Powell hunter Rhett Goolsbey has set the record for the youngest hunter on record to have ever harvested a bighorn sheep ram in the state.

Due to a 2021 change to a Wyoming Game and Fish Department statute that now allows 11-year-olds to harvest game animals if the person will attain 12 years of age by the end of that calendar year. Before 2021, the minimum age to harvest was 12 years old, and even prior to that, it was 14 years old, “all the way back to 1939, when the statute was first created,” said Rene L. Schell, Lander Region information and education specialist.

“I have combed the data between 2021 and 2023, and have found no residents or nonresidents younger than Rhett Goolsbey who held a license in those years,” she said. “These would have been the only years, at least back until 1939, that an 11-year-old could have harvested a bighorn sheep.”

Rhett’s mother Kalee said she wasn’t too worried about her young, 60-pound son’s eight-day hunt in the mountains with his father, Bill, and outfitters from Ishawooa Outfitters.

“He's a very skilled marksman for his age and he was with very competent adults. I guess my only fear in it was that it's a once in a lifetime tag,” she said. “My fear was that he wouldn't get one and he would never have another opportunity.”

Starting your hunting career with a bighorn sheep tag in rough terrain with a borrowed 6.5 Precision Rifle Caliber rifle is daunting. Before the hunt Rhett tested his accuracy with the gun and hit the bullseye on his first shot. Each successive shot was better than the last, Kalee said.

The team camped with a team of horses and mules while looking for the right ram. There were only a couple times while in some really sketchy spots that Bill was a little “nervous” for his son, he said.

“There were a few times that we tied his mule to one of ours, so that he could just have to worry about himself,” the father of six said. “But he had to lead it through some [terrain] that was pretty rough — pretty extreme and steep.”

He said the team went down a trail that wasn’t too bad when they first started, but once they were past a point of no return they were “like, holy crap,” Bill said.

When they got back to camp, Bill asked guide how many times he had led other hunters down the trail.

“That's the first time we've ever done it,” Ishawooa Outfitters guide TJ Redder responded. “I don't know if I'll ever do it again.”

By the eighth day, they had run out of food and Rhett was expected back at school so they needed to finish. Luckily, that was the day they saw two great rams.

They worked their way to within about 420 yards of the rams, which were on the move. Rhett set up for the shot, squeezed the trigger and dropped his trophy with one shot.

After quartering the ram, the hungry hunters decided to eat a portion on their last night in camp.

“It was good,” Rhett said of his portion of meat.

Rhett’s reaction to the news of his record was limited in words but generous on smiles.

“Cool,” he said with a broad smile.

But he’s not done hunting. He has his first elk tag this season and a bucket list of future big game hunts.

“It would be fun to hunt a buffalo, a moose or a dall sheep,” he said.

The experience in the backcountry has cemented his desire to become a guide when he grows up.

“I think it'd be fun because I’d always be outside,” he said.

The family pushes their six boys — four of whom are too young to hunt — to work hard at everything they do.

“If you want to be successful, you've got to put in the hard work,” Kalee said. “You can do a mediocre job, but you're going to get mediocre results. That's what we've always told them.”

Their oldest son Russell also harvested a mountain goat this year. And incredibly, Bill had put himself and his two sons in for elk tags this year and all three drew tags. It will be another hunting adventure to remember.

Meanwhile, Kalee has a plan.

“I’m going to buy another freezer,” she said.