Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Sheep guides spotting scope power

Gents-
You folks that either sheep hunt or go on the guided hunts in the big mountains, what power spotting scopes do the guides generally use? They have to be pretty darn strong to count rings on the horns at many yards away.

Thanks,
Razorhog

Quality over power. But a scope/eyepiece that tops out around 50-60 is about right. I don't like counting rings, but I'd much rather have the Leica at 50X than most anything else at 60+.

Many of them get really difficult to use at higher magnification and seem to go to zero or negative eye relief. That said, you can always dial a 60 back to 50, but you can't spin a 50 past 50.

Razorhog;
Good morning to you sir, I hope that the day in your part of the world is behaving and you're well.

With the understanding that I'm just one semi-old guy who knows a few of the locals who used to guide and outfit for California Bighorn down here in south central BC.

Our hunts aren't several days packing in, they're in country that's reasonably sporty however so bulk and weight can be an issue.

Last fall my long time hunting and fishing partner pulled one of two hotly contested LEH "any ram" tags on the mountain behind the house, so he, his nephew, the former outfitter, one of the former guides and I all pitched in to see if we could find a good one.

It looks like this.



We went down to the bottom here one day after a herd of rams.



Another place we were looking.



On a couple of the days when we left the pickups at daybreak it was already smoking hot, so the mirage was really bad by 10:00. As well on the top photo we can see the haze from a fire somewhere, since there seems to be a fire somewhere during late summer and early fall anymore.

The reason I mention that is that we couldn't use much above 45X most days and less than that on the really bad days.

For what we had, going off of foggy memory there was a Swarovski, 2 Leupold, Redfield and another one that totally slips my mind, sorry.

Mine is a fixed 25X Leupold straight tube from the 80's and it's wonderfully light, easy to pack and absolutely wasn't enough power to count growth rings on the rams' horns.

There's a few fairly serious sheep hunters here such as mod7rem who I want to say likes Kowa spotters.

If one was hunting Stone or Dall in the north country, they may not have the mirage issues with the heat, but they might have smoke or fog too. As well they're often packing in a whole lot further than we do, so weight and pack space become an issue.

Hopefully that was useful even though it's admittedly limited.

All the best.

Dwayne

As per usual, Dwayne has solid advice.

I use a Swaro 65mm with 20-60X for dall. For what it is worth, even with the Swaro, 60X isn’t very clear unless you’ve got ideal light conditions. 45-50X is generally where it’s usefulness tops out at. Maybe an 85mm scope would be different but that gets into a lot more weight.

Counting rings is not a good habit to get into, for a few reasons and in my experience, few do it with any regularity in the field on live animals. I have never been on a guided sheep hunt (save mouflon in Spain) so I have no clue what they generally use.

My guide for my Dall sheep in Alaska used a Swarovski 20-60x65 angled. To save weight he didn't use a tripod but perched on a rock or laid on the ground. The angled eyepiece worked good. It was clear most days but I can't say what power he used. He was counting rings on one ram that eventually wandered to 150 yards of us. Took a couple hours and was only able to get 7 rings on him. Had to pass as the minimum is 8.

T Inman;
Top of the morning T, I hope all is well in your section of the planet.

Thanks for the kind words once more sir.

If I'm not wrong and there's every possibility I am, the Swaro that the former guide was using was the same as yours - I remember it as big but not 85mm big and I do believe it was a 20-60X.

It's interesting to me that some folks are okay with either no tripod or a fairly short one as that's emphatically not to my tastes at all. My personal preference is a tripod that will allow me to use the spotter sitting, kneeling or even occasionally standing, but again that's me and our conditions.

We'd be glued to the spotters for hours looking for sheep and then when we'd spot them, we were not counting rings for sure since we were looking for an LEH "any ram" so anything with character might qualify as "it".

Edit to add; One of the side effects of having one 70 year old, one 60 year old, two in their late 50's and then the 20 something nephew was that a few of us had trouble getting that spotting scope eyeball to work in an acceptable fashion after said hours of glassing. A couple times when we had to move out posthaste like, my depth perception was just useless for the first 5 minutes!

When chatting with the local bio who is also a sheep hunter and some folks from the Wild Sheep Society of BC, they're on the exact same page as you are regarding counting annuli.

Personally I bugger it up when it's on a table in front of me often enough that field counting - for me - would be akin to asking me to write code or do heart surgery.

