That is a beautiful old ram NebrCatMan!

Does that cause there to me younger rams vs. older ? If I went thru years of applying for a tag I would want there to be some decent Rams to hunt. We have a 3/4 curl rule in Montana. The problem as I see is trophy species are not managed well in Montana except the sheep.

Putting a harvest size restriction on is not the answer here. It's more basic than that.

The population has declined a lot here because of disease and cougar predation. They are putting out too many permits here for the rams they have to reach trophy age / size. And they are putting radio collars on all the rams to track them in case they get close to domestic sheep (disease concerns).

Years ago the biologist fed medicated apple mash in the winters that kept the herd healthy. They also issued keys to cougar houndsmen to hunt on the Baretop road closure area every winter - which they have discontinued. And I was the gunner on helicopter winter sheep surveys and shot 3 cougars with 00 Buck. (I was the district conservation Officer at that time). The herd was five or six times as big then as it is now.

Now they are putting all their marbles into radio monitoring which hasn't protected the sheep population. They need to get back to medicating them to mitigate disease concerns and controlling cougars. With a larger healthier population they could realistically manage for harvest of old trophy rams..