By Kevin Sease
for Moapa Valley Progress
After 21 years I had finally succeeded in drawing a Nevada Desert Bighorn Sheep tag in the Muddy Mountains of unit 268. At the beginning of this hunt I had set a goal to harvest only a respectable, mature ram being at least seven years old and scoring 160 or better. I spent many months preparing by studying the area, and scouting out mature rams. This was my once in a lifetime hunt, and I would not likely get another opportunity, so I wasn’t going to squander it.
On the morning of December 3, 2011 my son Curtis, my close friend Tyson Leavitt, and I arrived in the area just before dawn and immediately began to set a plan in motion.
The ambient temperature was around 27 degrees, but the wind chill was almost unbearable. I thought to myself that the wind would probably cause the sheep to hunker down, making it difficult to locate them. I was not optimistic that this day’s activities would yield much.
After hiking and scoping, one ram in particular caught my eye because he had a nice, deep curl and a dark, chocolate color that made him stand out among the others. Just as I prepared to take a very difficult shot the group spooked and stepped back away from the ledge and out of sight.
We were about to pursue them, when one of the smaller rams came back to the edge. It appeared that he had spotted us, but was not overly alarmed at our presence. We had a stare-off for what seemed to be an eternity. Finally, the ram turned and casually walked away from the edge.
As quickly and quietly as possible we made our way to the top. When we peered over the edge, the rams were nowhere in sight and my heart sank.
Just then we noticed a well secluded pocket to our right and moved carefully in that direction.
As I looked over the rim, I could not believe my eyes! About 80 yards in front of us were 8-10 rams, huddled in a circle in what looked like a sea of horns going in all directions. It was almost overwhelming to see so many nice rams and not be able to take a shot due to their close proximity to one another! They appeared to be nervous and suspicious as if they knew we were there, but not sure exactly where.
Tyson and I quickly moved under cover further down the ridge in an effort to secure a better position to take a shot. They must have heard us because they began to trot single file away from us.
We both stood up and I immediately set up to take a shot, while Tyson began to put eyes on each of them with his binoculars.
I remember hearing Tyson say, “The first one is a shooter, the second one is okay, not the third one, the fourth one is pretty nice…”.
As I am seeing them get further away, I notice that the ram bringing up the rear is that nice chocolate colored ram that I got a pretty good look at previously.
“I’m going for the one at the rear,” I said to Tyson.
Just as I was ready to pull the trigger Tyson yells, “WAIT! The one in front, second one from the rear is huge.”
I repositioned, took aim and fired off a round. The ram went about twenty feet or so, his legs buckled and he began to tumble down the hill.
“NICE SHOT!” Tyson yelled.
I chambered another round and we watch closely to be sure the ram didn’t get up. When we were certain he was down, we ranged the shot at 310 yards, and began working our way toward the downed ram.
As we approached the ram, I can distinctly remember the expression on Tyson’s face. When we walked up on this magnificent animal, we could not believe the mass of his bases, the horns were nearly touching in the middle.
Tyson immediately went over to the ram and put both hands around the base and could not touch his fingers together
“He is massive!” he said.
This ram was a real warrior with several battle scars on his nose and head.
We took some pictures, full body caped the animal for taxidermy, quartered him and loaded two pack frames with meat, head, hide and gear. Then we headed back to the ATV’s.
All the way back I reflected on that day’s hunt and began to realize how many things had to line up just right to have produced this incredible outcome. We truly were in the right place at the right moment in time. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to harvest such a spectacular animal.
If you are going to hunt bighorn sheep you need to be prepared for extreme hunting conditions. Each hunt day consisted of no less than 6 miles, and someimes many more. The extremely rugged terrain seemed to be either straight up or straight down. Often times during the hunt we needed to climb over large boulders in one moment and then sidehill across loose shale outcroppings with unsure footing the next. With time and a great deal of persistence, I was able to harvest an excellent mature ram, hunting fair chase and unguided on public lands. In the end, it was all worth it for this once in a lifetime hunt.
NDOW gave the ram a green score of 176” with 7/8” deduction, for a final raw score of 175 1/8”. The bases of the horns measured 15 3/8” and 37 7/8” in length on the long horn.
