As requested, here is the story from my 2010 Oregon sheep hunt in the Snake River unit. I've posted this on ifish and it's been printed in Huntin' Fool (Dec. 2011 cover) so you may have read it before.
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I was nervous as I signed into Oregon's results page - my ID number memorized from having logged in ~200 times over the previous week - and found out I'd drawn the single nonresident Snake River Bighorn tag (out of 525 applicants). Clearly I was shaking too much to type straight so I used Skype to call my dad at work and announced I had news. I will never forget his response after I told him: "you should've drawn the John Day tag."
I live in Japan and planning for a sheep hunt from 7000 miles away is hard. Getting the time off work for the season was no problem as I've negotiated it into my contract, but I didn't have the ability to come across the ocean for scouting. This meant I was on Skype nearly every weekend from June through September, talking to landowners, past hunters, the biologist, and anybody else who potentially knew something about the sheep in the unit. I also was fortunate enough to meet a guy (Shane) through ifish when he saw my post and replied offering his help. I knew the names and plans of both the auction and raffle tag holders. I knew everything about the resident tag holder during my season and was able to talk to both the first season tag holders after their hunts (big help!). I knew there were book quality rams and approximately where they were. My season was still a month away, though, so a lot could happen.
I arrived in Seattle a week before season opened and the following Tuesday we drove our caravan down to the unit, where we met Shane the next day. We spent three days prior to the season scouting as hard as we could, but it is just a huuuuge unit. We did find many sheep, but nothing greater than a 3/4 curl. I decided I wanted to be at the end of Grizzly Ridge (popular with the rams) on opening morning so my dad and I caught a ride to the top, then walked out the ridge where we found the other hunter. It was a strange interaction, both of us with our dads, trying to be pleasant but coy.
After setting up our tent in some trees we spent the afternoon on ridge tops looking down from above into all the coulees and draws. As evening approached my dad spotted some sheep way down below us. I got out the spotting scope and spent the next two hours analyzing the three rams, one of which appeared to be big. He met all the rules for a book ram: curl down to the jaw, at least a full curl, decent mass carried well. The base mass worried me a bit, but the beauty of his really long right horn outweighed that for me. In the end, 180" is just a number and I'd rather have a really cool ram on my wall than something I killed just to make it into the book.
We spent all evening around the campfire weighing whether I should go after this ram the next morning, but we didn't reach any conclusions. The rams were on the same point the next day so we watched them for the first couple hours. Finally I decided that while I might find a better ram in the unit, I didn't think it would be a good idea to pass on this guy to gain a couple inches somewhere else (the predominant information at this point was that the largest known ram in the unit might be around 185-187"). Bird in the hand.. My dad wasn't so sure, but after a little discussion he offered his blessing as I took off alone down into the canyon. If I could get close enough for a shot, great, but if not, we still had 9.5 days left in the season. Man, once-in-a-lifetime tags are a mixed blessing - amazing opportunities but immense pressure. (But I'll take them!)
I didn't make it very far before the big ram got up out of his bed and started running towards me and out of sight below. He was catching up to another ram and both of them quickly passed [waay] below and started working to my right. I hurried back up to a viewing rock where I could look over three fingers below. It didn't take long before I spotted the lead (smaller) ram feeding below on the middle finger. The bigger ram followed him through a small window. I tried to set up my camera to get video but just could not work it through the tall grass. Eventually, after missing a couple shot opportunities, I decided to set the camera down and concentrate on killing my ram. I had to move down to my left to get a better angle. (My dad was behind me and he could see everything
I was doing, but nothing below the edge I was looking over.)
The blonde, 7/8 curl ram fed out first and the full curl came right behind him. One cool thing that happened here was the larger ram set his head on the rear of the smaller ram to rest his head/neck for a minute. My heart was beating out of my chest. I'd ranged it at 306 yards, so I lined up the 300 yard post on the B&C reticled Leupold scope on my .270. I don't remember the crosshairs ever steadying out, but I'm not sure that's ever happened with an animal in the scope.
I pulled the trigger and when everything settled the big ram was facing the opposite direction and the smaller ram had disappeared. I jacked another shell in and hurried a second shot. He took off running back the way he'd come (to the left). I watched through my only window and saw the small ram lead through, then the bigger ram came through. When he did I shot for the shoulders. Then he was out of sight and everything was quiet. I waited.. and waited, but nothing.
[At the top of the frame you can see the road where my uncles were watching from]
I ditched everything but my binoculars, rifle, and knife, and headed down. I finally reached a point where I could look back into the small basin where I'd last shot and there was a rump patch on the ground. I put up the binoculars and it was a dead ram. But... it looked like a 3/4 curl. My heart sank as I took 10 minutes to get down through the cliffs and cross the scree field, but when I arrived and picked up his head he was in fact the big ram. He was exactly what I'd expected in terms of horn length and mass - no ground growth or shrinkage. I suppose that's what four hours of studying leads to. He'd laid in the only bed on the hillside, which was nice since it was a 150 yard, rock-studded tumble to the bottom. (The first shot had ended up going through the heart, but the last two shots weren't so great..)
[That right horn is 43" long]
I climbed back up to my rifle, then bag, then finally to my dad. When I sat next to him I realized he couldn't see what had happened and he didn't know the outcome, so I said "I got him." There were congratulations and thanks given, then we radioed across to the relatives and Shane, who promptly departed to cross the river and climb up to meet us. We went back and gathered up our camp, then returned to the ram at the same time Shane arrived. We spent the afternoon processing and got it all taken care of before dusk then departed for the treacherous (and heavy) pack down to the river and up the other side. We didn't get back until late that night and we were parched and dead, but it was a good night in camp.
[The old guys talking it over. The kill site is near the top of the center finger above the reverse-S-shaped creek.]
The ram was initially scored at 181 7/8 by the biologist when we checked him into Enterprise, but was later officially scored at 182 4/8.
The other hunter never killed a ram.
This year RubblesPH has drawn the tag and I'm excited to help him out as he seems pretty serious about it. If I didn't have so many tags this fall I'd love to join him, but it sounds like he's in a pretty good position to do well.
