Nevada Cali Bighorn Hunt

mountainhawks · Dec 5, 2016

I really enjoy all the great threads about peoples hunts and experiences in the hills and figured that I'd throw one of my own out here since the seasons are winding down and hopefully some of you can get the same enjoyment. DISCLAIMER: I wrote this up immediately after the hunt while the memories were fresh, it's somewhat long winded and I apologize. Skim through to the pics if you'd like. I'll break it up so it's not one giant post.

Just getting back into the swing of normal life after a few of the best days (scheduled to be 11 days) of my life. I figured I should get this down so as the memories fade I will always be able to come back and relive a great trip.

As so many of these stories start out, it began back in late May when the Nevada Department of Wildlife posted the draw results for the 2016 big game hunts. I clicked on the links to get to my name and as I’ve become accustomed to (I went 0 for 16 on apps in the west this year), my name was absent from the successful list. With that formality out of the way I began to search family and friends, I’m sure that a lot of people feel the way I do in that they enjoy helping others on hunts as much, if not more, then they enjoy going on their own. After finding a few of my closest hunting friend’s names and seeing the deer and elk tags they’d pulled I began to look for my sister and brother in law’s (Side note: I had done their applications for them this year because they were expecting their second child in September and really weren’t all that enthusiastic about trying to squeeze in a hunt or two. In fact, it took quite a bit of convincing on my part for them to agree to actually applying and not just purchasing bonus points). First of the 2 I checked was my sister, nothing. Then I scrolled up to where her husband’s name would be, there it was, listed a couple times. First one was a cow elk hunt (that I had also applied for with more points than him), no big deal. The second one however, was a bit of a bigger deal. In the row next to his name was the words California Bighorn Sheep. I was shocked, not only did he draw one of the most difficult tags to acquire in the state but he did it with very few points. Immediately I called him and before he even said hello I was cursing him. We had a short conversation that consisted of a lot of “holy s#@#$” and briefly discussing how we wanted to devote as much time as possible to the upcoming hunt and then agreed that we’d get together that night to figure out scouting trips and other logistics. Over a few beers that evening we managed to come up with potential dates for three separate scouting trips. We were also able to convince my fairly pregnant sister that he would forego the September 1 season opener and we’d plan for a later hunt (the season runs Sept. 1 – Oct. 30) so he could be home for the expected due date of September 14th.

mountainhawks · Dec 5, 2016

For those that aren’t familiar with California’s, they are most closely related to Rocky Mountain Bighorns and for most purposes are classified as such (B and C, Grand Slam), they don’t grow to the enormous size of some Rocky’s and are notorious for brooming off. Statewide average for Cali sheep in Nevada is somewhere around 150 and for those that care about score, anything above that is a great ram (I’ve never killed a sheep, they are all great to me). In talking with my BIL he made it clear that he was happy with a mature ram and that score wasn’t a major priority, he just wanted a fun hunt and to harvest a good ram.

Scouting Trip 1:

The first 3 day weekend we decided on was the weekend after the 4th of July. I’m lucky enough to get to spend a lot of my time working in the outdoors all over northern Nevada and because of this I’m fairly familiar with a lot of mountain ranges and hunt areas, the unit my BIL drew happened to be one of these areas. The plan for this first trip was to just learn some of the stuff I wasn’t familiar with, show my BIL the country, and figure out access points since the vast majority of his unit was wilderness. We were able to cover a ton of ground in those few days and even find a few sheep. Another friend was able to help out on this trip and we had a great time.

MT_elk · Dec 5, 2016

Beautiful country!

mountainhawks · Dec 5, 2016

Scouting Trip 2:

The second trip we planned was a couple weeks after the first and it would only be myself and my BIL on this one. We wanted to hone in a little bit on an area that seemed promising and see if we could start locating some ram groups. Despite the temperatures approaching 100 degrees we were able to accomplish our goals of finding some rams and checking out a few more areas.

