Matt's
Desert Bighorn Sheep Hunt
2014
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On July 23, 2014 I was in Alaska fishing with my two daughters (Jessie and Ashton) when my phone buzzed letting me know I had missed a call and had a voice memo. While listening to the memo, I about died when I heard that someone had turned in a Desert Bighorn sheep tag and I was next on the list for that tag. After catching my breath for a few minutes, I called my wife and told her about the news. She was NOT excited at all about me getting that tag and I could tell she was upset.
I immediately posted a message out on the Monster Muleys website under the Sheep forum asking for anyone that has hunted that unit before. Come to find out this is the only Desert Bighorn unit that is a backpack only hunt; you can’t hunt without hiking in miles and miles to where the sheep are. I was told that this unit was the toughest hunt in North America and everyone that I talked to said to take the tag, but hire a guide. This hunt is extremely hard because of limited access routes and finding water. I called and talked to two of the guides for this unit and found that they were very friendly, but it would cost me a lot of money to use them. This wasn’t going to be an option for me.
While in Sportsman’s Warehouse trying out new hunting boots, I decided to look at the brag board before I left. There were a couple of pictures of Desert Bighorn sheep and a phone number of another guide. I decided to give this guide a call. His name was Brad Turner. When I told him how I got the tag, he said he would be willing to help me out. He had killed 16 sheep in that same unit. He said to come over and he would go over the area with me and not charge me a dime. I was super excited, grateful, and surprised. A few days later I went over to his home and we talked and talked while he showed me the map and access routes for the unit. I then went home and started to study everything that he told me using the computer and Google earth. After learning the area from Google Earth, I called Brad again and this time he came over to my house and we spent a couple more hours putting routes into Google earth so that I could upload them to my GPS. Since I’m an electronics junky, I have to have my gadgets when I go out in the mountains.
It was now August—the hottest time of the year down there. This was not a time to go down and scout my unit. I decided that I would make my first trip down on September 15th, which was the opening day of the hunt, and try to cover as much territory as I could in a couple of days.
On September 6th I was in Austin Texas going to the BYU football game with my brother-in-law Scott Overman. The next morning when I woke up in the hotel I could barely walk. My knee had been popping out of place during the summer, but I never thought much of it because it would pop back in and I also had no problems running in the mornings. This time it didn’t pop back in during my sleep and when I woke up it was completely swollen. I went to the orthopedic that following Monday morning and he diagnosed it as a torn meniscus, which is the cartilage in the knee. I told him I had a desert sheep tag. He said to me “Isn’t that a once in a lifetime tag?” I replied yes. He said he wasn’t a hunter but his boys were so he knew what was I was up against. I decided to not get surgery at that time and endure the pain during my hunt. I would figure out my knee afterwards.
September 14 finally came; I headed down to my unit with family and friends (Craig Harvey, Tom Seely, Dan Canfield and Will Bennett). After an 8-hour drive we finally got to the end of the road at 12:00 midnight. We put up our cots and went to sleep. That next morning I told Dan to figure out a way to a north access route and I sent Tom and Craig up on what we call ‘the boomerang’ to learn about it. Will and I decided we would try and make our way to the top of a mountain called Geode. After walking for only 30 minutes, Will spotted what he thought was a deer. I quickly pulled up my binoculars and I saw that it was a desert bighorn ewe. We called Craig and Tom on the radios. Tom had his spotting scope with him and we sat and watched this ewe for a while. Since we couldn’t find any more sheep, Will and I headed down towards Geode and Craig and Tom met up with Dan and headed to the top of the boomerang.
Having never seen the Escalante unit before, I was going off my GPS and what I had downloaded from Google Earth that Brad showed me. About 3 miles of hiking south, my GPS said to turn left and head up the canyon. While hiking up the canyon I looked off to my right and saw a gnarly opening that I knew we couldn’t climb out of, so I kept heading up the canyon towards the head. For no known reason I decided to look at my GPS and see how much further I needed to go and I noticed that it was pointing backwards towards that gnarly section that I didn’t think was possible to climb out of. I told Will we had gone too far and needed to go back and head straight up to get out of this canyon. After climbing over lots of boulders, I had to get pushed up and over 6-8 foot ledges and then turn and pull Will up over them. We finally made it to the top of the Geode. I can’t explain how good I felt about that accomplishment. Yes, my knee was pounding and I knew the worst would be going back down, but being on top and seeing the beauty was incredible. We were in Sheep country and I could feel it.
