Fall is upon us and I hope you are all out hunting and recreating in the outdoors.  It is always a somewhat difficult time to focus for me personally as I would rather not be in front of the computer, but hiking around some mountain range.  We’ve started to see some member success on bighorn sheep as you will see from some of the photos in this newsletter.  As you will read in the following pages and articles, the Montana Wild Sheep Foundation (WSF) board has made some changes.  We have elected new board members as well as new leadership for the board.  This will be my last President’s message, as I have agreed to take on a role of volunteer Executive Director for the MTWSF chapter.  I’m somewhat following former Executive Director Jim Weatherly’s vision and hoping that I can be more effective in this role with a President to help handle some of the burden.  So you will not see my name on the Board of Directors moving forward, but I’ll still be working to “put more sheep on the mountain” in a somewhat different role.

One major change on the Board of Directors is that Mike Colpo has term limited out and has rolled off the Board after nine (9) years of service.  Mike has been a great asset to the chapter and brought a perspective from the outfitter community that is valuable to our organization and working relationships in Montana.  The beauty of our organization is the wide diversity of personalities and perspectives that are included in the discussion.  Mike is not going anywhere and will still be involved with Montana  WSF as he has donated a Dall Sheep Hunt for our 2018 Life Member raffle.  Additionally, he is coordinating our 2018 Custom Rifle Raffle build.  Thanks for all that you do and have done Mike.

Justin Spring was elected to his second term on the Board.  Justin will continue to act as a conduit with Boone and Crockett (B&C) and brings a great perspective to the board, specifically that of a DIY, public land hunter.  We are also welcoming two new faces to the Board in Ray Vinkey and Levi Bowler.  All of you should have seen these bio’s, but I wanted to print them again to make sure you get familiar with your new board members:

RAY VINKEY

It is my honor to introduce myself—Ray Vinkey—as a candidate for the board with the Montana Wild Sheep Foundation. I’m fortunate to have found Montana, its people, wildlife, and wildlands 25 years ago. My most treasured moments have been spent recreating with family and friends in Montana’s wildlands and working outdoors in this amazing place.

We all have unique skills and qualifications to bring to the table. From my perspective, I would bring knowledge of bighorn sheep research and management, experience working with the Wild Sheep Foundation to acquire habitat, and multiple relationships with hunters, land owners and agency personnel. My experience with bighorn sheep began over two decades ago in Sheep River, Alberta—and on the National Bison Range—where I was fortunate to work on a research project observing bighorn sheep behavior before and during the rut. During 8 seasons, I watched them for hundreds of hours, scrambled through sheep country, and on many days, froze my tail off. Needless-to-say I was hooked from my very first day watching bighorn.

After working 5 years working in the field on species from salmon to sheep, I completed graduate school in the wildlife program at the University of Montana (2003) on another species (fisher) that required me freeze my tail off, worked as a wildlife biologist for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks in the Upper Clark, and currently work as wildlife biologist for the Forest Service on the Kootenai National Forest. I’ve been dedicated to learning about bighorn and working for them since Sheep River.

Thanks to the efforts of the Wild Sheep Foundation, bighorn hunters, dedicated agency employees, and other nongovernmental organizations, I was able to protect bighorn sheep winter range on the Blue-eyed Nellie and Stucky Ridge Wildlife Management Areas near Anaconda. I am happy that I’ve played a role in the conservation of habitat for bighorn sheep and other species associated with intermountain grasslands and Montana’s mountains. And I look forward to continued work with all of you to assist in the conservation and management of wild sheep.