Found a few other critters on the trip as well.

mountainhawks · Dec 5, 2016

one more

MTGomer · Dec 5, 2016

Looks awesome, except for that snake. I'd coat my naked body in honey and chocolate and sleep on the ground alone in Yellowstone over getting near that rattlesnake :W:

mountainhawks · Dec 5, 2016

Scouting Trip 3:

The 3rd trip was planned for the first weekend in August and we had hoped to completely dial in where we would concentrate our efforts come the end of September. Unfortunately my sister’s pregnancy was not progressing as easily as hoped and my BIL made the smart decision to cancel the trip so he could stay close to town. I, on the other hand, don’t really have anything that requires me to stay around town at any point in time (other than a very needy black lab) and decided to make a very short trip up to the area to do some glassing. A friend of mine decided to join and we headed up for 1 night. We arrived to the area fairly late and after figuring out how to get to where I wanted to glass from we only had about 30 minutes of decent light left. As soon as the scopes were up we started to pick up sheep, mostly ewes and lambs but one group of rams was located a long ways off. One ram in this group stood out from the rest but the poor light and distance between us made it hard to tell exactly what he was. His body was clearly larger than the rest and he had a lighter horn color. For lack of a better way to describe it, he just seemed more mature. Seeing this ram group along with the large amounts of ewes and lambs was enough for me to know that this is where we wanted to start our hunt. I was excited to head back to town and show my BIL the picture (literally 1 that wasn’t a blurry wreck). The more I thought about the ram group and that one in particular the more excited I got about the potential.

Waiting to hunt until the 4th week of the hunt was going to be torture, especially since there were 8 other tag holders in the unit. In discussions we decided that hunting the last week of September into the first week of October would be the best for several reasons: Hopefully the baby would be born and home for a couple weeks so things could settle a bit, the rut would be beginning and the potential for love-struck and vulnerable rams to join the ewes we had seen would be increasing daily, temperatures would be cooled off, and based on the data gathered from previous years checkout summaries, the majority of the other hunters would be tagged out and off the mountain. Our only concern was that another hunter would find these rams and possibly harvest the largest of the group, but at this time we weren’t even sure what the largest was and therefore weren’t overly concerned. As the season opener came and went I tried to keep track of the unit and what was being harvested. Several great rams were taken in the first week and with the news of each ram being harvested the desire to get out and hunt got stronger. On September 9th my new niece decided it was time to make her arrival and to everyone’s relief her and mom were both healthy. Once that “technicality” was out of the way, it was time to focus on the hunt.

mountainhawks · Dec 5, 2016

The hunt:

I don’t want to even begin to think about how much money was spent on fuel, new gear, food, and all the other random things that us hunters “have” to get before a hunt of this nature but that was all behind us on September 29th. The baby was born, the gear was loaded, and we were headed out. Myself and my BIL, his father, and 3 of our friends headed to the unit and planned to be there for 11 days, hopefully we could get it done in that amount of time. If we were unsuccessful we would go back for the last week of the hunt but were confident we wouldn’t need to. Another friend who was coming from a different town had already left earlier that day and planned to meet us there.

We arrived to camp midafternoon and immediately began the process of setting up wall tents, determining where the best place to put the “water station” would be, choosing a prime camp fire area, and doing all the other little things that make a hunting camp so great. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve done our fair share of backpack hunts but nothing reminds me more of a traditional hunting camp then wall tents and a camp fire. This hunt was conducive to that because although the vast majority of the unit was wilderness, most of the areas the sheep are in are accessible for day hunts.

