-a-half hours later, the answer came. The big ram got up, moved a little, scratched out a new bed, and laid back down. Only this time he was in plain sight. I got ready. Whispering that I was steady, but that a place to rest my right elbow sure would be nice, Bruce bent over beside me, threw a pack on his back, and said “Will that work?” It did, and I prepared for the shot. Just then it presented itself. I got down on the rifle, settled the crosshairs in with confidence, squeezed the trigger, and the rifle bucked. “High!” Dustin said. When the ram paused on his way