Trying to close out my North American Grand Slam

This article was first published in my email newsletter in September of 2025. I've added it to my website, because I think the information is useful in general, not just for the month it was published. If you'd like to keep up with the latest hunting information, including my open dates and available hunts, you can subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of this page.

Back in August, I got the third sheep in my four-part North American Wild Sheep Grand Slam. This month — September — I went for the final piece: the Rocky Mountain Bighorn.

As I wrote last month, there are four sheep in the Grand Slam. In addition to the Rocky Mountain Bighorn, they are the Dall Sheep, Stone Sheep, and Desert Bighorn. The Rocky Mountain Bighorn is probably the toughest challenge. These sheep live in the mountains at pretty high altitudes, upwards of 8,000 feet, well above the tree-line. The terrain is tough, steep, and — where I was going to be hunting — full of loose scree that makes it hard to hike and climb, and even harder to do it quietly.

Of course, that doesn’t bother the sheep. It’s amazing to watch them leap and jump across mountainsides like it was as easy as strolling down a sidewalk.

In fact, the first day we were on the mountain, on the morning of Opening Day, we saw a group of rams being stalked by a big mountain lion. It was happening way above us, so we could watch the whole thing. The mountain lion would stalk, getting closer and closer, but then the sheep would take off, leaping and hopping way out of reach. Then they’d stop, look over their shoulders, and I could almost hear them say: ‘We’re right here. C’mon, try again.’

And that’s just what the lion would do: stalk closer, getting ready to put on a burst of speed, and then bang, the sheep would be leaping ahead again, leaving the lion in the dust.

At the time, I wondered if this was a preview of what I was going to experience.

That wouldn’t have been a surprise. From the day I left Texas, this trip was nothing but one piece of bad luck after another.

ALBERTA

My hunt was scheduled for twelve days in Alberta, Canada. Alberta is one of the few places you have a practical chance of getting a tag for Rocky Mountain Bighorn. There, the tags are available over the counter, and last year 2,285 of them were sold. Just about anywhere else that you can hunt Bighorn, tags are available only through a draw, and you can wait twenty or thirty years without your name getting picked.

I booked my hunt and got my tag through an outfitter, André Van Hilton of Willow Creek Outfitters, a top-notch organization. There are two good reasons to book your Rocky Mountain Bighorn hunt through an outfitter. First, for a non-resident that’s the only way you can get a tag; you have to do it through an outfitter. But second, without a really experienced and knowledgeable guide, you’re almost guaranteed to come home empty-handed.

That territory is just too big and too rugged to try it on your own.

I mentioned that about 2,300 tags were sold in Alberta last year for Rocky Mountain Bighorn. You know how many rams were taken? One hundred sixty! That’s a success rate of just 7%. I was told during my hunt that Alberta outfitters, on the other hand, have a 50% success rate, which is pretty good by comparison. Last year Willow Creek had a 100% success rate, leading four hunts and getting four rams.

By the time I joined up with my Willow Creek guides, I was beginning to think I’d be the guy who pulled down their average. That’s how things seemed to be going for me.

GETTING THERE

My troubles started before I even left home. I woke up in the morning with a respiratory infection. Of course, a respiratory infection is unpleasant at any time, but when you’re going to be climbing mountains at altitudes well over a mile, you’d really like your breathing to be in peak condition.

But you don’t cancel a hunt that you’ve already paid for and that you booked a couple of years in advance. You suck it up and get on the plane.

Things would have to get better, right?

From San Antonio, I flew to Grand Prairie, Alberta, and had a day to rest and recover a bit — well, anyhow, until the night before I headed out for the hunt. That’s when my hotel caught fire.

At first, I figured it was just a false alarm. It usually is, right? But no luck. There was smoke in the hall and there were fire trucks outside the window. I grabbed my stuff and got out. It didn’t turn out too bad. The fire was contained and put out pretty quickly, so I still got some sleep.

I needed the sleep. There was a lot of work ahead of me. Just to get to the mountains where we were hunting was going to take three days, mostly on horseback.

In the morning, I drove a couple of hours to the trailhead, mounted horses with my two guides, Tom and Josh, and managed a few hours riding before making camp for the night. The next day, Saturday, we rode another five hours to the base camp, and then, on Sunday, we rode to a secondary camp close to our goal.

My string of luck continued at the secondary camp. When we got there, we discovered that the camp — which had been equipped with two nice wall tents — now had just one nice wall tent. The other one had been torn up by a bear.

We made do with the reduced accommodations, and I tried to convince myself: Things would have to get better, right?

OPENING DAY

Monday, September 1st, was opening day.

We were now within hiking distance of where we wanted to be, so we put everything on our backs — food, clothes, rifle, ammo, and tents for a spike camp — and headed out. It took us a few hours to get there. We started by hiking up to a saddle that overlooked a big drainage. Then we dropped down off the saddle into some trees, and that’s where we set up our spike camp. It looked like a pretty good spot.

It was. As soon as we got up the next morning, we spotted a legal ram, right above our camp.

Maybe my luck was changing.

We went after him. He was feeding on the hillside, working his way around the mountain, and then he went over the top. We followed, and when we got over the top, we spotted him, bedded down in the shade on the other side of a basin. There was water down in the basin, and we figured that once the sun hit him, he’d head there for a drink. So we set up and waited.

The sun hit him, and sure enough, he got up and moved. But not down into the basin. Instead, he headed up over the mountain. At an easy and relaxed pace, that took him about ten minutes. As we got ready to follow, I remembered the mountain lion.

But anyhow, we snuck back out, climbed up to the ridge line, and then followed along the ridge line, looking for him.

