2020 has certainly been one for the record books. We’ve experienced major life changes due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This late summer has brought us significant smoke from West Coast fires. Additionally, there is significant strife throughout our country and the news is troubling on a daily basis.

Even with all these societal and environmental challenges our mission to put and keep sheep on the mountain continues to move forward at an increased pace. Our Montana FWP commission approved new wild sheep transplants into the Little Belt Mountains, The Tendoys, and the Greenhorn mountains. This is the first transplant approval in my tenure on the MTWSF board which is very encouraging. I strongly believe that the way to improve opportunity for more hunters is to increase the wildlife resource. Your board is working to move the bar towards having more sheep, in more places throughout Montana.

I am also very excited to report that when the drawing results were posted I was successful in drawing one of the coveted sheep tags for Area 270, the East Fork of the Bitterroot. Shortly after finding out I was successful in drawing a tag, I began scouting and gaining knowledge of the wild sheep activity in the area. There are many MTWSF members and friends that helped me in my quest to locate a huntable population of quality rams. After more than five scouting trips and much research, opening day finally arrived. On September 12th, I loaded up the horses and mules with life member and past president Tom Powers, and set out for a trip into the back country to find a ram. On Sunday, September 13th, we had our camp set up and began intense scouting to locate a group of rams for the September 15th opening day of rifle season.

After scouting hard on the 13th, 14th and 15th we still hadn’t located any mature rams and were preparing to break camp on the afternoon of September 16th and return home. On September 16th we arose prior to 5 am to get the horses ready and get to our glassing point at first light. After a couple of miles of riding and hiking in the dark I was on a 8500-foot ridge overlooking an open basin where the rams are known to pass through. I was able to find a group of rams feeding through the meadow and we watched them until they bedded down.

The rams were bedded nearly a mile away in extremely rough terrain. I set out on a course to sneak up on the rams and was able to get into position after nearly an hour of stealthy and methodical hiking. After the long sneak I was able to target and bag the ram I wanted. There was great joy in the accomplishment and some sadness as well for taking the life of this magnificent creature. I am still overcome with profound thankfulness for the opportunity. I am thankful to the efforts of Montana Wild Sheep Foundation (MTWSF) for it is the conservation efforts of our group that lead to my opportunity to draw the tag. Thank you as well to MTWSF Treasurer Max Bauer Jr. for his consistent sharing of knowledge of the area. A very special thank you is in order to Tom Powers, my father-in-law for all the time and expense he donated to be with me nearly every trip into the East Fork. Thank you to all of you who give tirelessly in whatever way you can to MTWSF. It is you, the MTWSF members, that provide these once-in-a-lifetime sheep hunting opportunities to the public.

Shane Clouse

Montana Wild Sheep Foundation President
shane@shaneclouse.com
(406) 370-4487

Hunting is Hard

Story by: D.J. Berg

Hunting is hard. I have always preached that the harder the hunt the sweeter the reward. It’s glorious to relive the excitement of a successful hunt, and even the marathon-level packout. What about the other hunts? You know the ones. Where you missed or got rained out. Those stories usually only get told to a buddy or two and slowly fade away. You certainly don’t go writing magazine articles about them! But I’m going to stick my neck out here and share my story, which you might have already guessed, is about a hunt that didn’t go as planned.

Drawing a sheep tag is 100% about the right opportunity. I love to tell this part of the story. My name was drawn for the 2019 Montana Wild Sheep Foundation Life Member Drawing. The winning ticket was for a Dall Sheep hunt in Alaska, a hunt I had only dreamed about! I was dumbfounded when my name was announced. I couldn’t believe what was happening, as I wandered up to the stage. When I got there, I remember stumbling on my words. I felt overwhelmed with gratitude and the heavy weight of such a tremendous opportunity all in one emotion.

Read the whole article in our WildSheep Newsletter, Fall 2020.

A Lot of Luck in One Year

Story by: Tom Ryan

2020 has been a lousy year for a lot of people. Coronavirus and the associated economic stress left many people to consider 2020 an unlucky year. In my case, however, 2020 was about as lucky a year as one person can have!

My lucky streak started when I finally landed the job I’ve always wanted working in a hydroelectric dam near my home town of Helena, Montana. I had been waiting for an opening there for years and the positions there are coveted throughout the company. Therefore, after accepting my new position I figured that I had used up my allotted luck for the year.

I had only held my new job for a few weeks when special tags where drawn. I was in the control room with my coworkers, who were attempting to teach me the finer points of operating a hydroelectric dam (with varying results). When break time rolled around everyone logged on to the FWP website to see if they had drawn any tags. As I was not expecting much, I let all my coworkers go first. I’d been applying for the big three permits since I was twelve years old without success; and thirty years later I had about given up on ever seeing any of them.

Read the whole article in our WildSheep Newsletter, Fall 2020.