Tough to narrow down most memorable when you've been on hundreds...but, I reckon if pushed into a corner...
Would have to say my Dad's MT sheep hunt. He had applied for a lot of years and finally drew in a unit that suffered a die off in the late 80's, but, from the research I'd done, and looking at the sheep there every year, I knew they were on the upswing for sure.
Dad was still working at the time, about 2 years from retiring. I had a gob of leave, so took most of the month of November off. I went up and started scouting for him while he was at work. The idea was for me to look at as many rams as I could for about 7-10 days then for him to take off a 9-10 day stretch for the hunt.
From my journal entries, I found about 65 different rams that were 3/4 curl or better...out of those 5-6 that I thought were 180+.
A few pictures from my solo scouting efforts:
I took a lot of video and lots of stills of the top 10 or so rams that I found. My brother, Dad, and I watched all the video and looked at all the pictures I took. Dad had a tough decision to make, in particular from the top 3-4...all good rams. A good problem to have.
Dad finally made a decision and told me the ram in the last photo was the one he liked the best. He liked the mass, liked the over-all look the best. My Dad has never been a hunter that cares about B&C score, but I felt the ram he picked was a solid 180 class sheep for sure.
I went back to scouting and turned up some other rams, but nothing better than the top 3-4 that I'd already found. I tried to keep track of the best rams, and for the most part did. What a great time, just being able to see and watch those rams for a week!
Finally, the hunt was going to take place. Dad had managed to catch a hell of a cold, so we decided to take it easy the first day and just try to look at a bunch of the rams, and make sure the sheep he wanted was still around. We looked at 2-3 of the top rams and right at dark the first hunting day, we found the ram in the bottom picture. Rather than push it, we decided to come back the next morning and relocate them and see what was up.
Dad woke up feeling a bit worse than the day before, but said if we found that ram again, he would see how he felt and we could make a run at the sheep.
We found them again at first light, I determined the ram he wanted was still there, as well as another of the top 5 I'd found, were together on the same hill side. We got our crap together and started up the draw, progress was slow and it was obvious Dad was dragging ass from the cold. About an hour into the stalk, a snow squall moved in. We waited it out, giving Dad time to recoup a bit from the climb.
When the squall broke, we found the sheep still feeding and made the final approach. We walked up one side of a small spur ridge and when we felt like we were directly above the feeding rams, we peeked over the top. They were both there, still feeding, totally unaware we were there. I told Dad the ram he wanted was the one on the left. He jacked a shell into his pre-64 model 70...took his time and sent a 180 grain partition through the ram broadside...and that was that.
IMO, it was how a sheep hunt should be...no posse of 10 guys, no foot race to the best ram, no outfitter, nothing fancy. I'll never forget the many other details of that hunt, ever...and I'm glad that my Dad, Brother and I will always be the only ones that remember them.
I do have to say above was my worst hunt, my most memorable was this September seeing my oldest son take his moose!
