Colorado Bighorn Sheep Hunting: What to Expect When Your Tag Finally Comes Through

You’ve been putting in for sheep since your first hunting license. Twenty years. Maybe longer. Then the phone rings with the number you don’t recognize, and you open the Colorado Parks & Wildlife app to check — and there it is. A bighorn sheep tag. Your name on one of the rarest pieces of paper in Western hunting.

Now what?

The Draw Reality: Why This Tag Matters So Much

Colorado’s Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep draw is one of the most competitive in the West. Most of the top units — Collegiate Peaks, upper Gore Range, South Park drainages — run 15 to 25+ preference points before a tag falls out. A handful of units have never been drawn with fewer than 20. Do the math and you’re looking at someone who started building points at 18 drawing their first real shot at a premium unit in their late 30s or early 40s.

That’s not a complaint — it’s the reality of limited wildlife. Colorado manages roughly 7,000-plus Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep statewide, and annual tag numbers are tight. Statewide, sheep tags across all units typically number in the low hundreds. The waiting makes the tag precious. It also means the clock starts the moment you draw.

The Preparation Window: Don’t Waste the Months Before Season

Most Colorado sheep tags are drawn in March or April. Seasons typically open in late August. That gives you five to six months — and you should use every week of them.

Physical fitness comes first. Sheep country in Colorado sits above 11,000 feet. Often well above. You’ll cover steep, rocky terrain for days at a stretch, glassing from ridges and approaching across broken cliff bands. If you hunt elk, you know what high-altitude vertical feels like. Sheep hunting is harder. Not marginally harder — considerably harder. Start a structured fitness program the week you get the call: loaded pack hiking, leg days, and sustained cardio. You want to be peaking physically the week before opener, not still building a base.

Scout the unit before season. This is where serious sheep hunters separate themselves. Most units have summer glassing opportunities — alpine zones are accessible in July and August if you’re willing to do the approach. Spend at least two trips glassing bands of rams, noting where they’re bedding, which drainages they use, and how they move through the day. You want to step onto this unit in late August already knowing where the rams are.

Gear selection matters more than in other hunts. Sheep terrain demands it. A pack that fits poorly will destroy your hips on a multi-day approach. Footwear with aggressive rubber — Vibram Megagrip or equivalent — matters on wet rock faces in ways it doesn’t on an elk hillside. Bring a spotting scope with at least 65mm objective; you’ll be glassing from distances where binoculars alone won’t let you judge horn length. Lightweight is a virtue, but not at the cost of safety or system reliability.

Where to Find Rams in Colorado

Colorado’s bighorn sheep concentrate in the alpine zones during the late summer and early fall season. Elevations above 11,000 feet, often closer to 12,500-13,500 feet in the high ranges. Three areas produce consistent encounters:

Collegiate Peaks. The drainage systems off the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness — Horn Fork Basin, Lake Ann Basin, surrounding country — hold rams through the early season. This is some of the most visually striking and logistically demanding sheep country in the state.

Upper Gore Range. The Gore Range unit has produced some of Colorado’s most spectacular rams. It’s remote, requires multi-day approaches from several access points, and demands real backcountry competence.

South Park drainages. The South Park basin area and adjacent drainages offer different terrain — lower-elevation cliffs and talus slopes compared to the high-alpine ranges — with their own populations of mature rams.

Rams in September are typically in bachelor groups or starting to split apart as the season moves toward rut timing later in fall. Glass from the opposite ridge. You don’t want to glass into terrain with the sun at your back or skyline yourself on a ridge that rams are watching. Position matters.

Field Judging Rams: What You’re Looking For

You’ll have seconds to make a decision on a shooter ram in many situations. Knowing what to look for before you go saves you from either passing a great ram or shooting something you’ll regret.

Full curl is the minimum benchmark. A full curl means the horn tip, when viewed from the side, returns to the level of the nose bridge. In practice, a full curl runs roughly 38-42 inches of horn length. Colorado’s regulations typically require a legal ram to have a specific curl minimum — confirm the exact requirement on your tag and the current regulation booklet, as it varies by unit.

Mass at the base tells you more than curl alone. A ram with a circumference of 16+ inches at the base is a mature, exceptional animal. Look at the base compared to the eye socket — a base that looks as wide or wider than the eye socket suggests a very heavy-horned animal.

Brooming. Most mature rams have broomed tips — worn or broken horn ends from fighting and rubbing. Broomed rams that still show heavy mass and full curl are the target. A ram that has broomed significantly but still carries heavy bases and mid-curl mass is often the oldest animal in the band.

The Hunt Itself: What Nobody Warns You About

Sheep hunting is a glassing game. You’ll spend 80-90% of your time behind glass, scanning cliffy terrain from opposite ridgelines. A typical day starts before light: get to your glassing point before the rams move, glass the basins and cliff bands as light hits them, and watch where animals bed by mid-morning.

Approach distances in sheep country compress differently than elk hunting. You might glass a ram at 1,000 yards for two hours, plan an approach, and find you’re at 400 yards when you make your final decision. The terrain changes everything — draws that look simple from across the drainage have cliff bands you can’t see until you’re in them.

Physically, expect to hurt. Your legs will be sore. The altitude takes oxygen from you at the worst moments. Budget more days than you think you need — five to seven days minimum for a quality hunt, longer if the terrain is remote.

Pack-Out Reality

A mature Colorado bighorn ram weighs 200-250 pounds on the hoof. You’re deboning him at altitude — probably 12,000 feet, on a hillside that isn’t flat, with hands that are cold and cramping. A deboned adult ram, with the cape and horns, will run you 90-110 pounds of pack weight. In most sheep country, there’s no trail out. You’re navigating boulder fields, talus, and cliff edges with that weight on your back.

This is where physical preparation pays off directly. If you’ve been doing loaded pack training for five months, this is hard but manageable. If you haven’t, it’s a genuine safety problem.

Plan your pack-out before the hunt. Know your exit routes. Tell someone your plan. The pack-out is where sheep hunts go wrong — not the shot, not the approach.

What the Experience Is Actually Like

Hunters who’ve waited 15-20 years for a sheep tag describe the same moment: standing over the ram, hands still shaking, looking at the horns you spent years and years earning the right to chase. There’s a specific weight to it that elk or deer hunting doesn’t carry. It’s not just the animal — it’s the accumulated years of building points, of watching the results every spring, of quietly wondering if this was the year.

Colorado bighorn sheep country is some of the most spectacular terrain on the continent. That’s not marketing. Above 13,000 feet with the Collegiate Peaks or the Gore Range spread in front of you, you’re in a place most people never reach. The tag got you here. The preparation lets you stay.

Do the work ahead of time. Scout hard. Get in the best shape of your adult life. And when the moment comes, trust the preparation.

Sources & verification

Seasons, license fees, application windows, and draw structure for Colorado change every year. Always verify the current details against the official Colorado agency before applying or hunting.

• Colorado Parks & Wildlife — cpw.state.co.us