David Suda of Grafton, N.D., with the North Dakota record bighorn ram he shot Friday, Oct. 30, the opening day of North Dakota’s bighorn sheep season. Suda was one of five North Dakota hunters to draw one of the sought-after tags. (Photo courtesy of David Suda)
David Suda was one of five hunters to draw a tag to hunt bighorn sheep in North Dakota and he made the best of the opportunity.
North Dakota has a lottery system for Bighorn sheep tags, and Suda was lucky enough to win the coveted tag. “I couldn’t believe it,” he explained, “I was in shock, the night before I had been talking about it with my hunting buddy on what we would do if we got drawn and I told him I wouldn’t believe it because it’ll never happen.”
Bighorn sheep are the rarest big game species in North Dakota. The total population in North Dakota is approximately 330 animals. Bighorn sheep were first recorded for science by the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1805 along the Yellowstone River in what is now North Dakota.
For Suda, the trophy was the culmination of weeks spent scouting and thousands of miles driving between Grafton and western North Dakota. Hunting buddies Jens Johnson and Ryan Seil, who both live in Williston, helped him scout.
“I was very lucky,” he said. “I’d go out for about four-day weekends and scout the weekends and then come home. Within a six-week timeframe, I was out there probably four or five days every week. I spent a lot of time out there before the season.”
On Friday morning, Oct. 30, about half an hour into the opening day of North Dakota’s bighorn sheep season, Suda made the most of his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by shooting a trophy bighorn that will be North Dakota’s new state record ram.
“It happened fast,” he said. “I was looking at a ram in the crosshairs right away and went, ‘It’s not him,’ and we kept moving. I went to one side (of a butte) and my buddy went to the other, and he started yelling my name. He asked me if that was him and I said, ‘I don’t’ know what you’re talking about, I can’t see him.’ He said, ‘Look down.’“I looked down, and he was right there at 250 yards, and I shot him.”
The 7-year-old ram Suda shot was even bigger than Brett Wiedmann, big game biologist for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department expected it to be when he’d seen it on the landscape. “That’s a mega-ram there,” Wiedmann said. “That ram is nice anywhere in North America. It’s the real deal.”
As if Suda’s hunting season couldn’t get any better, he also drew a mule deer buck tag for the Badlands after eight years of trying. A week after shooting his record-setting ram, Suda shot a 170-inch-class mule deer buck in the Badlands.
The most recent record ND Bighorn sheep I can find is a 175 7/8″” specimen taken in 2014. Another hunter took a record beating ram this year as well. Sawyer Burchill of Hunter, N.D., shot a ram that also topped the previous state record, with a green score of 185 inches.
The current world record (B&C) Bighorn sheep measured 216 4/8″ and was found on Wild Horse Island. Located in northwestern Montana, Wild Horse Island sits just off the western shore of Flathead Lake. Both Suda’s and Burchill’s rams will be entered into the Boone and Crockett’s all-time record book for bighorn sheep, a distinction reserved for rams of 180 inches or better.