|
 |
 |
For Part I, click here.
We woke up at 4:30 am on opening day to start making our stalk. We skirted around on the back side where the rams were, climbed high over them, and peeked over where the big one was bedded along with the others. By this time there was sufficient light to see and to our surprise, they were gone! Logan decided to follow the ridge down the mountain to see if they were ahead of us but we saw only ewes and lambs. We spent the morning and afternoon glassing and Logan’s keen eye picked up the band of rams on a mountain that was east of the lake we landed on. They had gone down the mountain and up the other side and were about two miles from us. To get to that mountain we had to drop down this one, skirt around the lake, and make it up to the other one, about a day’s hard hike. We spent the night and decided to get up in the morning to move camp. Logan named the big ram “Houdini”, as he was always disappearing on us!
The next morning we were getting ready to climb up the mountain where the band of rams were when we saw Houdini with another legal ram appear on the side of the mountain and bed down—they were 880 yards away! I asked Logan if we made a mad scramble to the top, would we have a chance? Logan felt it was possible, as they normally bed for a few hours. To reduce climbing time, I decided to lighten my pack and leave behind my tent, sleeping bag, extra clothes, rangefinder, and inflatable mattress. Logan and Langdon lightened their packs too; however, Logan took his tent and mattress. We gambled on making a quick hike up, hopefully getting him, and coming down before nightfall.
 |
| Some of the rough terrain above the lake. |
We made our way up while both rams were bedded down—one had his head sideways, lying on his horns with his eyes closed. The prospects looked good. It took about 45 minutes to climb up through thick brush and giant boulders before reaching a spot above where we thought the rams were bedded. I got my Savage ultralight 6.5 Creedmoor ready and Logan belly crawled ahead of me. As we inched closer to where the rams were, my heart was pumping with excitement to see Houdini close up and possibly get a shot at him. As we inched closer we came up to the spot where they were sighted from below but all we found were bare rocks and grass... Houdini had given us the slip again! Frustrated, we walked to a vantage point to see if we could spot him... but saw nothing.
We decided to go down the mountain to get our gear, as it was late afternoon but out of nowhere dark clouds rolled in and we could see rain coming towards us. We decided to set up the only tent we had and hunker in. Logan’s tent was a two-person tent and for the three of us and Charlie to fit in was a bit small. A severe rainstorm came down with high winds and hail—we could only watch from inside the tent, which was getting battered by the wind, and water slowly trickled in from a few holes. As the temperature dipped, we huddled together like sardines in a can. With no sleeping bags we used our body heat to keep warm all night, you could say we got to know each other well by the morning. Langdon shivered for most of the night but after a hot breakfast of oatmeal to warm us up, he was ready to go.
Logan went to glass a few yards from the tent and spotted the rams about a mile away. The hunt was on again! During that day, we made three stalks on Houdini and every time we closed the distance to a few hundred yards he would disappear—it was almost as if he knew we were getting close to him. By late evening we had walked about 14 kilometres stalking him and on the last stalk, the band disappeared from the mountain.
That night, Logan got word that all hunters had collected rams on opening day. There were four hunters in our group in different areas. One couple got a double header, a father and son got theirs and my buddy Scott, who was with his son, also got a nice one. At this point, my morale was low after chasing Houdini for four days and not getting a shot opportunity. Logan encouraged me not to give up, as we still had three days left and a lot could happen in that time. We slept in one tent again, as by the time we were done our last stalk, it was too dark and dangerous to climb down the mountain to our gear. None of us slept again, only Charlie was heard snoring through the night.
The next morning we got up, started glassing, and then we saw Houdini bedded on top of the mountain that we had come from two days ago! The band had made their way back there and were now teasing us, saying catch me if you can. We climbed back down to the lake and camped below the mountain to rest a bit from the brutal stalk and climbing the day before. I was tired more than anyone and surprisingly, Langdon was keeping up with us all the time—the young lad was on his way to be a mountain guide.
The next morning we grabbed our gear and hiked up. I left my rangefinder and some extra gear behind to reduce weight, as Logan had range-finding binoculars and Langdon had a rangefinder too. We reached the top and glassed the peaks but there was no sign of Houdini—were we fooled again? That afternoon the weather closed in on us again with rain and heavy fog making visibility less than twenty yards. We would spend the next two days and nights in the tent with my hopes of getting a ram diminishing every hour.
