11-Year-Old Boy Youngest Hunter to Kill Bighorn Sheep in Wyoming

Rhett Goolsbey is a young, hardworking ranch boy from Powell, Wyoming. He plays football, wrestles, and is a 4H member. And now he is the youngest hunter in Wyoming history to kill a bighorn sheep. Rhett harvested the ram with his father, Bill, after drawing a lottery tag.

“He’s only in 7^and class and weighs only 62 pounds,’ says Bill Outdoor living“But he’s a good shot, with a lot of experience hunting geese, ducks and pheasants. I knew when he got that ram tag that it might be a once-in-a-lifetime chance at a bighorn. So we planned it.”

Bill contacted Wyoming’s Ishawooa Outfitters, and they arranged a father-son mountain hunt with guides TJ Redder and Jonas Began. The group headed to the Absaroka Range in early September, where they set up a high-altitude base camp. Bill, a rancher with five other sons, says they rotated horses daily.

They spent days covering many miles and searching for sheep in rough terrain. Fortunately, the weather was fair: they had only one rainy day, but no snow.

On September 6, the eighth and final day of their mountain hunt, they spotted two large rams in the distance. The weather was bright and sunny.

“It took us 90 minutes to get into position for Rhett to get a shot on one of the rams,” Bill says. “It was 6 p.m. and he used the equipment man’s precision rifle to get a perfect shot on the ram at 416 yards.”

Rhett used a 6.5 PRC rifle loaded with 142-grain Winchester ammunition.

“It was a perfect hit behind the shoulder, and the ram only took a few steps, and then went way down the side of the mountain,” Bill says, adding that it took about 20 minutes before they actually reached the ram. “We figured we were about 9,000 feet when he fired his ram.”

It was getting dark when the hunters arrived at Rhett’s bighorn. After cutting and deboning it, they decided to set up a spike camp rather than trudge back to base camp in the dark.

“We didn’t have much food with us, so we ate some of the [ram meat]”, says Bill. “Rhett loved it.”

The hunters estimate the ram’s weight to be around 150 pounds. Bill says a full shoulder mount of the sheep will be made and proudly hung in their family home.

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The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has officially recognized Rhett as the youngest hunter to legally shoot a bighorn ram in the state. In 2021, the state changed licensing restrictions to allow young hunters to apply for a coveted bighorn tag at age 11, as long as the youngster was 12 by the end of the year.

Rhett was 11 when they shot his ram. He’s 12 now. It’s the first big game animal he’s ever harvested. What’s in store for Rhett and the Goolsbey family with one of North America’s most sought-after big game animals under their belt?

“Rhett has a moose tag this year, too,” Bill says. “And he’d like to hunt moose, dall sheep, and buffalo someday. His older brother Russell shot a mountain goat this year. He has a moose tag, too, as do I.

“We’ll have to buy a new freezer.”