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Desert Bighorn Sheep Articles and Stories
Arizona New Mexico Outfitters and Guides
The following is a
collection of real life entries as written by the outfitter, guides, and past
clients. Their purpose is to give potential hunters an idea of our hunts.
“IN
PURSUIT OF LEFTY”
By Gabriel Lopez
and Pat Feldt
This article has appeared in "The Ram's Horn"
magazine, "FNAWS Conservation Connection"
and "Eastmans' Hunting Journal"
 My
pursuit of the Arizona desert bighorn starts a little different from other
people. As usual, I applied for
numerous big game hunts in June 2004 and waited for the normal denial letters.
Yet, this year was different. I
was not surprised that I had been denied for an Arizona desert bighorn tag
because I had only applied for two years. But,
after five years of applying for elk, I was finally successful in receiving a
late season bull tag. November 2004
could not come soon enough and after a lot of scouting and research for the bull
elk, I knew that a 340-350 inch bull was attainable.
Finally November arrived. I was at
home getting ready to leave for the elk hunt when I received a letter from the
Arizona Game and Fish Department. A sick feeling came over me because I thought
the letter might say that I had made a mistake on my application and was no
longer eligible to go on the elk hunt. In
fact, I didn’t want to open it until after my elk hunt.
The temptation was too much, so I opened the letter.
I was in disbelief when I kept reading that there had been an error in
the draw and I had been awarded a coveted desert bighorn sheep tag! The only catch was that I would have to accept the tag for
the following year in December 2005. That
was fine with me!
I proceeded to go on my first bull elk hunt for myself with my dad and two
friends, Derek Hill and Danny Sanchez. On the third day of the bull elk hunt I successfully took a 6
x 6 at a distance of 510 yards with my 300 Ultra Mag. The bull scored 363 inches; his main beams were 59 inches,
his width was 50 inches and his royals were 21 inches.
I now had a year to do research and start learning how to hunt for desert
bighorn sheep. Arizona has two
subspecies of desert bighorn, the Nelsoni and the Mexicana.
The major difference between the two is the way the ram’s horns look.
The Nelson variety has thinner horns that flare away from its head, while
the Mexicana variety seems to be heavier horned and has a tighter curl.
The unit I drew holds the Nelson subspecies.
I started reading books, watching videos, and speaking with other hunters
who had been lucky enough to hunt these animals.
I spoke to members of the Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep Society and of
course spoke with Arizona Game and Fish Managers for the unit.
Clint Adams from the AZGFD was very helpful in giving me areas that I
should start my scouting. Mr. Adams
told me that this unit usually produces rams in the 145-155 size, so my goal of
taking a 160 plus ram would be a difficult task. It was not impossible though, since one of the hunters from
2004 had shot a ram that scored around 175 inches.
My hunting partner Derek Hill and I started scouting in August 2005.
On our first trip the temperatures reached 115 degrees.
Needless to say, we saw no sheep and very little sign.
With the amount of time and effort we put in, I was a little discouraged
after seeing no sheep and felt overwhelmed at the sheer size of the unit.
Mr. Adams had told me that my unit could be very difficult to hunt
because there was not a high sheep population.
To complicate things more, there were five mountain ranges that held
those low numbers of sheep. Furthermore,
miles and miles of flat desert separated these mountain ranges.
I then was lucky and met with Robert Gamez, a hunter who had successfully taken
a ram from the unit in 2004. I met with Robert regularly and he was more than willing to
help me with information such as road access, where water encatchements were
located, and more importantly, where he had seen sheep the year before.
Robert told me about a remarkable ram he had found on a scouting trip
that he thought would go above the 170-inch mark.
He said the ram’s left horn flared up over the bridge of his nose.
Robert hunted for this ram for nearly two weeks with no avail. Not only did he not see this ram on the hunt, he did not even
see a sheep in the area. Discouraged
with no sightings in the area, he ended up in a totally different mountain range
taking a respectable ram on the 18th day of the hunt.