The clouds lifted on the last day. We were supposed to be picked up by the floatplane in the afternoon. The fog was still there but the visibility was a few hundred yards. Logan suggested we walk over to the cliff where we saw the one-horned ram on the second day. As we got closer to the edge of the cliff, we met two local hunters who had camped overnight close by and I thought that if there were rams, they surely would have seen them. After chatting with them, they decided to go the other way and we continued to the edge of the cliff with Logan telling me not to lose hope. He told me of times where his hunters harvested game in the last minute of the hunt. I wanted to believe him but all I could think of was what the chances of that were. As we neared the edge of the cliff, Logan dropped and asked us to get down! In a familiar tone he said, “Rams below!” I got my rifle ready, crawled to the edge, and saw two rams bedded down on the cliff below. Logan confirmed that one was full curl and legal, He told me to get ready for the shot when he stood up. I asked him for a distance and when he tried with his expensive range-finding binoculars, the battery was dead! I quickly asked Langdon for his and he ranged the ram at 450 yards. It was a steep angle shot with the fog drifting in making visibility poor. Luckily, I had a firedot Leupold scope that made it easier to line up the bedded ram and the hunt was on. The ram finally stood up and Logan gave the okay for a broadside shot. I gently squeezed the trigger and the shot rang out in the valley below. The ram bolted! I asked if I had hit and Logan, who was looking through his spotting scope, shook his head in a firm no. The ram appeared on another ledge so I quickly reloaded and asked for the distance—425 yards was the answer. I dialed the turret on the scope to 425, took a deep breath, and squeezed the trigger. I heard... click! No bang! What just happened! Logan whispered, “Cycle the bolt again.” I did, took another deep breath, and squeezed the trigger... the dreaded “click” sound with no bang happened again! My gun was malfunctioning while the ram stood broadside trying to figure out where the first shot had come from. Panic set in—I had no idea why my rifle wasn’t shooting. I had shot it before leaving camp with no issues and it was dead-on at 400 yards. I quickly cycled the bolt and chambered a new round while Logan calmed me down and asked me to focus on the shot. I lined up the ram, squeezed gently, and the gun fired, but the ram stood still! I had missed again and had no idea where I was shooting given the steep cliff with no backdrop to see the bullet’s impact. My panic mode just got worse, as I chambered another round while the ram stood still not knowing where the sound was coming from. Just as I was trying to line him up again, for the third time, the one-horned ram appeared on a ledge above him—he had been bedded there the entire time and decided to expose himself now. I looked at him through my scope and could see he was much heavier, longer, and broomed off. I told Logan I wanted him over the other one and asked for a distance, 325 yards was the response. By this time a strong crosswind had picked up and the fog was getting denser. I lined him up in my crosshairs and then suddenly, I realized the angle compensation setting on Langdon’s rangefinder might be off, that’s why I was missing. At that steep angle, I was probably half the distance and was overshooting. I quickly asked him but he didn’t know if the setting was on.
Without wanting to waste the opportunity and fiddle around with the settings, I guessed we were about 200 yards away. I dialed the cds to 200 yards and put the firedot just at the ram’s front shoulder to compensate for the crosswind and a little lower. I said a prayer, even though I’m not a religious man, and gently squeezed the trigger. The 6.5 Creedmoor went off and we could hear a loud thud from the bullet hitting bone on the ram. He slid down hind legs first from the ledge and disappeared into the thick fog. I knew I had hit him further back than I aimed for and Logan confirmed this. The panic set in again and with my hands shaking, Logan tried to calm me down and said, “Let’s go down to find him.”
The few days of rain had made the rocks very slippery, the lichens on them were wet and almost acted like black ice when you stepped on them. Logan instructed us to step on the edge of the rocks for grip instead of the middle to avoid slipping. Being the mountain man he is, he disappeared ahead of us into the fog with his dog Charlie. I climbed down slowly and at one point my walking sticks caught between two sharp rocks and I slipped with the bridge of my nose hitting the handle of the walking stick. Instantly, blood was pouring down my face. Luckily it wasn’t broken and just a flesh wound.
 |
| Manak with his well-earned Dall Sheep. |
When I reached the ledge where I had shot the ram I saw some hair; however, no blood. We continued down the slope after Logan who was nowhere to be seen—the fog had completely rolled in and visibility was down to about 40 yards. I yelled out to Logan to see if he found the ram and heard him faintly say, “No.” I started thinking that maybe the shot was not fatal and trying to find the ram in a cliff covered in fog would be impossible! A few minutes later, as we climbed lower, I yelled again to Logan, “Any luck?” And then I heard him say, “Keep coming down, I found him!” Those were the best words I had heard in a long time and I hurried down to get to him. There he was, lying with Logan and Charlie sitting by his side. Logan told me that Charlie had found the ram by following his scent, as there was no blood. We hugged and shook hands while I teared up holding the one heavy horn of the ram, a moment every sheep hunter dreams of!
The one horn scored 80.25 inches and he was a ten-year-old ram. The second horn was a stub, maybe deformed or broken off, hard to tell. Had he had both horns, he would be in the record books; however, I wasn’t looking for a record ram, just an awesome hunt and a ram and I got both.
As for my rifle malfunctioning, I had lightened the accutrigger setscrew a bit too much and a quarter turn back fixed the issue. Sometimes technology can come to your detriment, which was almost my case. I still dream of Houdini running around the mountains teasing hunters, and I hope he survives to a natural end. ■
For previous Reader Stories click here.
|
|
|
|
