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- Thread starter BigHornRam
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lonedave
Active member
Very nice ram theat!
Ah bummer! What a let down. You are certainly in the loop.
Tough with only 48 hours to get all the way back in there and hope to find a ram. Basically took me 1.5 days just to get into an area I thought would be "sheepy".
EYJONAS!
Well-known member
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2017
- Messages
- 6,707
looks like you did well for a flatlander, good on ya man. you'll be going crazy for another 11.5 months now. I hear you on the getting into an area, stick with it you'll learn and see a lot of great country and maybe even find a leprechaun. keep in touch
brownbear932008
Well-known member
Congrats on a beautiful sheep man your one lucky man all the hard work paid off once again. Can wait to read the story.
BuzzH
Well-known member
theat, Very impressive and congratulations...well earned.
Yellowstoner
Member
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2015
- Messages
- 167
Congrats Theat! Awesome to see a HTer get one of the unlimiteds!
shines@times
Well-known member
Does anybody on the HT forum know who took the second ram in 501 this year?
MLaird
Well-known member
This thread is amazing. Assuming I don't draw a moose, sheep or goat tag for next fall, I'm seriously thinking about trying this out just for the experience. Even just seeing sheep would be icing on the cake, much less harvesting one. I'll have some work to do to get this 43 yr old body into that kind of shape...
I've never really had a "dream hunt" but this might be making its way into that category.
I've never really had a "dream hunt" but this might be making its way into that category.
shines@times
Well-known member
Thanks Julien! You certainly seem to have your finger on the pulse of "Unlimited Sheep Unit" doings better than I do. When I first read your post about it being all over for the 501, I went to the FWP Quota Status page. At that time, it still showed a quota of two rams with a harvest of one. That is when I speculated that you had gone back in and scored.
On another subject: While I never suffered food poisoning while on a hunt, I can empathize with the misery.
I was born in Germany. My father was a US combat veteran who reenlisted for a second hitch. While serving with the occupation forces, he met my mother, a DP (displaced person) who fled her home town of Beuthen, Germany (now Bytom, Poland) just ahead of the advancing Soviets, while she was working at an on-post snack bar in Stuttgart.
In 1964, my folks and I went to Germany on an extended vacation to visit relatives and tour western Europe.
The irony of the food poisoning incident--it resulted from the solitary "American" meal we consumed on a three-month trip. The folks and I all got sick after eating chili dogs at the Garmish post exchange snack bar!!
I got the worst of it. All the following day, the only thing I wanted to do was lie quietly on the back seat of the car as Dad drove us toward Italy and, much to my consternation, Mom kept waking me up to inquire how I was doing. That night, at an Italian inn, the folks insisted that I eat something. Giving in, I ordered a minestrone soup--the mildest, most innocuous item I could discern on the menu. While a waiter with a white towel draped over his arm stood at the table and watched us eat--a new and not at all comfortable experience for us working class people--I suddenly felt my gorge rising.
Between English, German and desperate hand gestures we finally conveyed to the Italian waiter that I needed to get to a toilet. Unfortunately, we seemingly failed to convey the urgency of the situation. For the waiter, the towel still draped over his arm, proceeded to lead me at a leisurely, even stately (dignified, I suppose) pace up several flights of red-carpeted stairs.
It is fifty-four years later, and I can't recall if it was four flights or four floors. What I can recall is watching the waiter's dignified facade evaporate and his pace quicken as I began spewing shortly after the first landing. Perhaps time has colored my recollection; but I swear that waiter and I were both sprinting by the time we reached the floor upon which the toilet was situated. Memory also tells me I had little, if anything, remaining to deposit in the porcelain.
An embarrassing--even more so, if you can imagine--and sad footnote to the story: As I descended the stairs, returning to the dining area, I encountered an absolutely lovely, black-haired young woman (only late-teens I'd estimate) sopping up my vomit with a towel (I don't know if it was the waiter's).
With no verbal language in common, I tried my awkward best to convey my apologies and contrition with gesture and expressions. I can see her today, both knees on one step, left hand supporting her on the next up, right hand sopping puke from the scarlet carpet with white towel. She smiled up at me!! There was no hint of disgust or scorn in that smile!
