11-Year-Old Kid Becomes Youngest Hunter to Harvest a Bighorn Ram in Wyoming

Rhett Goolsbey is a younger, hard-working ranch child from Powell, Wyoming. He performs soccer, wrestles, and is a 4H member. And he’s now the youngest hunter in Wyoming historical past to kill a bighorn sheep. Rhett harvested the ram alongside his dad Invoice after drawing a lottery tag.

“He’s solely within the 7^th grade and weighs simply 62 kilos,” Invoice tells Outside Life. “However he’s shot, with a lot of expertise looking geese, geese, and pheasants. I knew when he acquired that ram tag it was perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime probability at a bighorn. So we deliberate for it.”

Invoice contacted Wyoming’s Ishawooa Outfitters, they usually organized a father-son mountain hunt with guides T.J. Redder and Jonas Started. The group headed into the Absaroka Vary in early September, the place they arrange a high-elevation base camp. Invoice, a rancher with 5 different sons, says they rotated by way of horses each day.

They spent days masking a variety of miles and glassing for sheep in rugged terrain. Fortunately the climate was respectable—they’d only one wet day however no snow.  

On Sept. 6, the eighth and ultimate day of their mountain hunt, they noticed two giant rams within the distance. It was brilliant and sunny out.

“It took us 90 minutes to work into place for Rhett to get a shot at one of many rams,” Invoice says. “It was 6 p.m., and he used the clothing store’s precision long-range rifle to make an ideal shot on the ram at 416 yards.”

Rhett used a 6.5 PRC rifle loaded with 142-grain Winchester ammo.

“It was an ideal hit behind the shoulder, and the ram made only a couple steps, then fell far down the mountain aspect,” says Invoice, who provides that it took them round 20 minutes to even attain the ram. “We figured we have been at about 9,000 toes of elevation when he shot his ram.”

It was getting darkish by the point the hunters acquired to Rhett’s bighorn. After caping and de-boning it, they determined to arrange a spike camp reasonably than trudge again to base camp at nighttime.

“We didn’t have a lot meals with us, so we ate a few of the [ram meat],” Invoice says. “Rhett thought it was nice.”

The hunters estimated the ram’s weight round 150 kilos. Invoice says a full shoulder mount of the sheep will likely be made and hung proudly of their household dwelling.

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The Wyoming Sport and Fish Division has formally acknowledged Rhett because the youngest hunter to have lawfully taken a bighorn ram within the state. In 2021 the state altered licensing restrictions permitting younger hunters to use for a coveted bighorn tag at age 11, as long as the teen was age 12 by the tip of the yr.

Rhett was 11 when she shot his ram. He’s now 12. It’s the primary huge sport animal he’s ever harvested. With one in every of North America’s most coveted big-game animals beneath his belt, what’s subsequent for Rhett and the Goolsbey household?

“Rhett additionally has an elk tag this yr,” Invoice says. “And he’d sometime wish to hunt moose, dall sheep, and buffalo. His older brother Russell shot a mountain goat this yr. He additionally has an elk tag, as do I.

“We’re going to have to purchase one other freezer.”