king' s outdoor world - Index

king' s outdoor world - Hunting Illustrated - October/November 2007 - Index

BY GREG BIRD
3
STRIKES
...and Stil
In ? e Game
Strikes one and two came in
October of 2004 when we were
hunting the Ute Ouray with
Don Graham. We had an amazing
180-plus ram at 72 yards and were
feeling like the trophy was in the
bag. But, anyone that has hunted
with black powder knows that this is
not always the case. To make a long
story short, we missed twice and
watched this awesome ram leave the
country. Strikes one and two.
In 2005, we hunted for this
same ram again, but never did find
him.
In 2006, Daniel Smith IV
ended up with the Ute Ouray sheep
permit and we knew which ram we
wanted to hunt. But, after not seeing
48 HUNTING ILLUSTRATED.com
him the year before, we wondered if he
had fallen victim to predation. There
are many mountain lions that call this
piece of real estate home.
In our pre-season scouting,
we found some really good rams. One
ram, in particular, looked very familiar.
After looking at some video, we looked
through the spotting scope and our
suspicions were confirmed - we were
looking at the same ram we had missed
in 2004 with Don Graham. Now, we
just hoped that we could keep this ram
located until we could hunt. This task
proved to be quite difficult due to the
country that this ram liked to live in.
As the hunt drew closer, Troy,
Jeremy and I made one last scouting
trip to the Ute's. On our second day,
we were able to find the big ram again,
but he had moved about half a mile up
the canyon. Troy and I wished we could
get Danny out for the beginning of the
season, but we knew that this would be
impossible because Danny was going
to college on a track scholarship and
he was in the middle of his season.
So, with that in mind, we headed
to our next hunting commitment,
which was looking for a big bull elk
for Danny's dad Dan. On our way
back home, Troy called Dan and let
him know that we had seen the big
ram again. Dan said we might get
Danny out of school for a day, but he
would need to be back in California
the following day for a track meet.
We all decided it would be worth
a try, especially since we knew we