Thanks again and all the best.

Dwayne

Great info. Thanks for your input.

RH

Years ago BW from here killed a beautiful ram just a few hairs shy of 40". Laid on the table at ADF&G they counted 10 annuli on one side... and 12 on the other... they decided to go with 11.

Sitka;
Top of the morning to you sir, I trust that you and your fine family are well up there.

Thanks for sharing the story, it made me chuckle and recall a few similar experiences I've been present for.

Here in the south it's always been a curl restriction and not annuli, but the Stone sheep up north had and might still have an either/or age/curl provision.

When I took my California ram in to get plugged, the bio put it into the infamous "Yukon Jig" and fooled with the skull for awhile while I looked on hoping I'd been correct about it being a 3/4 curl. It was and by a fair bit, I want to say more than 35mm on the short side, but interestingly when buddy took his ram last year, the horns were bigger diameter and longer than my ram 31 years previous and his was only 5.

A father and son taxidermist shop who were friends of our family had helped me cape the thing and would subsequently find a buyer for the half mount cape for me. The son had aged the ram at 7½ but there were false annuli on both sides that gave him pause.

The bio doing the measuring also went back and forth on the age for a bit, finally aging it at 7 on the form filled out during the plug installation.

On some of the sheep hunting social media groups I wander through, it's not uncommon for some fairly animated discussions on the age of some rams for sure.

Thanks again for the post and the memories it twigged.

All the best to you all Sitka.

Dwayne

Best of the morning to you Dwayne!

Some years back the local sheep bio had a local highly (over)rated split a large sheep horn full length and mount it on a plaque to help folks understand false annuli and the error of counting rings. Unfortunately the polishing operation created a "Bielby Layer" which basically means they melted it, totally hiding the rings.

I immediately went home for scrapers and low heat polishes. We made a huge mess in the office lobby with long whisper-thin curls of horn. In no time all the missing information came back into view. The display is still in the office...

The point of all of this is simply how hard it can be to see false annuli.

Hope you have a great day in the smoke.
Art

Totally unsolicited of course, but I never thought about possibly needing more glass than excellent 15 or 18 x 56 binoculars. Until trying to glass moose or pretty much anything else in Alaska. It's not too hard to find big critters of interest, but actually judging to AK's exacting requirements requires some walking. Even as an Arizonan it's hard to grasp the enormity of AK hunting country.

I started out in 1976 with a green B&L 16-60x for about 10 years (Wyoming Range Mule deer 4-point or better & Bighorns)

Next used a black B&L Discover 15-60x

After about 20 years I got a Leica 20-60 x 62mm that I still use today. It's a light scope so easy to carry.

I like having 60x when you can use it depending on mirage.

I just picked up a Zeiss Diascope T 80mm body and a Diascope T 65mm with interchange eyepiece. 60x with the 65mm and 75 with the 80mm. The 80mm is 4+ pounds so not one I'm packing in with.

Can’t truthfully answer…..but lens quality trumps magnification! memtb

I hunt sheep every year and currently use a Kowa 77mm Prominar. I agree with others earlier, 60x is nice to have for the right conditions, but 40-50x in a high quality spotter is the zone for me.

Great thread with a lot of info but the best thing about it is that I have always thought there’s something wrong with me because I found it hard to accurately count annuli. I’ve spent hours studying books and videos and many more hours watching sheep up close, in Dwayne’s country, and I still don’t feel comfortable basing my shot on MY count of rings. I’m glad that I’m in good company and even they don’t rely on their count alone. 👍🏼

Dux: Do you have a fixed or variable power eye piece on your Leica?

In 2017 pulled a once in a lifetime sheep tag for the Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge in Oregon. My partners weren't able to go or had died.

I was 71, fat, with a bad knee and two hips I had to have replaced shortly thereafter. I looked for a guide and was lucky enough to find a good one.

The Leica APO-Televid 65 W Kit with Vario eyepiece 25-50 was the spotter my guide used most of the time. He also used 15x56 Leica binoculars a good deal.

I booked with High Desert Outfitters, MAIL; PO BOX 60, ADEL, OR, 97620-0060, Charles O. Messner. I would recommend him highly. I learned a lot from him.

Despite big problems with wildfires I had a good time and got a nice ram.

Leica straight 62mm 16x48 very usable scope light enough to pack. Can count annular on Rams and see brow tines on legal Moose.