I'm agnostic. I don't know if there is an afterlife. However, if there is, that young, anonymous LADY is high on my "must meet again" list.
lonedave
Active member
Great anecdote shines....It would be really neat to know how (or if) she remembers that incident after all those years!
shines@times
Well-known member
Thanks Dave! I think curiosity drives our species; has been a major force shaping our evolution. I certainly know that curiosity* has spurred much of my life's activity. Unfortunately, unless there is some omniscient downloading of knowledge at life's end--an interesting concept, but one I seriously doubt--we must accept some questions remaining unanswered. Likely such a question: did Dan (DB) Cooper survive the jump and get away with the money?
I'm getting off the sheep hunting subject quite a bit. Hope the forum members don't mind too much--I find this continuing thread a comfortable and mutually supportive community.
* For instance, noticing your West Richland, WA, location, I just had to visit your member profile to see if it contained a clue as to whether you worked at Hanford. Taking a lateral transfer, I worked 6 months for Corps of Engineers at Pasco after my dad died. (I subsequently transferred to Fort Lewis, when offered a position there, so I could be closer to my widowed mothers home.)
TrumpkinTheDwarf
Well-known member
Is he on the forum? Any chance of seeing a picture?
shines@times
Well-known member
Although I'm disappointed, I welcome you back to civilization (such as it be) Gomer. Eleven days is a nice long stretch. I hope you got in deep! Your attitude, shared by a number of this thread's followers, exemplifies the heart and philosophy of the modern hunter who does not need to hunt to eat; but who must hunt to live!
While no ram emerged from your backpack, I'd still like to see the photos and hear the tale.
lonedave
Active member
As a matter of fact, I do sort of work at Hanford....I'm a Civil Engineer for Battelle Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. I'm coming up on 35 years with them mid October. Here I am at 60 years old still dreaming about the unlimiteds after first reading Ray Alt's story in Outdoor Life back in 1970, I think. It's always been on my mind, but I just never made it...yet! I'm hoping to be retired in a couple of years and I may just be in good enough shape to put a few years into finally trying. I did manage to draw a Clemens Mountain tag in 2014 after 42 years of putting in, so I have at least managed to put a ram in my pack. Enough rambling though, this is an unlimited thread...we need to hear a success story!
I plan on sharing a bit more soon but this was one of the neater things we experienced. Wednesday the 19 I’m told was a dreary rainy day in the valley. We were just a few hundred feet above the cloud layer all day long. Lost the entire day of hunting due to not being able to glass the country the sheep would be in but it was pretty scenic.
shines@times
Well-known member
Nice shot Gomer--it elicits personal memories.
It wasn't while sheep hunting, but I have enjoyed seeing such sunlit, cloud-blanketed scenery myself. Here's a portion of a free verse poem I wrote about Swiftcurrent Mountain Memories (I worked a historical preservation project on the Swiftcurrent lookout, among others, in 1999): "...on a mountain where viscous clouds scudded in massed ranks through high passes during chilly purple evenings, the cloud Niagaras occulting valley vistas with pillowy blankets, stranding us upon an island peak, alone, save for small, covert critters driven to cover by our presence and activity..."
Those "covert critters" included wood rats that were anything but shy when a coworker and I first arrived at the abandoned lookout.
My experience with clouds in 501--then a portion of 502, which didn't open until mid-November back then--was on a rare still day. The top was socked in all day, and it was dense enough that the maximum visibility never exceeded 400 yards. That was the day I heard horns clashing. No doubt the damply dense air conducted the sound especially well; for I traveled toward the noise of rut combat all day without encountering sheep. That said, the head of the canyon forming half of the saddle where I turned around was the location of my kill several days later.
I'm looking forward to your further posts and photos.
C Bow
Active member
Gomer you are an ANIMAL I know where that is at and I promise I will never tell. Next year is your year I have never met anyone more deserving than you.
shines@times
Well-known member
C Bow,
I've a question for an old fart, coming from an even older fart: Did you hunt an unlimited sheep unit again this year? I hadn't seen a posting from you to this forum in quite awhile. Although I've been rooting for a number of forum members, I've been particularly interested, given the proximity of our ages, in following your adventure.
I hope you are still at it; and I hope I can make you the second-oldest sheep hunter in the unlimited districts next season.