Robert felt the big ram was still out there and knew that the other
successful hunter had not taken him. I
quickly became excited knowing about this animal and the fact that I would only
be competing with one other hunter in this unit.
I knew this hunt would take a considerable amount of scouting.
One problem I faced was that my work schedule would not allow me to go on
as many scouting trips as I would have liked.
The fact that the unit was a six and a half hour drive one way also made
it difficult for scouting. I
started thinking that I might have “bit off more than I could handle” and
may need to hire an experienced bighorn sheep guide.
I then had a stroke of luck. Clint Adams from AZGFD called me and told me that
they were going to fly over my unit in October and he would share where they
found some rams. The problem was
that whatever he shared with me, he would be sharing with the other hunter in
the unit. I already knew there was
an exceptional ram in one of the mountain ranges. Now I would just have to be lucky enough to find him.
Clint quickly informed me that on the fly-over of the unit that they had
seen a magnificent ram that would measure in the mid 170’s to 180.
He also told me that the left horn flared out and he was near a certain
water development. From that info,
I immediately knew this was the same ram that Robert had told me about.
As I was still contemplating on hiring a sheep guide, a friend
referred me to Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep Society member Pat Feldt, the owner of
Arizona Guided Hunts.
I liked Pat right away since he was not pushy and arrogant as many of the
other guides I had spoken with. He
had helped other hunters take large desert rams in the past and was very
experienced at locating, hunting and judging rams.
After the meeting with Pat and viewing his website (www.arizonahunting.net),
I knew that going with him would significantly increase my chances at
harvesting the record book Nelsoni desert bighorn.
The next day Pat and I had scheduled to go on a scouting trip for late
October. I was amazed at the time
and research that Pat put into the trip. He
had every topo map of the unit and had marked numerous areas in which to glass
from. He had spoken with numerous
friends and had gathered more information on the unit in two weeks than I had in
9 months.
 Late October found Pat, Derek, Robert and I scouting for the big ram.
As luck would have it, we found the remarkable ram by 8:00 a.m.!
We glassed him from a little over a mile away with our Swarovski 15 X 56
optics. This gave us an opportunity
to get some good video footage. We
videoed about 25 minutes of the 175-inch ram and a smaller 150-inch ram.
Pat informed me that I had to be one of the luckiest people he knew; not
only had I drawn a tag in my third year of applying, but my first ram I had EVER
SEEN was a huge ram that would score in the mid 170’s and would easily make
the Boone and Crocket Record Book. He
also explained this was an exceptional sheep for the area.
After scouting the entire mountain range and learning access points and roads,
Pat, Derek, Robert and I decided to scout other areas to give us more options.
We found another good ram that would score in the low 160’s in the next
mountain range. Pat explained he
too was a nice ram for the Nelson variety and that we should put him on the back
burner as a secondary ram. I was so
excited I could not wait for the hunt in December.
My fear now was that the big ram would not be in the same area for the
hunt or that he would vanish into thin air like he had the year before when
Robert had hunted for him.
The hunt was now here and I would have my Dad, my friends Derek Hill, Robert
Gomez and Pat Feldt in my camp to assist on the hunt.
My dad and I arrived two days before the hunt in hopes of finding
“Lefty”. We glassed all
afternoon and were unsuccessful at finding the big one, or any sheep for that
matter. The next day we were
confident that we would find some sheep because Pat had arrived. We now had
experience on our side. Within 30 minutes of glassing, Pat spotted “Lefty”
near the same mountaintop that we had found him in October.
He was only a mile further north and still with the smaller 150” ram;
only he now had two ewes with him. We
immediately closed the distance between us from the mile and half away to within
900 yards. We proceeded to stay with him for the next 9 hours.
We took some great video footage of the ram as he sparred with an
ocotillo and played with the ewes.
 Day One of the hunt found Pat and I across the canyon at a distance of 450 yards
from where we put Lefty to bed. Pat believed the ram would present a shot for me first thing
in the morning. At 7:30 a.m. the
two ewes appeared exactly where we were expecting them to be. The problem was
that the big ram was nowhere to be found. For
some reason the big old ram had decided to leave his ewes and smaller companion.
