Hunting The 406
New member
This year I decided to start the process of putting in for the 680 sheep unit every year in hopes that in the years to come I would be one of the lucky few to draw a resident tag. Before the deadline, I put in for the unit, and then forgot all about it. Hell, I didn't even check my draw status after they were posted, as I knew for sure there was no way I would be drawing any year soon due to the almost negative percent chance, especially the first time putting in with no points under my belt.
Sometime in June I believe, I was going about the daily grind when later in the day the ole' lady brought me a full-sized envelope from the mail that read Montana FWP on it. I thought this was a little strange because the refund checks usually come in the regular sized letter envelopes. Upon opening the envelope, I pulled a "Moose, Sheep and Goat" regulations booklet out. At this point I was just completely confused, that is until a letter fell to the floor from behind the regs booklet. I picked the letter up off the floor and read "Congratulations on drawing a Montana resident sheep license". I then let out an "Holy Sh*t" above an inside voice tone, and the ole' lady came into the dinning room to ask what was wrong. I proceeded to text a good friend of mine who has been putting in for many years now that I drew a sheep tag for the 680 unit, but he refused to believe me until I sent him a photo of the letter.
At first it was great excitement, but then came the fear and anxiety. I hadn't spent much time in the breaks, and knew absolutely nothing about sheep hunting, what was I going to do and where should I start? I proceeded first down to the main FWP office for the unit to ask for some advice, as I figured who better to ask then them. All the wardens had to say after I excitedly informed them of my draw success was "oh, its pretty tough access in there", which turned out to be the case after much research and phone calls to private land owners. I quickly learned that the area was monopolized by outfitters and the wealthy. All of the beautiful public BLM land in the upper Missouri breaks turned out to be almost completely surrounded by private properties, which so happens to be exclusively leased out to outfitters who are choking out access to the public, unless of course you pay the "trespass" fee, or hire them for a guided hunt, As a young individual just out of college still trying to land a career job, this left me with very little options as my resources were limited.
Panic and fear of not being able to fill the tag of a lifetime with a decent ram began to set in. I began posting on various hunting forums asking for advice, and the name John Lewton kept coming up as the guy to talk to. I scoured the internet for his contact info and finally found his email address. I sent him an email, informing him of my tag and situation, and asked if he would be willing to spare me any advice. A few days later he called me, and we visited for awhile and got to know each other and he informed me that really the only way to gain access in my situation was to hike out the 10+ miles in most situations or take a boat down the river. So a few ambitious buddies and I began to hike out what public land we could legally access. We didn't see much other than a few young rams and a lot of ewes. There were no shortage of rattle snakes though, in fact, one of my buddies about sat on one as he placed himself on a rock-face to tighten his bootlace.
A few weeks to opening day, John gave me a call and asked how things were going. I informed him on where we had been and what we had saw. After more conversation he offered to tag along on the hunt, and I graciously accepted, as I knew he was very familiar with the unit. A couple days before the opener,my buddies and I headed south towards the ferry to meet up with John before heading over to the cow creek area. We carried on to hike our butts off in the area in search of sheep. The day before opener, we had hiked to a high point to do some glassing after a long hike. Shortly after setting up our equipment, we could hear the sound of a helicopter, and moments later it appeared out over the edge and flew up the ridge we were perched upon, only to hover not far above us to see what we were looking at. We later found out it was a guide service hired by the gov-tag. They proceeded to harass the area with the helicopter up until the evening. The next morning we put in a good hike, but were unsuccessful in finding a mature ram. We called it a day and pulled out of the area to try a new spot the following week.
After many hikes and camp sessions, John and I began to get to know each other pretty well. We exchanged many stories of all kinds at the campfire during the evenings. The guy is full of sheep knowledge, it was almost unreal that I had the opportunity to hunt with the man. He turned out to be one of the nicer guys I have ever met, always sharing his snacks and making sure all of us younger guys were prepared for the hikes ahead. I am thankful to have friends that were willing to endure the torture of attending our hike sessions week after week, we kept hiking, and kept trying week after week to find a mature ram, but the wet weather conditions were halting our progress.