Finally, we spotted him, a long way off — a single ram on his own, which is unusual, so we knew we had our guy again.

We dropped down off the ridge line and started side-hilling in his direction. That was brutal, because we were in scree that made footing precarious and made it hard for us to keep our approach quiet. We were aiming for the timberline, because those rams have terrific vision, and we wanted to stay out of his sight. But once we were in the trees, it still wasn’t easy. The hillside was steep, and we were still hiking in scree.

Finally, we got to a point about 400 or 450 yards from him, and I crawled out of the trees to set up for my shot.

As soon as I got my scope on him, I realized that he wasn’t the same ram, and he wasn’t legal. I also realized that I had been crawling through some fresh wolf scat, and my clothes were covered in it.

My string of bad luck was mounting.

DAY TWO ON THE HUNT

The next day we took it kind of easy. Tom and Josh are good guides, and they recognize that you can’t push your hunter at peak effort for a whole twelve day hunt. It’s really important to know your hunter’s limits and stay within them.

In my case, I’m pretty fit, but I’m still 53 years old and have had a pair of back surgeries and one hernia repair. I can’t match the fitness of two guides in their twenties. I didn’t expect them to know my limitations on their own — I had talked to them about it and let them know what they’d be dealing with.

Speaking as an outfitter myself, let me say that you, as a hunter, should always be upfront with your outfitter about any physical limitations you’ve got. If you do, your outfitter will adjust to accommodate you, and it will make a world of difference in your hunt. Remember, this is your hunt, not your guide’s, and a good guide will want to make it a good fit for you, not for himself.

And again speaking as an outfitter, I can assure you that I rarely hunt with anybody who doesn’t have some kind of limitations, so don’t be embarrassed to speak up. I always want to know.

Anyhow, we split up. I stuck with Tom, and we climbed back up the saddle and spent the day glassing and resting my legs. Meanwhile, my other guide, Josh, hiked around the corner to look in the next drainage. We didn’t have decent cell coverage out here, but Josh and Tom were able to stay in touch by text using Garmin InReach satellite communications.

About 1 PM, we got word from Josh that he had spotted a legal ram.

It was too late in the day for us to get over there, so we made a plan for the next day. We would pack up camp, work our way around the corner, and get to where Josh had spotted the ram.

I wish I had known in advance what ‘working our way around the corner’ was going to mean.

It was hard work. We had to pack everything, and, when we set out first thing in the morning, there was a heavy fog. We ended up hiking to a bench and then waiting for the fog to lift. Once it did, we continued up to the mountaintop, where by now it was bright and sunny.

From there, we immediately spotted nine rams. One of them was legal.

CLOSING IN

As the crow flies, those rams were over a mile away, on the other side of a huge bowl. To get close, we’d have to hike two or three miles around the top edge of that bowl. And the further we went, the further we’d be from our horses. I was (reluctantly) willing to do it, but my guides decided to give the rams some time so we could see what they’d do.

We watched for quite a while as those nine rams just wandered back and forth. Then, suddenly, they decided to split into two groups, and both groups headed our way. The lead group of four didn’t contain the legal ram. The legal ram was in the second group, which was lagging way behind the first.

I was praying for a change in my luck. If my luck continued the way it had been running, they’d soon change their minds and either head back or maybe turn uphill and go over the mountain.

But they kept coming towards us. The first group eventually dropped down the bowl a bit, coming right below us. Then they started up again, heading right toward our location. We needed to get out of the way without spooking them.

We grabbed all our stuff and scrambled as quickly and as quietly as we could, up the hill about a hundred or two hundred yards, where we got behind some bigger boulders. It’s a good thing we moved. As we watched, that first group of four rams popped up right where we had been sitting just three or four minutes earlier.

I began to think that my luck was turning.

My fourth North American Wild Sheep, and that completes my Grand Slam!

MY SHOT

That group of four moved on. If my luck had really turned, I thought to myself, the group of five would soon show up on their trail.

They did. Those five rams, including the one legal ram, appeared beneath us, about 430 yards away. That’s a shot I can handle, so I climbed up to the edge and got my rifle ready. It wasn’t going to be an easy shot, because it was at a really steep downhill angle, but, once I had verified through my scope that I had the legal ram in my sights, I took my shot.

It wasn’t perfect. I didn’t hit his shoulder, but probably a few ribs back, and he was still standing. I threw in another round, but now one of the younger rams was in the way. By the time I had another clear shot, the legal ram had moved and was further away. I was dialed in for 430 yards, but I adjusted a bit and took the shot. I hit him, but he still kept moving, on out of sight.

By this time, it was getting late and starting to get dark, so we had to move. We quickly put together all our gear and started scrambling down the scree, Josh staying high while Tom and I went low. It was Josh who spotted him, lying beneath us.

He was finished. My luck had turned.

GETTING OUT

I knew that Rocky Mountain Bighorn were big sheep, but it wasn’t until we worked our way down to him that I really appreciated it. This ram was about 300 pounds. The spot he was lying was too steep to work with him, so we dragged him down to the bottom, got some photos, and skinned him for a life size mount.

We camped there that night, after cutting up the meat. We kept the meat in the tent to keep it dry in case of dew, so I spent most of the night listening to the scree move and imagining bears.

The next morning, we split everything up to carry out. I’m used to being the guy who’s doing all that work on the hunts I lead. This time, I let my two guides take the bigger share of the load. But even so, my pack probably weighed a third of my body weight.

It was a multi-day hike and horse ride to get out, but at least this time we had some great meat.

Yes, my luck had turned.