king' s outdoor world - Index

king' s outdoor world - Hunting Illustrated Magazine Dec/Jan 2008 - Coyote Crazy! - Index

have been crazy to pass on a chance
at a ram like that on the fi rst or the
last day of the hunt.
As it turned out, Jeremy
had fl own in the day before and
had started to glass for sheep when
he found these rams, seven rams
in all. He kept an eye on them the
rest of the day and hoped that they
would not take a notion to move
somewhere. Luckily for us, they
stayed around. So, Jeremy and I
spent the rest of the day watching the
rams bed up, and then tried to fi gure
out a stalk for the next day. In the
Northwest Territories, you cannot
hunt for twelve hours after you fl y.
We waited patiently for dawn the
next day.
At the fi rst light of day, after
tossing and turning all night, I rolled
out of my sleeping bag and got out
of the tent to try and fi nd the rams.
I was rewarded by getting a chance
to watch the rams feed, then posture,
and then the big ram, The Captain, as
Jeremy called him, began rearing up
and shaking his head at the others.
Then the group grazed up and out of
sight over the top of the ridge. After a
few anxious minutes, they fed back over
to where we could watch them. They
fi nally bedded down for the day and the
hunt was on.
Jeremy had decided to go up
one of the chutes across from the rams
as the wind was right and we could stay
out of sight. After getting into position
across from where we had watched
The Captain bed down, we found that
the second-best ram and a half-curl
had moved above there, and were now
bedded. With The Captain nowhere to be
seen, the waiting game was on. Jeremy
and I were pinned down until they got
up to feed. After a couple of hours, it
started to rain and continued to rain for
about four and a half hours. During this
time, we would take turns creeping over
to the spotting scope to see if the rams
had moved. Luckily they didn’t. When
it fi nally decided to quit raining, we
crept over to the scope to fi nd that the
rams had gotten up, but we could not
see them. We didn’t know if they were
feeding toward us or moving away. It
of the
5NORTH BORDER5
“Just getting to base camp
was a trip in and of itself.”
was now or never and starting to get
late. The decision was made to move
up and try to catch up with them.
We crept to the top of the next ridge
and looked over to fi nd no sheep.
We crept to the next ridge and still
no sheep. Slipping up on the third
ridge, Jeremy snuck ahead of me a
bit and, as he peeked over, he saw
The Captain. After quickly ranging
him at 286 yards, I got ready to
shoot. When the smoke had cleared,
I had a dandy ram down! After a few
pictures we caped my ram and deboned
him. Then we headed off the
mountain just as it was getting dark.
Picking our way down
through the chute, it was slow going
that night. After a tough pack down
the mountain, we found that the
creek swollen up which make the
crossing a little tricky. Finally, we
made it back to camp at around 3:00
a.m. We heated up some Mountain
House dinners - they sure tasted
good, and then we stumbled off to
bed. The next morning was spent
caping the ram and relaxing around
December/January
33
PHOTOS: AUTHOR