Originally Posted by irfubar
Originally Posted by BC30cal
Originally Posted by irfubar
The ram I shot on the hill behind my house.....

[Linked Image from i.postimg.cc]

Brother Fubar;
Me again my friend, thanks for that photo.

We've seen it twice now and both times it was just jaw dropping for me.

I know you get to see the big Rockies on that island if I recall correctly, so you're getting to view some in the wild that I'll only dream of.

If anyone is going through Whitehorse, there is a game farm a bit north of town where they have a Stone and a Dall that are positively huge. I know it's not the same as a wild ram, but they still took my breath away Brother Fubar.

My long time friend took his ram this fall less than a kilometer from where I'd got one 31 years and 2 days previous to that. We were two weeks into the season, the rams had stopped showing up in the unusually hot fall and I suggested we go look at the ridges I used to chase sheep on and still chase mulies most falls. Sure enough, we put a couple nice ones to bed Friday night and he was able to get one Saturday morning.

Mine was 7½ and his was 2 years younger but a much heavier ram all around. It's amazing what better genetics and a good forest fire will do for the herd. wink

This as they say, used to be me...

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All the best.

Dwayne

PS;
I shall do my best to avoid gummies, etc on your advice.. wink

Brother Dwayne.... Your post and sheep are the "good stuff" seriously!!!
I am somewhat familiar with your brand of sheep, the California Bighorn... as I was fortunate enough to draw a tag for the same subspecies.... now keep in mind I am a "wanna be" sheep hunter and am generally fascinated with wild sheep...
My bighorn was from the mountains of South central Oregon, of all places.
The unit I applied for had the best drawing odds but the worst trophy quality... I didn't care.
Much to my amazement, I drew a tag, I have very little luck in the tag lottery in general.
My financial situation at the time was well... meager... so I scouted , hunted and did everything on my own.
It was an amazing and incredibly difficult hunt... in 4 days of scouting and 6 days of hunting I saw one ram I would consider worthy.
In my unit there was one other hunter, we spent time together and he wasn't having much luck either. He was a gentleman my age and was hunting with his son.
His son was a hardcore sheep hunter with several rams under his belt!
We were all struggling, the temps were in the 90's.... the climb was 2000' each day.... but that is sheep hunting...
I did fill my tag on the 6th day of hunting...


And here he is....


[Linked Image from i.postimg.cc]

Brother Fubar;
That is a wonderful California sir!

If the terrain is like it looks to be in your photo AND it's hot AND maybe the herd isn't on the up cycle like it was when I got mine in the early '90's, then the hard truth is that it'll take 7½ years to make a 3/4 curl and some weren't doing that.

As mentioned we had a fire up there in 2003 after a big die off in '96, so the habitat is exponentially better now and my friends ram showed that.

We didn't see many ewes and lambs though Brother Fubar, so we're worried that they'll need to suspend the LEH hunt - 2 tags for residents - until the herd rebuilds again.

You talked about 2000' and I'll try to put this into perspective for the folks who've not trod the paths that some of us crazier types do.

In this photo - I showed it already sorry - but when we took off it was from the rocks on the left side of the photo, about a third of the way down from the top.

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When we were at the bottom, I had a GPS pointer marked where we could get a pickup to and have cell service, so that day we went upwards to where the photo was taken which is maybe 400 yards as the crow flies from a grown in skidder track we could get to.

Here's the thing, at the bottom it read we were only 1100 yards from that truck accessible spot, so up we went. It took us on average about 15 minutes hard pounding to knock off each 100 yards though Brother Fubar!!!

Think the truck read 31°C that day up top too, so 88°F in the shade.

Much steep, much warm... grin

Nice ram though for sure Brother Fubar, any ram earned that way is a good one and then some.

Dwayne

Last edited by BC30cal; 10/17/22.
The most important stuff in life isn't "stuff"