Home  Community Adventure Logs Chris Denam's Sheep
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Chris Denam's Sheep |
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Customer Stories
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Written by Chris Denam
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Page 5 of 6
My Luck Changes
On Saturday Geof Moss came along to see if he could change my luck. By late afternoon we made it to the point were I had first seen the ram. I gave Geof the full scoop on where I had seen sheep before and where I thought the rams might be hiding. Within ten minutes Geof sounded off "I got sheep, a bunch of sheep in fact." I was just a little excited. I had never seen more than four sheep together in this area, so when Geof said he had a bunch I knew these were new sheep. When he pointed them out, I was stunned to realize that they were on our side of "The Creek!"
One by one I looked at the sheep when all of sudden a ram appeared with a big chip in the back of his right horn. It was him. At this point I got a good case of buck fever. The ram was in a spot that I could make a stalk and I had time to do it. I only had one problem, both my bow and rifle were in the truck a half mile away. Even after enduring a lecture from Floyd the day before I had not been carrying either one because I just did not believe that I would ever make a stalk that did not involve going back to the truck. Oh well, it gave me time to think about my weapon choice and get the buck fever out of my system. I learned from my previous mistake and left Geof to watch for the sheep until dark or death.
By the time I got to the truck I had decided to take the rifle. The ram was with 8 ewes and two other rams, making an approach to within bow range unlikely. On top of that, in 14 days I had never seen these ewes before so I had to ask myself; where did they come from? And even worse where were they taking my ram?
I covered the two miles to the sheep as fast as I could. An hour later my Swarovski rangefinder said that I was 345 yards from the sheep. It took me an eternity to get into a comfortable prone shooting position, and as I cranked the scope to 12 power I saw the tell-tale gouge in the right horn. But as the ram turned to face me I noticed that the chip came around the front as well.
That characteristic was not there just three days ago. Panic set in. Was it the same ram or not? I set up the spotting scope and investigated him at 60 power. With that much magnification at such a short distance I could see the white outline around the crack. It was a brand new break, and it was the same ram. After watching him fight for two days it all made sense.
Now, I had burned a lot of daylight and needed to make my shot. I again squirmed into a good shooting position and evaluated the shot. The wind had died down as sunset approached, it was about a 20 degree down hill angle and all the sheep were feeding completely unaware of my presence. I fought to control my anxiety as I waited for the ram to separate from the other sheep. Finally he stood alone and I squeezed off the shot.
At the report of the rifle the ram casually took two steps and stopped behind a big boulder. I could see a bite of grass in his mouth and he was not chewing it. I knew something wasn't right but I only had a few minutes of shooting light left. As a smaller ram walked by my ram followed him out obscuring any chance for a shot and not allowing me to inspect his body for an entrance wound. I was just about to give up when then they separated. I took another shot but it felt low and could have sworn I saw rocks fly up below him. I watched him through the spotting scope with just moonlight until he lay down; head up, for the night. There was nothing I could do but come back the next day.
On our way home I called George Sensabough. After recanting the whole story he agreed to meet Geof and me the next morning and to bring Jeremy Ennis with him as well.
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