While walking around on top it didn’t take us long
until we found a few sheep tracks that we knew were fresh because it had rained
a few days earlier. I was very encouraged with that sign. We spent a few hours
on top learning as much as we could and then we headed back down off
the Geode and towards the truck. We had found a couple of water
pockets, but I didn’t bring a filter so we couldn’t replenish
our water supply. We were both down to about a pint each and knew we had a long
ways to the truck in the middle of the HOTTEST part of the day. We
both decided to take our last drink of water when we were within one mile of
the truck because I knew once we were both out of water our minds would
play games with us.
Cotton mouth is something that I don’t recommend for anyone, but that is what Will and I both had and couldn’t wait until we got back to the truck where we both knew we could have ice cold water and an ice cold Mt. Dew. That was the LONGEST mile I’ve hiked in a long time, but boy, did it taste good when we got back.
I was very satisfied with what I learned and also seeing a Desert Bighorn Ewe for the first time and I was already planning my next trip down. I had put 14 miles on my knee and I was feeling it, but it was a good pain.
I called one of my best friends growing up, Doug Thornton, and asked if he could go down on my hunt with me. He said he could but it would be he could only go the 10th and 11th of October. I didn’t want to go back down before the rut started, which is around the 15th, but since that was the only time he could go I decided to do it. He asked if his brother-in-law Clint could come with and I was very happy he could also come. The last time the three of us hunted together was in 2003, when I ended up killing my other once in a lifetime Bison tag. We ended up going down on the afternoon of October 9th and decided that we would go on the Geode like I had done a few weeks ago. We got to the base of the Geode and ran out of daylight, so we put on our headlamps and we followed my GPS track log up the gnarly canyon that I figured we could never climb out of. I didn’t mind climbing in the dark, and we made pretty good time. We setup camp and tried to get some shuteye. The moon was full that night, so it felt like someone left the bedroom light on. It was cool to be in the middle of nowhere and see all the stars and the awesome Milky Way.
The next morning we got up early, I sent Clint off to the
North to explore and Doug and I headed South down the ridgeline. I
told Doug to watch the East side and I would watch the West. About
an hour into our hike, Doug calls me on the radio and asks why his radio keeps
buzzing. I told him that I was polling his location so I knew where
he was at compared to where I was. Again, I’m a techno
geek and love to use technology to my advantage. He said “ok”, then
came back on the radio and said he sees sheep. I tried to hike over
to where he was and he was trying to tell me where the sheep where
at. Well, we both FAILED and the sheep when right below me while I
was looking up to find out where Doug was at. Since it was a small
Ram with two ewes we decided to not chase after them and head down the ridge to
learn new country.
People that had been down on this unit before told me about a landmark called ‘Dangling Rock’, we had to go find it and boy was it worth finding. What a cool looking landmark. We kept heading south and finding new areas to glass. My knee was screaming at me, so I stayed and glassed a great area while Doug kept heading south to explore more areas. The next morning we got up early and heading past dangling rock and explored more areas, but we never found sheep again, lots of tracks but no sheep. We headed back to camp and loaded up and headed off the Geode and towards the parking lot and the side-by-side. This is where I had more cold water and Mt. Dew’s in the cooler. Again, I had cottonmouth by the time I got to the side-by-side and was thankful for some more cold fluids.
Another successful hunting trip I thought, I put in 22 miles this time and found lots of great bowls to glass and found water pockets on top for my next trip in.
My next trip was planned for October 17th-22nd, this was the time to get serious and find me a Ram. My brother Mark was going with me and Tom another best friend growing up was going in with me for the full time. A few days before I was going to leave, Tom found out he couldn’t come in until Sunday the 19th because of a death in the family. I was a little worried with just my brother and I going in, because this unit is not easily accessed and it would be easy for one or both of us to get hurt. I decided to give Clint a call, since he is a mountain goat in the mountains and had just been in with me a week earlier. He said he could come for Friday and Saturday, so it would all work out; Tom could come in on Sunday. My brother Mark, Clint and I headed down on the afternoon of October16th and again got to the base of the Geode just before dark, so we put our headlamps on and headed straight up on top of the Geode. I had left a lot of my gear on top in plastic bags and hung them a zipline I made to keep animals from getting to them. My brother on the other hand had everything you could think of in his pack. When we got on top and he stated pulling stuff out of his pack, I kept asking myself why he brought it. We had three stoves to cook on, and he had a full bottle of propane that he brought with him. We laughed about it and went to bed. The moon was only a sliver now, so we got good sleep but the stars and milkyway were still as bright as before.
