British Columbia Stone Sheep Hunt

Hunt Dates: July 28th - July 31st, 2010
Species: Stone Sheep

Just back at the beautiful Stone Mountain Ranch Lodge near Toad River, British Columbia after one of the most amazing hunts of my life. They say that luck is when preparedness meets opportunity. Well, we were prepared and the opportunity presented.

We were on Leif’s first Stone Sheep hunt of the season which meant hot weather, sheep up high and rams in bachelor groups.

The hunt started with the standard precarious 20 mile horseback ride to base camp. From there we scouted several drainage's looking for a good stone ram. Horseback rides on scouting days were from 8 to 12 miles round-trip per day. On the first glassing stop of our first scouting day, a cow and calf moose ran past us in the creek bottom at a distance of 50 yards. Behind the pair; a large boar grizzly in hot pursuit. As the bear ran across in front of us, he finally spotted us, turned and took a few strides in our direction. With guns at ready, we yelled him down and he went on his way. A reminder that we were in one of North Americas most wild and unpredictable places.

On the second scouting day, we found the rams we wanted to target. A dozen stone rams in a bachelor group holed up in one of the most beautiful alpine valleys I've had the pleasure of being in. About 20 ewes and lambs also grazed on the lush green side-hills below the rocks. There were three shooters in the bunch, an old, dark horned broomed ram, a super wide and long horned ram and another that had it all, good mass, good length, lamb tips tipping out and a dark charcoal body---a classic stone.

So we packed up four horses with gear and moved to a spike camp 3 miles below the rams in the valley floor. We would live with the sheep, keeping eyes on them at distance until the opening day.

Opening morning started with rain, but cleared up just in time for us to locate the sheep again and begin our two mile stalk. At one point, my guide Derrick Stevens said that there was no way to approach the sheep without being exposed. The lambs and ewes bedded out of sight, but the old rams bedded with a commanding view of their domain. At 800 yards, we were forced to crawl, fully exposed for about 100 yards. Derrick said, "James, the only thing I know to do is get on our hands and knees, and one at a time crawl slowly at an angle away from the sheep until we get to the next cover. If they forgive us of that, we'll scramble up a wash and peek over at 250 yards. If not....well we'll have 13 more hunting days to make up for our sins".

It appeared that those opening day rams had allowed us this break that we needed. They were all still comfortably bedded when we crawled out of their sight. Now, however, we needed to scramble up a wash with a mountain goat bedded at the top. Would he spook and wreck our day? Also, there were so many sheep in the valley that we had no idea what we might bump along the way. What's more, we had watched these sheep two days in a row and could not figure out where the two largest rams were bedding. Late in the evening they would simply disappear.

When Derrick finally peeked over the ridge at the head of the wash he gave me the signal that he had his eyes on the rams. I bellied up beside him and got the T/C Icon into position. While Derrick was sizing up the four rams bedded below us in the talus slope, I looked straight across the next wash and saw the two large rams. We were fortunate to peek up straight away from the bedding location that we were unable to find the previous two days! The largest ram in the bunch was the closest of the three shooter rams. I settled in, took a few breaths and tried to put out of my mind that I was soon to be pulling the trigger on an 8 year old, full curl plus stone ram; arguably North America's premier big game animal.

The ram was bedded so we waited 20 minutes for him to present a good shot. Finally he stood up, walked a few steps and looked intently in our direction. I squeezed the trigger and even before I could recover from the recoil, I was comforted by that fateful Accubond whomp. I'd heard it enough by now to know it was a solid hit. "Give him another one" said Derrick, but before I could feed the Icon another, the ram tipped over, dropped off his ledge, rolled about 50 feet and was done.

The longest trophy photo session of my life ensued, followed by a two mile pack off the mountain. I say sheep are not hunted, they are accomplished, and generally not by individuals, but by a team. Everyone on the team had done their job and we had our beautiful stone ram........but it wasn't over yet.

We spent the night at spike camp then pointed the horses toward base camp the following day. As we neared base camp a lone wolf sounded off across the valley. Thankfully when I booked this hunt, Leif had convinced me to spend the 60 dollars..... just in case. We tied up the stock, set up on the creek bank and Derrick gave a blow on his predator call. The big black wolf appeared on the green side hill at a distance of 338 yards. At 347 yards, I was lined up on the wolf. My first shot struck hard but the wolf righted itself and headed down the steep slope. My second shot at the moving wolf was a bit high, but number three put him down instantly. Derrick and I looked at each other in utter amazement for just a moment knowing that we had just done one of those things that just never happens........ two of the most difficult of the North American 29 big game species in less than 24 hours!

My Stone Mountain Adventure will go down as "The Perfect Hunt", where preparedness met opportunity.

I will be back with Stone Mountain Safaris Next year in search of one of their Giant Canadian Moose.

-James Brion
Magnum Hunt Club