Fear set in and I started thinking that maybe we spooked him or he had
fallen from a cliff or been taken by a mountain lion.
Even though we had not seen the other hunter, I was also getting nervous
because I figured that he would be hunting this ram as well.
Day Two found all of us glassing in the same area for the big ram.
It was noontime and none of us had even seen a sheep.
I started thinking that this ram had vanished again into thin air like he
did to Robert Gamez last year. Pat
kept me motivated and reminded me that he would be there to help me find this
animal for the next seven days. I
also had to remind myself that I had 29 more days left in the season.
At 12:30 Pat made a plan that he and I would take our ATV’s and go
about two miles to the north end of the mountain range.
Pat was confident that the ram was on the mountain and had no reason to
leave. Around 1:15, after about 10
minutes of glassing, Pat had found “Lefty.” He was by himself and was
traveling in the direction that we had just come from.
We met up with Derek and he had also seen “Lefty” going back to where
we had found him the day before the hunt. Robert
was on the south end of the mountain glassing the backside and we had no way to
contact him to let him know that we had found the big ram. My dad was also at a
different mountain range at this time. The
ram was constantly moving and would not bed or stay in any location for any
length of time, which made a stalk impossible.
We would lose sight of him for 10-15 minutes at a time.
At 3:45 I turned to Pat and said that we needed to make a decision to go
to the right side of the mountain or go to the left, which would require us to
climb straight up a mountain. I
depended on Pat’s past experiences and he said we should go to the left and
take the hard route. It was 4:25
p.m. and the sun sets at 5:20 p.m. We realized we would soon be running out of daylight.
When we finally approached the top of the ridge, Pat peaked over to find
the ram standing broadside at 529 yards! We
knew it was now or never. Because
of the steep cliffs and limited amount of time, we could not get any closer.
I was confident shooting at this distance since I was using Pat’s 300
Ultra Mag topped with a 6.5-20X50 Leopold target scope and shooting a 180-grain
Nosler Accubond
bullet.
The scope turrets were clicked to the distance of 529 yards and the gun was set
on the bipod as Pat got the video camera rolling.
I could hear every breath I took as I tried to calm down.
I heard Pat tell me to take my time and put it on his shoulder.
I slowly squeezed the trigger and immediately heard Pat tell me that I
had hit the ram well and that he was “very sick”. I was instantly back on the ram, which had run about 20 yards
to his left. He was still standing
broadside and I was about to shoot again when I saw the ram start tumbling down
the mountain. I cannot explain all
the emotions that I felt. I
actually started shaking and I felt like I did when I shot my very first deer at
the age of twelve. I said a prayer
and gave thanks to God for allowing me the opportunity to take such a
magnificent animal and for letting me share this once in a lifetime experience
with my dad and friends. As Pat and
I were walking towards Lefty, we saw my friend Robert approaching the ram.
It ended up that Robert had been about 400 yards from the ram and had
seen the whole thing expire. After
we approached the ram, Pat had estimated he would score around 173-175 inches
and thought the left horn was over 36 inches long.
Pat was right on; the ram has been green scored at 175 4/8 inches. His bases are 15 inches, his left horn is 37 ½ inches and
his right horn is 34 inches in length. If
the ram’s right side had not been broken, he would gross near 180 inches.
This is one large Nelson ram! At
the time of this writing this is the largest Nelson desert bighorn taken in
Arizona for 2005.
 In closing, I want to thank everyone that helped me with this hunt.
It certainly would not have been possible without my two best friends,
Derek Hill and Robert Gomez. I also
want to thank their families for understanding our passion for hunting.
To Pat Feldt, owner of Arizona Guided Hunts, I am ever indebted. Thank you for all your time, hard work and dedication to make
this dream possible. To my family
thank you all for putting up with my passion, and finally to my Dad, thank you
for teaching me to respect the animals that we are lucky enough to hunt and for
always taking the time to take me out hunting.
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