Okanogan Monarch

We stopped to fuel up the truck around Washington. Our bodies were fueled with hope and anticipation for this hunt, as we had been waiting all summer and fall.

While paying inside the store, we noticed a photograph of a man with a huge mulie displayed at the cash register. Of course we commented on it and got the story from the cashier.

The Last, Best Hunt

I watched the man who had been so strong his entire life struggle to get down the hill silently. A look of wonder appeared on his face like that of a child about to open a present. I had trees in my way and couldn’t see the bull that had caused such a stir in his eyes. I watched as Lisa pointed out the bull to Dad. He took a kneeling position and raised his rifle.

The Fall of a Legend

My dad, Mike Simon, had a good muzzleloader tag for the 2009 season, so on August 9 we went out for a scouting expedition. As luck would have it, one of the first bucks we spotted was a whopper nontypical. We watched as he and a forked horn made their way into the thick pinion and juniper. We continued to watch the bucks until the night before the hunt opened.

High and Tight

I knew we were close, but where was he? The willows were so thick that it was tough to see. Suddenly, there he was! Those incredible long palms above the willow tops reflected the rising sun, and then that massive, dark body came into view at less than 50 yards. He was on a mission, making tracks for the other side of the drainage. Why and what was he running from?

Broken Country and Big Rams

“Ram! Right there on the skyline!” Waylon, my good friend, steadied his binoculars and I heard my favorite words. “He’s a shooter!”

It was week nine of chasing rams, and my hunger to grab a set of sheep horns was growing out of control. I lost count of how many rams we had seen as I kept searching for the perfect ram that had everything. I wanted mass, 40-inch horns, a drop below the jaw, curl above the nose, and heavy, broomed tips that flared. Yep, I had my work cut out for me.

A Ram For Dad

It was day six of our Stone’s sheep hunt in the backcountry of northern British Columbia, and we were finally where we wanted to be. The first storm of the fall had hung heavy and dark in the valley, and had kept us on the floatplane dock for four full days. Now, we were determined that neither rain, fog, sleet, snow, nor plane delays could prevent us from accomplishing what we came to do.

Chasing a Dream

We had just stopped for lunch after a failed stalk on five Dall’s rams, and the sweat from my forehead dripped into my can of kippered herring. After eight tough days of hiking all over the McKenzie Mountains of the Northwest Territories, I was sitting there thinking that maybe I should have tried this hunt when I was 25 instead of 55.

A Six-Week Headache

My epic journey began when I received a picture of an amazing desert ram only one week after being drawn. He was perfect – a specimen in his prime, down well into the curl. In the process of doing extensive research, I learned that this particular ram had been nicknamed “Headache” by one of the previous year’s tag holders. I knew that this was going to be the ram I would look for.

Leaving it all on the Field

It was October 6 - the last week of my bighorn sheep hunt in central Idaho - and I found myself thinking of what I could have done different. As a friend of mine and I climbed a high cliff face that overlooked a giant creek basin, the daunting feeling of the steep terrain came over me, and I knew the likelihood of finding rams was small.

Desert Oasis

Peeking over a steep ridge, silently avoiding cactus and cat claw while searching for a great ram within bow range - that was my dream 45 years ago when I first applied for sheep. I was twenty and hoped to be the first in Arizona to take a ram with a bow.

27 Days of Heaven

After 27 days of scouting and hunting, and covering every nook and cranny of their hunt unit while viewing, photographing, and filming over 100 rams, Lynn Belli finally had a great California bighorn ram in her spotting scope.