LEVI BOWLER

As a third generation Montanan, I grew up in the small farming community of Scobey where access to hunting and the outdoors was welcomed and easily obtained.  I later attended Montana State University–Bozeman where I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in graphic design and was a member of the MSU Rodeo Team.  With “outdoor lifestyle” written all over it, Bozeman was an obvious place to settle down, but my taste for adventure soon took me to the west coast where I spent the next few years traveling the world discovering that Montana truly was home. After a short stop in Idaho I finally executed a plan to return to Montana and for the last 10 years my wife Cami and our two kids, Addy (10) and Jack (8), have been able to soak up everything the Flathead Valley has to offer!  As concerns over access, public lands, and wild animal conservation again begin to make headlines I feel it is our responsibility as hunters and participants of the outdoors to do what we can to preserve these wild places and wild animals for the future generations.  My wife and I are both life members of the MTWSF and it is an honor to have been nominated for a board position where I hope to begin a long partnership in contributing to the efforts of keeping sheep on the mountain!  Thank you for taking the time to vote.

For your information, we are back in Bozeman on March 9-10, 2018, at the GranTree Inn for our 26th Annual Event.  We will refine the ticket purchase process to make sure all Life Members have the opportunity to be in the room for the drawing. This will surely be a not to miss event as we will be GIVING AWAY ANOTHER FULLY GUIDED ALASKA DALL SHEEP HUNT TO A LIFE MEMBER PRESENT AT THE BANQUET…. This generated so much excitement and increased the revenue for the chapter, so it makes sense to continue.  Someone present in the room will be going sheep hunting in Alaska with Lazy J Bar O Outfitters August 20-31, 2018. This will surely up the ante again for the 2018 banquet. Make sure you get signed up for your LIFE MEMBERSHIP online, as well as put the banquet on the calendar now.  You MUST be a LIFE MEMBER and MUST BE PRESENT to win.  As those of you who were at the last few banquets will tell you, we pack the house!  We sold out the room last year in 10 days and continuing our Fully Guided Sheep Hunt raffle will mean that you will need to get your tickets early.   We will also only be selling tickets online next year.  We will have online ticket purchase up and running in January 2018 and we will put the information on the website in December.

If you haven’t checked out the new MTWSF website, get over there and look around: www.montanawsf.org.  It was in need of an update and Shane Clouse led the committee to get it revamped.  Meetings Northwest facilitated the work and did an outstanding job.

Thanks again for our membership’s support of bighorn sheep in Montana.  Our membership is active, engaged and committed to “putting more sheep on the mountain”.  Thanks for all that you do.

Brian Solan

Montana Wild Sheep Foundation, Volunteer Executive Director

bsolan.bs@gmail.com or (406) 461-7432

Fun Day at Whittecar Shooting Range with the Next Generation

Story by: Tom Powers

Every year that we do the Teller Wildlife Refuge (Youth Conservation Education Expo) we try to create another way to get our youth involved in the outdoor world.  Shooting is one of those key items that engages many of our youth who attend the Expo.

This year the Wild Sheep Foundation, Western Montana Chapter of Safari Club International, The Mule Deer Foundation, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and Ravalli County Fish & Wild Life Association worked together to make possible a shooting event at the Whittecar Shooting Range west of Hamilton.

Read the whole article in our October 2017 Newsletter.

S.O.S.–Kind of…

Story by: Brian Solan

Hunting wild sheep has taken me places I never imagined I would go and introduced me to some of the most interesting characters this world has to offer.  I fell under the sheep hunting spell immediately and as Jack O’Connor once said, “There is no half way. After his first exposure, a man is either a sheep hunter or he isn’t. He either falls under the spell of sheep hunting and sheep country or he won’t be caught dead on another sheep mountain.”  Alaska dall sheep hunting has always been a dream of mine.

I’ve known Mike Colpo for a long time.  We’ve served on the Montana WSF board together for the past six years and I’ve talked about going hunting with Mike countless times.  Mike runs a great dall sheep, moose and interior grizzly outfitting business in the Alaska Range – Lazy J Bar O Outfitters.  They have a remote horse camp that allows them to go further into the range utilizing horses.  The only problem is I’m not a horse guy.  Not even in the slightest . . . 

Read the whole article in our October 2017 Newsletter.