First big game animal of the season!

Monday afternoon after I got out of training, we headed out to the cabin for the night. The plan was to stay at the cabin and then head up to the Rocky Mountain Front Tuesday morning to chase sheep. As usual the night was a little restless. Dane makes a lot of noise when he sleeps so I woke up a lot. Morning came and we loaded up and headed to the Front. We spotted sheep way up in a Basin called Wagner Basin so we decided to hike up and see if we couldn't get on them. I tell you it was a tough hike getting up to them. We kept thinking we might bump some on the way up, but we didn't. Of course we had Dane along in the Kelty and Clint carried him the first half, I carried him the second.

About 1100 we topped out over the ridge and snuck up on the rimrock. As we peeked over we were able to see a couple sheep. Clint backed up a little with Dane but was still able to watch the action through his binoculars. I crawled up on the rock and was able to pick out a nice ewe. Of course the plan was to shoot a nice young ewe so she would be really tasty... Well, I think I shot the oldest ewe in the bunch!!! The problem is that I wanted to be SO SURE that it was a ewe. From a distance the young rams kind of look like ewes, so I took the one that I was sure was a ewe. Well, the shot was good and the ewe went about 40 yards before dying. I couldn't have been happier.

Dane slept most of the way up but of course right when we got on the sheep he woke up and was super chatty. We tried getting him to suck on his binky but he just shook his head emphatically "no" when we offered it to him and went on chatting. Luckily he didn't scare of the sheep before I was able to get one!!!

Here we are on the way up... Although he doesn't look comfortable, Dane is sleeping.

It's amazing how these guys can sleep anywhere!

The arrow is where I shot the ewe. We hiked up from the other side.

Right after the shot... I'm a happy girl!

My ewe had a birth defect that we noticed when we got to her. Her nose was kind of twisted off to the left. All of her teeth were really worn down on one side because of how her jaw sat at a crooked angle. She was obviously an old gal. You can see how her horns are really shiny and rubbed down at the base. I feel very fortunate to harvest such a neat ewe with so much character. She has obviously lived a long and productive life and probably didn't have too many years left. Hopefully, she had numerous lambs and good years. Thank you mama...

My guys!!!

Dane checking her out.

The views were truly amazing!!!

Here is the rest of the band taking off...

My awesome hubby loaded up for the hike out... His pack was pretty darn heavy. It had the whole boned out sheep, the pack, etc. What a stud! All I had was Dane and some gear...

It was an incredible hunt. As you can see the weather was great and we harvested a beautiful animal. Today we got up and cut all the meat up and then made pepperoni sticks. 50 lbs of pepperoni later we are done... Now Clint has to go to work. The poor guy. He tried to lay down for a nap but didn't ever sleep. Luckily this is his last week on overnights!!!! Woo hoo!!!