So you want to hunt sheep? Part 6 – The Day Before
Kyle Sinclair-Smith
The next couple of segment are going to be hard to write and include pictures. On the hunt, I took a lot of pictures but they tend to show a good portion of the area that I was hunting. For that reason, I will be including a limited selection of pictures.
Life is what happens when you’re making plans. This has been the motto of this entire series. After my hike to the mountains on August 24th I had planned on making one more scouting trip August 31st into one more area. Due to obligations that came up, I was unable to get away to the mountains. What I was able to do though, is spend some time in another area checking out Mule Deer close to home. There was one particular Mule Deer buck that I had been watching through the summer. In fact, this was actually the third summer that I had watched him. The previous years, he was a good buck, but there was just better & more mature deer around that had my attention. This year however, he was now 6.5 years old, had turned into something really special and had my full attention as far as Mule Deer go.
My plan was, to hunt Mule Deer September 1st, 2nd, and the morning of the 3rd. I would then meet up with my buddy at the trail head at noon on September 3rd and we would hike into setup camp. This would put us in a good position to do some evening scouting and be ready to hunt on the opening day for sheep. I located the buck on August 31st and put him to bed that evening. I had it all planned out as to how I would hunt him and hopefully kill him on opening day of September 1st. It was a great plan, but I guess he didn’t get the memo on where he was supposed to be the following day. On September 1st and 2nd, I watched the buck all day on land that I did not have permission to hunt. The morning of September 3rd, I took a drive out to see if I could at least located the buck prior to heading off to hunt Sheep. Just as the sun was coming up, I did indeed find the buck, and he was actually now grazing where I had permission.
The group of bucks grazing where I had permission on the morning of September 3, 2019
This is another story on its own, but at 10:30 am I was standing over my target buck, this was the exact same time I was supposed to be leaving to head west. I made a quick call to my friend, and as luck would have it, he was also running behind schedule. We had a quick chat and decided that we would meet at the trail head for 3:00pm. That would give us both time to wrap up our obligations, grab our gear, and meet at the trail head. We would still be able to get into the area and get camp setup before dark, but we would not have time to make it to the top and find rams to put to bed. This meant that we would be going in blind on the sheep opener; not something I wanted to do.
After I got my buck back to our ranch, caped out, and the meat to the butcher, I headed home to gather my gear. I arrived to the trail head just before 3:00 pm and my friend was already there. We had a quick story time about the Mule Deer, and then loaded up and hit the trail. We were a little over prepared for our five day trip to say the least. Talking with other sheep hunters about their first hunt, we were not alone in over packing. Going in, my pack weighed 74.1 lbs. I had light camo on, packed insulated layers, rain layers, 7 liters of water, and enough food to last a family a week. Don’t forget, this was the first week of September. My motto going into just about anything is “Better to say here it is than where is it”. This is not the correct motto for sheep hunting. The correct motto for sheep hunting is “Will I die if I don’t have this”. After doing four different hunts for sheep this past season, I have kept a list of what I brought with me each time. Once I return, I go through my list and have a look at everything that I didn’t use and evaluate if I really need it or not.
We hit the trail shortly after 3:00pm and the sun was high. Before we started off, I made sure that I was wearing minimal layers. Not only was it hot out, but I knew I would heat up as we hiked in. It was a beautiful day and our spirits were high. As we were hiking along, I was noticing that our pace was slowed considerably due to the weight of our packs. On my initial scouting hike, it took me about 1.5 hours to get to where I wanted to set our hunt camp. At the 1.5 hour mark on the hike in, I checked the GPS and we were a little over half way to camp. By the time we got to camp, it had taken us a full 2.5 hours. I was a little disappointed but considering the weight of the pack and the heat we were hiking in, we did not too bad. Our camp was nestled close to the river in a patch of large spruce trees. This location would give us good access to water, a nice shaded area, flat ground, and ample limbs for hanging food. The draw back was that we had to gain major elevation to hunt each morning.
We got camp setup, filled our water containers, and that is when I cracked out the treat. I pulled the tenderloins out of my Mule Deer from earlier that day, coated them with garlic salt and packed them in for dinner that night. We got a fire going, poured a little drink, cooked the tenderloins and made our master plan for the following day.
Fresh Mule Deer tenderloin over an open fire in sheep camp
We didn’t have a care in the world, and this was exactly where we wanted to be. The anticipation of opening day, the solitude of the mountains, the sound of the running river, and the smell of the cool evening rolling in; it was one of the most memorable nights that I will cherish forever. If you’ve never been sheep hunting before, it is something that is hard to describe but is easily felt.
