In late August, a man in North Dakota made a once-in-a-lifetime kill of bighorn sheep that shattered the previous state record.
David Suda entered into a lottery of over 17,000 applicants in March for a chance to kill a bighorn. Nearly five months later, the 22-year-old man found out he was drawn as one of five resident hunters for the coveted tag.
According to Inforum, “a sixth tag fetched $83,000 in March at an auction sponsored by the Midwest Chapter of Wild Sheep Foundation.”
North Dakota Bighorn State Record
The big day happened for Suda on October 30. Within thirty minutes of the hunt on the first day of North Dakota’s bighorn sheep season, Suda took down a seven-year-old monster.
The ram Suda shot tallied in a score of 190 inches prior to the skull’s mandatory waiting period. After 60 days, the bones will be dry enough for officials to get an accurate measurement. This being said, the ram will not be dry or officially scored for another few weeks.
According to a big game biologist for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department in Dickinson, Brett Wiedmann, the previous record score was 179 inches. Wiedmann was at the scene when Suda killed the ram. He is in charge of the department’s bighorn sheep efforts and was impressed with the man’s kill. Wiedmann also said that the department was aware of this massive ram. However, even they were still shocked by the score.
“That’s a mega-ram there,” Wiedmann said. “That ram is nice anywhere in North America. It’s the real deal. I knew about this ram, and I had no doubts he’d be the state record. But he was bigger than I thought. I had him in the low 180s, and we taped him out, and it netted almost 190. And of course, when we officially score him, sometimes they even get a little bigger.
Wiedmann also reported that all the hunters that landed tags this year were successful in their hunts.
