Do you know the world's white rooftop? Have you ever felt her wintry blast
as the shadows drift and change?
Do you know the long days patience down on frozen grass while the heads of heads is
laying within range? Well I'll tell you it's here we're going for the years of
plans and dreams you shall never know. For we've sworn an oath on the horns of
the ovis Polii and when mountain gods have called we must go.
It's like we're in some alternate universe invented where reality means
nothing. When you see 58 inches of horn turn and stare your direction on the
skyline you know you're not in Kansas anymore this is serious the rubber's
meeting the road and the hunt is on.
They have the nose of a whitetail. They
have the eyesight of an eagle and the wariness of a urial sheep. Definitely
more people that go to Everest base camp than shoot a Marco Polo every year.
This is what it's all about for us making memories in the mountains.
Now these sheep aren't quite as heavy horned as Alaskan variety but are they beautiful.
You know I spent a lot of time with my grandfather and he was a sheep guy.
He was the most perfect stone sheep I've ever seen
He had a 45 inch curl.
Gordon a you know has had a fascination of big sheep and
the biggest sheep that he ever could find was Marco Polo sheep. Gordon read all
these old books by these explorers.
Theodore Roosevelt writes ovis polii is
the great wild sheep. The father and mother of all the wild sheep. He was
originally discovered about 12 56 AD by Marco Polo hence the name.
Gordon wanted to go and he never really had the ability financially to do it and as a
kid I read the books and I wanted to do it. Building this business that we now
have got in the way for me. Guy he also read the books heard me and Gordon
talked about Marco Polo sheep hunting.
Marco Polo says there are great numbers
of wild beasts wild sheep of great size whose horns are a good six palms in
length. For a long time this was considered a romance. At last some 600
years later an English officer shot a sheep and proved that Marco Milione II
at least in this instance was speaking the truth. One of the only photos in the
entire book is of the Marco Polo sheep. I'd never seen
anything like in my life.
He made it a point that before he got too old that he was going to go.
I started planning out this hunt over ten years ago, and started
saving every extra dollar I could. It just grew and grew and grew and finally
I was within striking distance financially and so then have to select
an outfitter and a country to go do this in.
Tajikistan it a country in the Asia. It has a border with China, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan.
Eight million population the capital of Tajikistan is Dushanbe, the modern city.
Marco Polo is a generic term for all the sheep in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan.
The population estimates i've seen for Tajikistan or 20 to 25,000
Between the research and the saving and scrimping pretty soon my Marco Polo dream
was was becoming a reality. Set a goal like that and you saved and scrimped for
so long and planned for so long and put so much into it, when you get on that
plane to go there the pressure is intense because I'm hoping that this
adventure lives up to everything I've put it up against.
And these are just the foothills.
This is just a start. It goes up to 24,000 feet from here.
Two days of flying two days of driving, I don't know anywhere on that planet you can
go that's more remote than this.
I've known Guy for a long time.Knew his dad when I
was in my early 20s and so Guy and I've been talking Marco Polo hunting for
quite a few years.
You know in my opinion Bryan Martin is probably one of the
premier mountain guides and outfitters probably in the world for his age he and
I are the exact same age and I've never had a chance to hunt with him. We're
gonna see just exactly what all this Asian mountain hunting experience is all about.
We're just about what about 600 yards south of the Afghanistan border at
twelve thousand two hundred feet. This camps been here for over ten years.
There's horns laying around in camp. Everybody's talking sheep and you want
to get out there and hunt and guess what? They tell you nope. You boys have to
acclimatize. We're just gonna take it easy and cruise around the jeeps and glass up
on the hills and not gonna do much of anything today. Look at some sheep. Look
at some ibex get even more excited.
Look at that!
Look at the tips!
Those sheep are some of the most amazing animals I've ever seen.
Their horns will grow twice the length in a year as a North American ram. In the
spring and summer the habitat and the grass must be such high protein and so
green it must be incredible to support a body size that big and that kind of horn
growth. But I'll tell you when you go there in the fall and winter you look
around it looks like there's nothing there. I mean it looks like a grasshopper
would have to pack a lunch to get across one of those drainages. It's just
literally mostly just rock and dust.
Let's say the average ram in Tajikistan
is 15,000 15-5. There's really not much feed above 16-5. So if you hear people
saying they're shooting Marco Polo at 18 they probably do not adjust your altimeter watch.
When you come to Asia I've always said that you're gonna find your weakness.
Now we got 6 big rams there. Not all big but six that I'm
sure is the biggest. He's got the mass like an Argali.
When they're heavy blow their chin they're heavy. He's tight, going like this.
I'm not surprised he's bigger than you think. That's one of those ones there's
no ground shrinkage.
And there's a reason they have you climatized for a few days.
When they park at the base of that mountain and you start hiking up at
14,000 feet hiking to 16 your world will change let me tell you.
Nobody's gonna perform at the highest level that they're used to.
You know I'm feeling every step and it's like you're walking on the moon.
Everything's in slow motion. Dan's even slower than me.
We're at about 15,000 feet.
I've never got my ass kicked this hard hiking.
I think camp at 12,600 is gonna
feel a lot better to us tonight if anything right?
Yeah it better.
They're in a beautiful spot right below those big peaks huh? Big ram.
We get up and we find these sheep, and it's a band of rams, of
big Rams biggest Rams Brian's ever seen in 15 years of hunting, and they're together.
There's 11 Rams and there's one giant in the bunch that's well over 60.