Finally the weather broke, and the soil dried up enough to allow us to traverse back into "hell" as we began to call it. We hiked 26 miles in two days, only to find out the sheep were beginning to make their move towards the ewes, crossing over private property that we did not have permission to cross, let alone hunt. I turned to John for advice on what I should do next. He suggested we run his jet boat up the river the following week and work that country out. Obviously I agreed, as I would have no other way to access that country myself, as I don't own a boat and any roadways into the area are blocked by closed private lands. We hunted the area hard, hiking 11 miles from camp the first day, and then working out the river bottoms the following two days, seeing nothing but ewes and young 3-4 year old rams starting to rut. I passed everything up we saw, but there was one ram that really caught my attention and kept me thinking about him.
He was only 5 years old according to his growth rings, and just seemed to kind of lose his mass too quickly, so I passed him up. Young ram after young ram, none of the older mature big boys wanted to come out from the deep country to play, and so the fourth and final day of the trip came upon me and we packed up camp to head back up the river to end the hunt for the week. Along the way we spotted some sheep a ways off the river so we figured we better take a look see. It happened to be the same group of sheep with the ram that really caught my eye, the one I passed up the day before. He had a lamb tip on his left curl still, and he just seemed unique to me. They were rutting pretty good with the ewes and weren't moving much at all, giving me a lot of time to sit and ponder. The more I looked at him, the more I did not want to part ways with him. I decided I wanted to take him. I ranged him at 388 yards and some change, and carefully took my shot after he had moved away from the group as he was following a ewe, making excellent shot placement. I instantly felt a huge relief of weight lift from my shoulders, knowing that I had finally filled this dream tag after all the miles hiked, after all the hours spent researching sheep behavior, land maps, and talking to folks for advice. The beautiful ram turned out to be larger horned than we had estimated, by a large margin. His bases measure just shy of 18 inches at 17.75 at 5 and a half years old!!! Unbelievable! I was overjoyed, and still am. The meat has since been processed by myself and a close friend. The horns plugged, and the cape being worked on.
I am so fortunate to not only have drawn and filled this tag, but also to have close friends that were willing to help me on this venture, and to have befriended John, he helped me out so much, and 100% out of the kindness of his heart, asking for nothing in return, they all did in fact. Thank you John Lewton, and to my other buddies as well. I couldn't have done it with out you guys!!
Sometime in June I believe, I was going about the daily grind when later in the day the ole' lady brought me a full-sized envelope from the mail that read Montana FWP on it. I thought this was a little strange because the refund checks usually come in the regular sized letter envelopes. Upon opening the envelope, I pulled a "Moose, Sheep and Goat" regulations booklet out. At this point I was just completely confused, that is until a letter fell to the floor from behind the regs booklet. I picked the letter up off the floor and read "Congratulations on drawing a Montana resident sheep license". I then let out an "Holy Sh*t" above an inside voice tone, and the ole' lady came into the dinning room to ask what was wrong. I proceeded to text a good friend of mine who has been putting in for many years now that I drew a sheep tag for the 680 unit, but he refused to believe me until I sent him a photo of the letter.
At first it was great excitement, but then came the fear and anxiety. I hadn't spent much time in the breaks, and knew absolutely nothing about sheep hunting, what was I going to do and where should I start? I proceeded first down to the main FWP office for the unit to ask for some advice, as I figured who better to ask then them. All the wardens had to say after I excitedly informed them of my draw success was "oh, its pretty tough access in there", which turned out to be the case after much research and phone calls to private land owners. I quickly learned that the area was monopolized by outfitters and the wealthy. All of the beautiful public BLM land in the upper Missouri breaks turned out to be almost completely surrounded by private properties, which so happens to be exclusively leased out to outfitters who are choking out access to the public, unless of course you pay the "trespass" fee, or hire them for a guided hunt, As a young individual just out of college still trying to land a career job, this left me with very little options as my resources were limited.
