Paul Smith
Outdoors Editor
Three times Gary Martin had come to full draw, waiting for the ram of a lifetime to take one more step. Three times the sheep stayed mostly hidden by boulder and cactus.
When the journey has covered tens of thousands of miles and spanned 30 years, how difficult can it be to wait for an animal to move another foot, to hold a few more seconds?
"Painful," said Martin, 53, of Union Grove. "Excruciatingly painful."
Martin was perched on a rocky ridge on Isla Carmen, a desert island off the Baja Peninsula in Mexico. Walking haltingly down a trail, 30 yards away, were two desert bighorn rams.
Time passed slowly, the heat of the Mexican sun bearing down, leg muscles cramping from crouching behind scant cover, watching for a wind change that could alert the animal to his presence. Such times try the nerves of an outdoorsman. Dreams can unravel in a second. Or they can come to fruition.
Martin held tight to cover, knowing that even if he couldn't get a shot, it would be better not to spook the rams. At long last, the second ram, a trophy, moved forward, offering a quartering away shot. Martin seized the opening and let years of weekly archery practice pay its dividend.
The arrow found its mark, and shortly Martin was standing over the animal, admiring its heavy, full-curl horns. The sheep scored a little over 167 inches and is eighth best in the Pope and Young Club record book.
"It's hard to know what to say when you've done something you were only able to hope and dream about for so long," said Martin, thinking back on the October hunt on Isla Carmen. "I know I probably smiled for the next week."
The ram wasn't just a record-book specimen. By tagging it, Martin had achieved two of the loftiest goals in hunting: He had recorded the grand slam (killing each of four North American sheep species) and the super slam (each of the 28 big game species in North America).
His feats have placed him in an upper pantheon of North American hunters and this weekend he will be honored by two hunting and conservation groups. Today Martin is in Salt Lake City, where he will be feted by the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep. And on Saturday he'll travel to Las Vegas to get an award from the Grand Slam Club/Ovis at its 2008 convention.
But he isn't done yet. Martin hunts almost exclusively with archery equipment these days, and he would like to take all 28 species with a bow (he has 26 now). Moreover, he wants to take specimens of all 28 species that qualify for the Pope and Young Club record book.
Martin, now in his 28th year as a technologist at S.C. Johnson in Sturtevant, has an easy-going, low-key demeanor. But when it comes to bowhunting, his ambition comes to the surface.
"Passion or obsession, I don't know," he says, thinking about his favorite sport. "Is there a stronger word?"
Let's try this one: genes. Martin's grandfather was Frank Martin, a gym teacher and archery shop owner in Racine who served as an ambassador to the sport of archery for generations.
It is estimated that more than 1,000 hunters have taken the super slam with a rifle. But only 13 have taken all 28 species with a bow. To become the 14th, Martin has only to tag a mule deer and a Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep with his bow (he previously took both by
. He would become the first Wisconsinite to accomplish the feat.
Martin is proud that, as a sportsman, his hunting activities help support the species he hunts. Perhaps no species in North America is better managed or funded by hunters than bighorn sheep.
"In some cases, the animals aren't allowed to be hunted until they are 8 or 10 years old," Martin said.
So tonight and Saturday, Martin will celebrate what has accomplished. He'll toast the hunt and the conservation successes with friends gained over 30 years of hunting big game with a bow and arrow.
Then he'll return to Union Grove and look to the future. If he is able to take record book specimens of all 28 species with a bow, he would be only the third person to do so.
Archers such as Chuck Adams have written books about their journey to take all 28 species with a bow. That's not really Martin's style.
"For me, it's about the carrying on a tradition that my family instilled in me, it's about being with friends in the outdoors and it's about conserving the animals and a way of life," Martin said.
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