We're watching they're not in a stalkable position so we start down off the
mountain and left the sheep be.
We should have just stayed up the night up there, right? Lutfillo?
Yeah. Would have been comfortable.
Instead of killing the animal, killing ourselves.
[laughs]
If we didn't know what was in here, that would be a shooter huh?
Let's look for another papa.
Where are our rams?
Around the corner. This way, then this way.
And the rams are lower on the mountain for some reason than they were
and they're in a much more stalkable position.
How far is it?
One thousand, one hundred.
A hunter if he wants a big animal needs to know what one looks like.
I say anything over 56, 57 is a really really big ram. 60 inch rams don't grow on trees.
That group has at least half shooters.
Really?
If you see a giant ram [laughs] you'd better try and get him because a chance of me seeing him
the next year with another client is very slim.
The plan is to go back around so the sun's at our back, and we can get closer.
Because if we go down here the sun will be bad. The wind will be good, but the distance will be bad.
So we want good distance, good sun and good wind.
So Bryan and I are
able to sneak up over the hill barely peek up and the rams are bedded on the
little spine ridge underneath us.
Got too close actually came in in the same plane
as they are which means you got to make the first shot count and they can see
you quickly. They were around a little over 300 yards.
Take your time. Take your time.
Because the top rams had to see us before we could see the big ram so he got up and gave Guy a
marginal shot.
Well then they spooked.
And Marco Polo sheep you don't get a
second chance and they went two or three drainages deeper into the mountain range on us.
That's when Bryan said we have to kill that big ram no matter what the costs
and it's gonna take a spike out.
So the fifth day we'd already camped out about fourteen thousand three hundred feet
in a shepherd's hut. I had a tent that I stayed in because the shepherd's hut was a
little crowded.
We're living like the sheep herders. Yeah.
Even they don't like to come up here this time of year huh?
Yeah they leave because there's no food.
The next morning we woke up
and it was cold probably 15 below zero
and we started out up this drainage and we're hiking hiking climbing climbing finally we spot
the rams and they're going up over into this basin that Bryan's actually hunted before.
And he tells me we're gonna kill one or two of these rams.
And usually when you spook them it's really hard to get on them again and
these animals are not stupid.
They're very cunning and they're very careful
A 9 or 10 year old ram does not get that big by being stupid. They're always getting
hunted by snow leopards and poachers and and hunters and wolves and bad winter
conditions and fighting and getting injured during the rut. So any ram that
lives the nine or ten years old is a giant.
So we start hiking, and we're hiking,
climbing, climbing, climbing, up to 17,000 feet on the top of this ridge and peek
over the other side down into this big bowl and basin and the rams are
bedded down on a bench.
Look down and spotted them. Kind of right where we thought they're gonna be and our
other guide we call him, nicknamed him Saddam his name is Mahabat Kadam.
Saddam the guide has gone up the bottom, but he's hiding in the grass at the
bottom. We didn't really know where he was.
He was down there watching and he
started to push a little bit. But the sheep got nervous and went the wrong way.
Guy and I had a hustle down the ridge. Got within about 460 yards of the rams.
So he and I talked about it. I would stop a little short. He would go clear down to
to shooting distance of the saddle and then Saddam will bump the rest of the
rams and we'll see and at least one of us is gonna get a shot at the rams.
By the time Bryan gets in position the rams are all bunched up by then at the top of the
saddle and he's trying to pick out the big ram.
See the one facing away?
[GUNSHOT]
Didn't know what happened honestly.
My ram disappeared. Guy and I ran over the edge and they we figured that they
would come back up around us.
The first one, the first one is big!
[GUNSHOT]
I see my ram.
Do you?
They're so strong and so sturdy and so hardy that I mean Bryan's ram was shot
right through the heart and still ran 150 yards before it died.
Mine was pounded through both lungs.
It's almost like those big rams have too much pride to die in sight.
Is he dead?
Yes! Big ram down!
Congratulations Bryan! This has been awesome.
We have worked hard for three days
Today I said to myself, if I kill a ram today this will be the worst, best day of my life.
You were slowing down today.
16,500 will do that to you.
His bass is as big as my thigh!
This ain't no Dall's sheep.
Guy did a great job, closed the deal about 260 280.
Yeah just a tremendous ram. If you look at his teeth
looks like an old grizzly bear's teeth. Doesn't get much better than this.
No I'll kill an old ram like that.
Bryan's ram there was no question that thing's a monster.
We just didn't know how big of a monster it really was and let me tell you this
ram is world-class.
The air's a little thin at 16,000.
Look at that thing!
oh that doesn't look real!
I've been hunting in Tajikistan since 2005 with clients that never saw an animal.
So to finally take one after 12 years is a long time.
This is what a big ram looks like folks.
If you get bigger than this let us know.
There's 56, he's over 64 inches.
So you shot around bigger than your tape? Yes.
Our expedition into Central Asia was a closed chapter. A memory of glorious days
on the high Himalaya of long stalks, some successful, some otherwise. A kaleidoscope
of toil and achievement that only experienced can purchase.
For a true mountain hunter, everything that you want in a mountain hunt
to challenge you is here in a Marco Polo hunt.
It's not as bad as it looks but it's not good either.
You're not gonna be walking through any doorways, I'll tell you that.
Base camp Tango in the rearview mirror.
The 'ol yak dung hut.
He had a beautiful white stripe down the back of each leg a great Stone ram like
this fellow here. The trophy of a lifetime. I'll ever kill another Stone
sheep, one's enough for any man.