Panic and fear of not being able to fill the tag of a lifetime with a decent ram began to set in. I began posting on various hunting forums asking for advice, and the name John Lewton kept coming up as the guy to talk to. I scoured the internet for his contact info and finally found his email address. I sent him an email, informing him of my tag and situation, and asked if he would be willing to spare me any advice. A few days later he called me, and we visited for awhile and got to know each other and he informed me that really the only way to gain access in my situation was to hike out the 10+ miles in most situations or take a boat down the river. So a few ambitious buddies and I began to hike out what public land we could legally access. We didn't see much other than a few young rams and a lot of ewes. There were no shortage of rattle snakes though, in fact, one of my buddies about sat on one as he placed himself on a rock-face to tighten his bootlace.
A few weeks to opening day, John gave me a call and asked how things were going. I informed him on where we had been and what we had saw. After more conversation he offered to tag along on the hunt, and I graciously accepted, as I knew he was very familiar with the unit. A couple days before the opener,my buddies and I headed south towards the ferry to meet up with John before heading over to the cow creek area. We carried on to hike our butts off in the area in search of sheep. The day before opener, we had hiked to a high point to do some glassing after a long hike. Shortly after setting up our equipment, we could hear the sound of a helicopter, and moments later it appeared out over the edge and flew up the ridge we were perched upon, only to hover not far above us to see what we were looking at. We later found out it was a guide service hired by the gov-tag. They proceeded to harass the area with the helicopter up until the evening. The next morning we put in a good hike, but were unsuccessful in finding a mature ram. We called it a day and pulled out of the area to try a new spot the following week.
After many hikes and camp sessions, John and I began to get to know each other pretty well. We exchanged many stories of all kinds at the campfire during the evenings. The guy is full of sheep knowledge, it was almost unreal that I had the opportunity to hunt with the man. He turned out to be one of the nicer guys I have ever met, always sharing his snacks and making sure all of us younger guys were prepared for the hikes ahead. I am thankful to have friends that were willing to endure the torture of attending our hike sessions week after week, we kept hiking, and kept trying week after week to find a mature ram, but the wet weather conditions were halting our progress.
Finally the weather broke, and the soil dried up enough to allow us to traverse back into "hell" as we began to call it. We hiked 26 miles in two days, only to find out the sheep were beginning to make their move towards the ewes, crossing over private property that we did not have permission to cross, let alone hunt. I turned to John for advice on what I should do next. He suggested we run his jet boat up the river the following week and work that country out. Obviously I agreed, as I would have no other way to access that country myself, as I don't own a boat and any roadways into the area are blocked by closed private lands. We hunted the area hard, hiking 11 miles from camp the first day, and then working out the river bottoms the following two days, seeing nothing but ewes and young 3-4 year old rams starting to rut. I passed everything up we saw, but there was one ram that really caught my attention and kept me thinking about him.
He was only 5 years old according to his growth rings, and just seemed to kind of lose his mass too quickly, so I passed him up. Young ram after young ram, none of the older mature big boys wanted to come out from the deep country to play, and so the fourth and final day of the trip came upon me and we packed up camp to head back up the river to end the hunt for the week. Along the way we spotted some sheep a ways off the river so we figured we better take a look see. It happened to be the same group of sheep with the ram that really caught my eye, the one I passed up the day before. He had a lamb tip on his left curl still, and he just seemed unique to me. They were rutting pretty good with the ewes and weren't moving much at all, giving me a lot of time to sit and ponder. The more I looked at him, the more I did not want to part ways with him. I decided I wanted to take him. I ranged him at 388 yards and some change, and carefully took my shot after he had moved away from the group as he was following a ewe, making excellent shot placement. I instantly felt a huge relief of weight lift from my shoulders, knowing that I had finally filled this dream tag after all the miles hiked, after all the hours spent researching sheep behavior, land maps, and talking to folks for advice. The beautiful ram turned out to be larger horned than we had estimated, by a large margin. His bases measure just shy of 18 inches at 17.75 at 5 and a half years old!!! Unbelievable! I was overjoyed, and still am. The meat has since been processed by myself and a close friend. The horns plugged, and the cape being worked on.
I am so fortunate to not only have drawn and filled this tag, but also to have close friends that were willing to help me on this venture, and to have befriended John, he helped me out so much, and 100% out of the kindness of his heart, asking for nothing in return, they all did in fact. Thank you John Lewton, and to my other buddies as well. I couldn't have done it with out you guys!!
