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I have a riddle for you, dear reader:

When is a stone sheep not a stone sheep?

Unless you’ve been spending the hours since I last penned this column daydreaming about what it must be like to be me-What is he doing?  What wild adventure is he on now?-you probably heard reports that a second “traditional bowhunter” has succeeded in taking all 28 species of North American big game recognized by the Pope and Young Club.

I won’t go into the fact that Saxton Pope and Art Young wouldn’t even recognize the wheeled contraptions that record-keeping organization considers bows.  Nay, I shan’t even mention how the current leaders (tools)-wouldn’t recognized a real bow if Howard Hill himself rose up from his hollow grave and wrapped Grandpa around their collective necks like a bowtie.     

For months, I’ve resisted commenting on this travesty.  But when you’re in the business of being me-a business that largely revolves around spending buckets of cash to travel and bowhunt all in an effort to improve one’s name recognition and marketability among the great unwashed sheeple (you)-discovering that someone is attempting to take a shortcut to my level of bowhunting expertise, prowess, and all-round greatness is like the proverbial thorn in the paw of the lion (me). 

So when is a stone sheep not a stone sheep?  I’ll tell you.  (Wait for it.)   

When it’s a Fannin, my friends.  Ovis dalli fannini.

Not all stone sheep are created equal. 

In addition to being a stellar human, fine specimen of a man, hunter and writer par excellence, I am also an enthusiastic amateur student of science.  Modern geneticists studying stone sheep (Ovis dalli stonei) at a molecular level have recently suggested that Fannin sheep-which the record books have always treated as stone sheep-are simply a color variation of the common Dall sheep (Ovis dalli).

I have always suspected this and now the science is close to backing me up.  The Fannin sheep of the Yukon Territory is not a pure-blooded stone sheep at all.  It’s a lowly crossbreed, my friends.  A cheaper alternative for the penny-pinching hunter than going to British Columbia where true stone sheep dwell.     

A real stone sheep hunt costs anywhere from $24,000 to $28,000.  But if you’re looking to try and make a little history on the cheap-or complete your “Super Scam”-simply go to the Yukon and spend $15,000.

Does this mean scores of “Slams” based on Fannins taken as stone sheep are going to be thrown out of the record books?  Hardly.  Those tottering old fogies and overfed cooperate fat-asses that lord over record-keeping organizations are never going to give their richest members the shaft (so to speak).

What’s important here is that you know…and, of course, that they know that I know.  It’s about honesty folks.

People always ask me how they can be as great and as accomplished a bowhunter as me.  My advice:

If being a better bowhunter is your goal, then begin by looking out from under the wool you have pulled over your eyes and know that in this game your pitifully low financial ceiling is the biggest hurdle that stands in your way.  Setting your sights on collecting all of North America’s sheep species is an good way to become a better-than-average bowhunter.  But, as in all things, just make sure you get what you pay for.