Sonora Desert Bighorn Story

I won the hunt through the Wild Sheep Foundation's Less Than One Club. When I got the call, I sat there for a good two minutes before it actually registered — a Sonora desert bighorn, the hunt I had been dreaming about since I was old enough to know what a ram was.

We crossed into Mexico in the dark, riding mules up a rocky trail that barely existed. By the time the sun cracked the ridgeline, we were glassing a basin that looked like nothing had walked through it in years. Then the guide grabbed my arm.

He was bedded on a ledge two hundred yards out, curled up like he owned the mountain — because he did. A heavy, dark-horned ram with age on his face and nothing to prove. We watched him for twenty minutes before I even thought about the rifle.

The shot was at 200 yards, slightly downhill, with a wind that came and went. When it broke, the canyon went completely silent. Then the guide started laughing.

Getting him out took the better part of two days. Every step down that mountain I kept looking back at him draped across the mule, still not quite believing it. Some hunts you wait your whole life for. This was mine.