Friday at 6:30AM we got up and started making our oatmeal for breakfast. We headed south down the ridgeline about 7:30AM. We decided that we would stick together until we got further down the ridgeline. About .8 miles from camp Clint told me to “get down”, there is a Ram in the bottom. I turned around to find my brother and he was on the ridgeline behind me, so I quickly went over and got his attention, he then made his way over to where we could all watch the Ram. When we first spotted my Ram, I ranged him at 430 yards. He continued to walk towards us. Clint got his spotting scope out and we looked him over good. He was a good Ram, not a Huge, but not a small one. I decided that I would take him. I put a bullet in my 270 WSM gun and put my bipod together.
This Ram continued to walk towards us, I figured he would
walk right under me around 200 yards away, but he decided that he would walk
straight up the rock cliff. At about 140 yards on this rock cliff,
he only had 20 more feet and he would be on the ridgeline, I decided I would
shoot. I had been practicing with this rifle on our shooting range
at Indianola for the last couple of months, I was confident in this 270 with a
140 grain acubond bullet up to 750
yards. Taking this shot at this Ram at 143 yards was
very easy; I took a deep breath and pulled the trigger.
The gun goes off ‘boom’ and the Ram just stood there for a second; I thought to myself, ‘YOU MISSED’. He then takes a step back and I could see the blood on the rocks, he then stumbles and falls off one little ledge, then he falls off the next ledge, I then hear Clint start saying “Stick, Stick, baby Stick”. It was about that time that I realized that I probably should have waited until he got to the top of the ridgeline, but he stuck on that ledge and it wasn’t very hard to get over to him. If he would have gone off that next ledge he would have gone a long ways to the bottom of the canyon and it would have taken us a long time to get him out. I turned around and gave Clint a high five and could hear my brother saying ’15 more feet, you couldn’t have waited until he climbed another 15 feet’? I smiled and said ‘NOPE’.
After a short little hike down and over I was able to see my Ram for the first time up close and personal. What a relief and also excitement to see that cool animal. After taking some pictures, we decided to drag him over to that last ledge he fell off of and throw him up on to it. There was a nice shade tree there and it would give us the shade we needed while we de-boned and skinned him out.
A couple of hunting friends told me to buy a Havalon Piranta skinning knife. I’m glad I did that, I’ve never used a sharper knife and once it gets dull, I just put in a new blade. I helped Clint with the capping of the sheep, while my brother de-boned the meat and started putting it into some cloth bags that we brought. We finally got it de-boned and caped out and I loaded my pack with the cape and horns, while Clint and my brother took the meat in their packs. I let Clint and my brother get ahead of me hiking out while I stayed back a little ways thinking about my once-in-lifetime desert bighorn hunt. It wasn’t long until I had tears in my eyes, I was thankful for such and awesome experience, but very sad that my best hunting partner was not with me for the experience. My son Jaxon has been with me hunting ever since he could walk. He was with me on my other once-in-lifetime Bison hunt and he was right by my side when I shot my 370 class Elk on the Deep Creek unit. I had a weird feeling that I would draw this tag while he was serving is LDS mission in Japan. I’m for sure going to take him back down to that unit and do some hiking when he gets home next summer.
If I didn’t mention my wonderful wife that puts up with me on these kinds of hunts, I would be in trouble. She has been very positive throughout this whole hunt, even though she broke down in tears when I called her from Alaska and told her that I was the next on the list for a Desert Bighorn Tag. I love her to death!
I ended up hunting a total of 7 days and put on 43 miles on this hunt and these aren’t just easy hiking miles. I’m so blessed to have such great family and friends that were able to share this experience with me; I really never thought I would draw this tag.
On November 24th, I had surgery on my right knee, the doctor said my meniscus had a deep tear and it was hard for him to fix it, I’m very lucky that my knee lasted during my whole hunt, considering how many miles I ended up putting on it.