Kyle Sinclair-Smith

Sheep hunting, this seems to be a hot topic amongst not only hunters here in Alberta, but worldwide. Maybe it’s because of stamina that has been built up around them as a “must have” species. Maybe it’s the remote locations they live in that requires a drastic increase in an effort to just get into sheep country. Or maybe it’s the pure beauty of the pristine snow-capped mountains in which they call home. Whatever it is, you either have the sheep “bug” or you don’t; there is no middle ground.

Before your expectations get too high here, I am by no means an expert. The knowledge that you’re about to read is my own experience and what has worked for me. It very well may not work for you, and it’s most likely not perfect by any means, but it is a starting point for someone that is wondering what that first step is. So what is that first step? The first step is “Sheep Shape”.

Sheep Shape, a term coined by sheep hunters that is very misleading. I say that because whenever you hear someone talk about sheep shape, all you hear about is hiking, hiking with weighted packs, running, and more hiking. What you don’t hear about is the mental anguish of pushing your body near its limits, the drive to push through those quiet moments, and the patience to keep glassing the same tree-covered slope for another two hours even though you haven’t turned up a sheep in the first four hours of glassing.

For me, my sheep hunting journey almost ended before it even started. Back in December of 2018 I made a phone call to a friend and asked him a very serious question, “Do you want to hunt sheep the fall of 2019”. With an instant yes, our excitement grew, we chatted, we planned, and we were going to go be sheep hunters; we had everything worked out. All we needed to do was burn some boot leather and find the sheep in the summer. Looking back, we were so naive, it was dangerous. During this same time period, I was also hunting cougars with the fine gentlemen at Frozenman Outfitters

*A female we treed and freed on December 31, 2018

Not only do they love Cougar hunting, but they also are die-hard sheep hunters and two of them are sheep guides for Gana River Outfitters. On January 24, 2018, I found out exactly what sheep shape was, and how far from it I was. At this point in my life, I am ashamed to say that I weighed in at 303 lbs. At the time, my weight never mattered to me. I have never been someone who worried about my physical appearance, my condition never held me back hunting the low foothills of Alberta, so what was there to worry about? That morning I was sitting at my desk working when I got an InReach message from Nathan, my outfitter, with GPS coordinates and a message asking how fast I could get there. We had been going hard hunting cats since the start of December but the conditions weren’t favorable, to say the least. I quickly Googled the coordinates and figured I could be there by noon given that I had to run home first and get my gear. I showed up at 11:40 am at our agreed spot and was met by Brant, one of the guides. By noon, we had met up with the group, got organized, and cut the dogs loose on the track. The track was hot, the cat was big, and he was boxed in good; everything was finally coming together. With the dogs unleased and tearing through the trees, we loaded up on the quads and started following cut lines that headed the direction they headed. We went as far as we could on the machines, but in the country we were hunting, it quickly became too steep with too much snow so we had to start hiking. Two hours after we unleashed the dogs, we were standing below a towering spruce tree with a huge mature tom hunkered 50 ft above us. At this point, we had only hiked two hills and maybe walked a couple of miles. To me though, it felt like twelve miles up the side of the mountain; everyone else hadn’t even broken a sweat. No worries though, the cat is in the tree, we have lots of daylight left and it is all downhill to the trucks from here; little did I know, this was only the start of the hunt.