ADVENTURE PROFILES

seven other rams dogging a ewe in heat. Waylon and I headed up the mountain to get over the top of them while Garret stayed below to keep an eye on the rams. One-and-a-half hours later we were nearing the area, when suddenly the ewe trailed by the seven rams crossed 40 yards in front of us. She paused with the rams in tow. She turned, ran back in front of us and dropped into a slight depression. Wayne, still kneeling down, was able to spot the big ram. I slowly got to my knees. We ranged the ram looking away from me

Bill Tittle

SPECIES: CA Bighorn

OUTFITTER: Bailey & Landrus Hunting Company

GUIDES: Wayne Clouse & Garret Gurr

LOCATION: Washington

In July 2021, I won the WA CA bighorn raffle tag. As my luck would have it, I caught COVID shortly before the opening of the season. I tried to hunt but could not climb the mountain with my high heart rate and unbearable fatigue. We attempted again at the end of the season in December. Unfortunately the weather this time shortened the hunt from five days to two days with a blizzard.

Once again I played the raffle in 2022 and won the same tag. We started again on Chelan Butte Sept 1st with 100°F+ temps for the week. I had two good shots on a tremendous ram. One shot was at 50 yards with a miss sailing over his back. The real heart breaker was the miss at 17 yards with strong wind. What a way to finish a week. Mentally I was just not performing as in the past. I returned home to get my head straight with the intent of coming back during the rut.

November 25th of 2022 dawned with three to four inches of snow on the ground with limited visibility, and I was back on the mountain. Waylon, Garret (my guides) and I spotted an old ram with

Brian Winot

SPECIES: Stone’s Sheep

OUTFITTER: Folding & Stone Mountain

GUIDE: Harmish Armstrong

LOCATION: BC Canada

We left their beautiful lodge on horseback four days before the sheep opener, for what was to be a three-day ride to the camp we intended to hunt. We would however, be in sheep country starting the first night, and the plan was to continue each day if we did not find rams prior. If we found rams, we would camp on them until the opening day. As with everywhere else up north this summer, it started raining the minute we left the lodge and made for very tough conditions. We reached our first camp location late in at 41 yards. I quickly released the arrow hitting the ram slightly in front of his left hind quarter. The arrow completely passed through the ram exiting the front shoulder into the ground. A short, 60-yard walk to the beat up, chipped 9.5-year-old warrior ram ended with high fives and shouts of excitement.

A big thanks to Bryan Bailey, Glen Landrus, Wayne Clouse, Garrett Gurr and Andy Kelso for sticking with me to get this done!

“Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.” the day. After setting up camp we decided to try and get some glassing in between fog banks. We located two bands of rams within two miles of camp, both of which looked to contain legal rams. Of course we were going to stay at this camp location!

Friday and Saturday we trekked out to glass the rams from afar when the rain and fog would allow.

Sunday we stayed in camp not taking any risk of bumping “our” sheep.

Early Monday morning (opening day) we rode out to the edge of our mountain range. Leaving the horses we climbed up to where we had last seen the sheep two days prior. They were right in the general area, however we had no viable way to approach them and were pinned at 660 yards. God was shining down on us and a fog and rain bank moved in allowing us to close the distance to 500 yards. We waited the next couple hours for the weather to clear. When it did we were looking at seven rams that were getting anxious to get up and feed. After careful inspection we picked the eight-year-old over a couple of full curl seven-year-old rams. With a perfect rest we were able to make the 495 yard shot and drop this ram in his tracks. Folding & Stone Mountain run an EXCELLENT operation. Their equipment is nine out of ten, every employee is knowledgeable and helpful, and their lodge is absolutely beautiful. Thoroughly impressed with all aspects of their operation. Thank you to Chris at OAS Hunts for helping me book this great trip!

Mike Borel

SPECIES: Nubian Ibex

OUTFITTER: Point Blank Hunts

GUIDE: Abdelrahman Osman

LOCATION: Sudan

I just had to go for a Nubian! This hunt was a couple years in the making – but now it has happened and I couldn’t be happier about it. Importantly, I felt safe throughout the trip – in Khartoum, Port Sudan and in the mountains (this despite State Department recommendation ‘not to visit’). There is some fascinating history in this country – e.g. they have multiple sites of pyramids! Couple that with the confluence of the White and Blue Nile, the Red Sea, mountains, …. I will come back to play tourist!

For the hunting, Abdelrahman had excellent equipment, knowledge of the areas and most importantly, relationships with the tribes in each area. We hunted one mountain area per day, and every day we went to a different mountain. I got my billy at 8:30 AM on day four at 275 yards. I used a rifle borrowed from Abdelrahman, and was pleased with the rifle, scope and trigger.

The trip had two unpleasant challenges 1) Turkish Air lost my bag, and so far hasn’t found it! I’m right now in a hotel in Port Sudan with my clothes doing a drip dry in the bathroom. This has been way too many days in the same clothes (I always have one set of hunting clothes in my carry on). 2) I did get diarrhea on day two, and am still fighting it. I brought a strong antibiotic, but made the mistake of packing it in my checked bag (I’ll know better next time and suggest you learn from this experience).

He’s handsome, 13 years old and tapes 36 2/8”. Best of all, he’s MINE!

This is my 14th specie of ibex. I do love ibex – so much I have one tattooed on my left shoulder to balance the WSF Chadwick Ram on my right.

Henry Crosby

SPECIES: Dall’s Ram

OUTFITTER: Yukon Peak

GUIDE: Nathan Aasen

LOCATION: Yukon

This is the first ram of my lifelong passion of achieving a FNAWS. Fortunately, I was able to take advantage of a last minute opening of the Canadian border due to COVID-19 travel bans and also being in the middle of a 39-month chemotherapy cycle from an awful diagnosis of T-cell ALL Leukemia in the early Fall of 2019. I was able to navigate the very difficult physical requirement on foot and successfully encounter a band of five rams that I was able to harvest this sheep from.

Brady Jardine

SPECIES: Desert Sheep

OUTFITTER: La Palmosa

GUIDE: Garret Jones

LOCATION: Mexico

I was able to have both my dad and brother with me on this hunt. We saw quite a few sheep and were fortunate to kill the best ram we saw on our hunt.

Brady Jardine

SPECIES: Stone’s Ram

OUTFITTER: Full Curl Stone

GUIDE: Chad Fantham

One of the most fun trips in my life. Took this beautiful Stone’s sheep and also killed a BC Canadian moose and a BC mountain goat! Not a bad 12 days.

Lou Rupp

SPECIES: Mule Deer

OUTFITTER: Self Guided

LOCATION: Montana

A Bang Up Ending to the 2022 Deer Hunting Season!

After a successful abbreviated Missouri deer season resulting in a nice eight-point whitetail, Lou Rupp and a fellow hunter loaded up on November 17th for what has become an annual mule deer hunt in and around the Glasgow/Fort Peck area in eastern Montana.

Mid-morning on the second day, Lou connected with a wide 5x6 mulie at 273 yards.

Brady Jardine

SPECIES: Gredos Ibex

OUTFITTER: Corju Hunting

GUIDE: Fran Cortina

This ibex is officially the number six Gredos ibex in the world.

Nick Wood

Desert bighorn /Arizona

After a decade of trying I finally drew a desert bighorn sheep tag in my home state of Arizona. I could hardly believe my luck when I saw that I had drawn a once-in-a-lifetime tag and I immediately began contacting everyone I could think of to see what sort of information I could garner on these amazing animals. The end result was a successful DIY desert bighorn hunt carried out by one of my old Army buddies and I. Truly the huntof-a-lifetime.

Way to go Nick! You are kicked out!