A Hunt of A Lifetime

By Debbie King

Hello, My name is Debbie King. I am a sixteen-year-old girl that lives in Las Palomas, New Mexico. I would like to take this time out and tell you the story of my hunt and how it went. The story goes some thing like this.
It was an adventure of a lifetime that I will never forget. I was given the honor to go on a hunting trip that very few people will ever go on in their lives, a Desert Bighorn Sheep hunt. My father put me into a drawing earlier in the year and it was four or five months ago that I found out that I had drawn the only tag that is given during the year. I was just blown away, it was so exciting not only for myself but for my family as well. In the time that was leading up to my hunt we had numerous phone calls that came to me from different guide outfitters offering to take me on my hunt of a lifetime. However, they did not know that my father, Bill King, was a guide himself and would be the one that was doing the guiding.
 It finally became the month of November, which is when the hunt was starting. On November 3rd I was able to get out to the Peloncillo Mountains by Animas, New Mexico. I was excited to get going. The people going with me were my father and Randy Lack. Randy was the man that helped out a lot through the whole experience that I went on, who was also the one that did all the filming for the whole hunt.
You might have thought that this was going to be an easy trip but it was some thing that I had never expected especially being a sixteen-year girl. It was the roughest country that I have ever seen or been on. The mountains were nothing but rough, rugged, and just cliffs. It was quite a hike that we had to take. The first day we did a lot of scouting and getting to know the mountain ranges that I would be hunting on. Then we decided to do a little hiking for fun so we went up the side of Pratt Mountain to get a look around. We were sitting there just a little while when all of a sudden my dad had spotted something. We all got out our binoculars and looked up at the area he was talking about. Sure enough, there standing up on a rock ledge was a Desert Bighorn Sheep ram. However, when we were studying him we found out that he was just a little one and that I couldn’t shoot him. That was OK because we got to see one and see what a Desert Bighorn Sheep looked like and what to expect. We did a lot more hiking that day but were unlucky since we didn’t see another one.
Sunday morning we went out just before the sun was coming up over the mountains. This day we then decided to go and look around at Granite Mountain and see what was out there. Driving out there we didn’t see anything but just a lot of rocks and a couple of mule deer. We stayed out there looking all day but nothing came out so I was a little disappointed. That is all part of the whole hunting experience, so it wasn’t that bad because I still had the whole month of November. When we got back to camp that night my father and I talked it over and we decided that I would stay another day and miss school.
It was Monday morning and it was only my dad, Randy, and myself. Since my mother went home I was the one that had to cook breakfast. I just cooked them some eggs and we just got on the road to go once again back hunting. The one thing that I love to do is to hunt. Dad had decided that we should go back to Pratt and walk the whole mountain. It was no easy hike, it was nothing but cliffs, rockslides, and boulders. It was a hard climb but I had to do it so I did it while caring a full pack and a 7mm Mag. on my back. We were on the side sitting on some boulders when Randy spotted something, but we couldn’t tell what it was. At first we thought that it was either an ewe or a mountain lion. To my amazement it had turned out to be a mountain lion. That was exciting because it was the first mountain lion that I had ever seen in my life. We watched him for a while then he disappeared out of our view so we then moved on. That is when we got into some rocky rocks and a lot of brush. It was so much fun that I wasn’t tired or anything while hiking. However, just walking Pratt had taken us all day because of the roughness and size of the mountain itself.
We didn’t get back down to the Peloncillo area until Friday the 10th. I was unable to miss anymore school. We didn’t get in until late and we were up before 5:30 that Saturday morning. This weekend I had my mother, father, and two brothers, Billy and Bryan, with me. Randy was going to go to Granite that morning and do a little spotting then meet my dad and I back at Pratt when it got light. We had sent Bryan and Billy to two different mountain ranges to do some spotting as well. We headed out once again with high spirits but we were dead tired. It was still exciting as ever.
We had started at a small saddle and worked our way around the other side so we could be out of the wind and cold. I was just about to fall asleep when all of a sudden my dad said, “Hey, they are all over the mountain!” I was unable to spot them until my dad showed me where the sheep were. We had looked at them for so long time that we were unable to tell how big they were from our distance. We decided to move through the canyon and try to get on top of them. Hopefully by that time Randy would have found us so he could do the filming if they were going to be big enough and present a shot to me.
Lucky for me every thing played out in our favor. We were able to move up on them with Randy and spot a big one out of the group of six rams. My dad had ranged the distance to see how far they were and the sheep were 345 yards away. When coming on them my dad had noticed several does were lying a little in front and to the side of us. We had to be careful not to spook them and the rams. Instead the does got up and started walking up the hillside. It had caused the rams to watch them instead of us. We found me a good rest to get on and looked the rams over once more. It worked out just perfectly because the ram that I had wanted was at the beginning with the whole group. He just decided that he wanted to move away by himself and starting eating. Now he wasn’t broadside to me but was quartering away. I told my dad and Randy that I was ready so I took a deep breath and counted to three then took the shot, a shot that was amazing! The shot went straight through his heart. He didn’t even take a step the ram collapsed and rolled down the mountain twice and just died. Man I never got hugged so tight my dad. We were so excited that I was just speechless.
After I took the shot we talked a little so we could give the ram a little time to die. I was so excited that I just wanted to go and see him up close, just to make sure that it was real and that I wasn’t dreaming. Finally we got to go and see him. It had taken us a while to get to him because of all the rock slides that we had to go on. While crossing the rockslide that the sheep were bedding in, my dad heard from under the rocks a rattlesnake starting to rattle. I have never seen my dad’s eyes so big and him jump so high. When we got to the ram I was so excited I couldn’t stop smiling. We took a lot of pictures and then we started to do what you are suppose to do and that was to cut him up so we could get him out there and back to camp before it got dark. I had shot him at 11:24 am and we didn’t get back to the truck and on the way back to camp until 6:06pm. It was a hard and long hike. It had taken us two trips to pack him out. The second trip it was Randy, Bryan, and myself that went for the meat. The first trip was just dad and I and dad had carried the ram’s head and cape on his back. We told dad to stay and we would do the rest of the packing.
This is the experience that I had that I will never forget. We all talked about it that night and have ever since. It was truly a once in the lifetime experience. I would then like to give a big thank you to Jack Diamond and Ken Swain from Beaverhead Outfitters and to Randy Lack for all the help and support that he had provided. There is no way that I will ever be able to thank Randy enough. He did a great job filming and being there for me.
I would also like to thank my mom, Crucita, and sister, Elizabeth, for cooking when they were at camp with us. Also, thanks to Billy and Bryan for getting up early and helping out spotting, I couldn’t have done it without you all. Then a thank you to my Nino, Uncle Mike, for his support in my adventure. Most importantly, I would like to give the biggest thanks to my guide on this trip. My guide who is my wonderful father Bill King. You don’t know how happy I am that you are my dad and it was so wonderful to have you out there with me. Thanks you all!
I could not have gotten the nice ram that I did without all of your support and help through the whole hunting experience. It was just an amazing experience I will carry with me throughout my lifetime. The trip was something that I was glad to share with my family and friends.
Some time in March the whole hunt will be aired on The Outdoor Channel.