With one ram hunt under my belt I've become something of an expert...
In seriousness, one thing I was told/read was to be very cautious of judging and shooting a lone ram and I found that to be true. I had a heck of a time ever getting rams to stay in view long enough to really make any great judgements and comparisons against each other - they just always seemed to be going somewhere, around a corner, behind trees, etc. I did find one mature ram all by himself that I was able to watch for quite some time, get good video of and visually compare to photos of other rams harvested in the past from the unit. I decided if I saw that ram again I was going to take him. I did see him again, again all by himself, I had a 254yd "chip shot" off the most stable prone rest I think I've ever had...and stupidly in my excitement just barely cleared my scope of the sagebrush in front of me but hadn't cleared my rifle barrel. So, I missed like two feet wide left but did bag a nice sage brush limb!
Fast forward a few days and we relocate that ram again, who still visually looks very good, but now he's with 4 other rams. 3 are obviously younger and smaller. Another ram is obviously mature visually and when standing off by himself, to my eye looks like he has narrower, shorter horns but with maybe slightly more mass/brooming. Visually the one I missed still appeared to be the better ram so I was still targeting him. Then the ram I missed and the other mature ram stood right next to each other it was very obvious which was older and bigger - and it wasn't the one I thought by quite a bit. Not too mention, seeing them interact, it was very obvious which one ram ran the show and was dominant. I think the reason I kept seeing my initial target ram by himself is the older ram didn't tolerate him in the group as well as he did the 3 other youngsters. I think the larger body/head of the older ram visually made his horns appear smaller...and the smaller head/body of the younger ram made his horns appear wider/larger. An experienced sheep guy might have figured that out viewing the rams by themselves but for a guy like me, and most guys with little experience on a single OIL hunt, having side by side comparison will probably net a better ram and certainly did in my case as I shot the older, bigger ram - turned out to be 9.5yo, possibly 10.5yo per biologist.
In this video my initial target ram is at 0:52 and 1:35 and the one I got at 1:25, 3:17, and at the end...by themselves and in this vid I still think my original target ram looks bigger/wider but in real life standing next to each other the difference was very apparent. I was in "kill mode" so never got video of them standing next to each other - my buddy may have and he was also very adament which one was bigger and which one to shoot!
Take home message...be careful judging a lone ram.