mountainhawks · Dec 5, 2016

Once camp was set up we headed out to glass for the evening. We ran into our buddy who had already been out glassing and he said he had found some decent rams in the area we had talked about meeting up in. Everyone was eager to get eyes on sheep so we headed for the glassing knob that was a short 20 minute hike from the roads end at the wilderness boundary. As soon as the scopes were set up the welcome words of “I’ve got sheep” and “more over here” seemed to be spoken over and over again between the 6 of us. We relocated the rams that our buddy had found earlier and looked them over as best as possible in the fading light. We agreed that they needed a better look the following day and continued to pick apart the country. Several large groups of ewes with small rams were found and another band of smaller rams was located but we hadn’t picked up the ones I was hoping to find. As everyone watched the already located sheep doing what sheep do on the hillside in front of us I began to scan the opposite direction a long ways off. In the last minutes of discernable light I picked up a sheep, a long ways off, higher on the mountain than most of the others but in the same vicinity as the rams we had found scouting a month earlier. As I watched this one sheep it multiplied until I was positive I was looking at 5 rams feeding on an open hillside. It was way too dark and about 3 miles away but I was sure they were the same 5 I’d seen earlier in the year (I didn’t have anything really to base this off of, but I convinced myself). We all talked it over and decided that we would be back in the same spot the next morning to try to relocate both the band of 3 rams from earlier and the 5 from last light.

The alarm buzzed at 4:30 am and within ten minutes everyone was dressed and fumbling around with jetboils, oatmeal, and instant coffee. Within 20 minutes a few words had been spoken and everyone was fully clothed and ready for the brisk atv ride. Late September in northern Nevada can be anything from 10 degrees to 80 degrees, luckily we were in the sweet spot of 32 degree mornings and 65 degree afternoons. After everything was cinched to the bikes and gear was double checked we headed out. The bikes were staggered about 5 minutes due to there not being a breath of wind and the lingering poof dust clouds. The 30 minute ride was chilly but went quickly and after the short hike up to the knob we were all setting up scopes and waiting for the skies to brighten. I was glad I had packed my Stanley coffee cup and have found it to be one of my greatest belongings for these types of hunts.

mountainhawks · Dec 5, 2016

Within minutes of peering through our scopes sheep started to appear. The ewe groups from the day before were all in the same general areas and as the sky got brighter the 3 rams that we wanted a better look at also came into view. While everyone looked over those sheep I continued to pick apart the country I had seen the 5 the night before. I wasn’t having much luck and had only turned up what I thought to be a lone ewe in that general area, maybe 200 yards down the hill on a little knob. I turned to the direction everyone else was looking and while it was a long ways off I started to help assess the 3 rams. We all decided that they weren’t something we wanted to go after on the first full day of the hunt and began searching for more sheep. I was drawn back to the same area I had been looking at earlier and now, what appeared to be a lone ram was visible just down the hill from where the 5 had been. This country is extremely broken and has hundreds of places where 5 rams could be just out of view. As I watched this lone sheep it became apparent he was looking at something in the draw below him that I couldn’t see. We watched this sheep feed and walk up the hill for about an hour but nothing seemed to be following him. Eventually he disappeared in a small draw and we were back to searching other hillsides. The morning wore on (really it was only about 8:15 but it seemed like we had been there for 5 hours and the same groups of sheep kept getting looked at. I panned back to the same hillside and in the bottom corner of my field of view I picked up what had to be a sheep. Made the adjustment, dialed in the focus, and yep! There, just coming out of the draw that the lone ram had been staring into was a ram, then 2, then 3 more. It was the 5. With the good lighting, even from that distance, it was immediately apparent to me that we needed to get a closer look at these sheep. In my excitement I mumbled/blurted “I found them.. holy @##@@! There’s a boomer in there!” The BIL dialed his scope in on them and immediately agreed with me. Soon all 6 of us were looking in that direction and sharing excited obscenities and trying to come up with a plan as to how to traverse the broken 3 miles to where they had now bedded. Finally we settled on the idea that 2 people would stay back and keep eyes on the rams in case they decided to move and the other 4 would cut the distance in half and use a rock outcropping as cover to set up scopes and better analyze the sheep.

mountainhawks · Dec 5, 2016

After traversing several drainages and scaling a few rock walls we made it to the predetermined outcropping that would serve as the new glassing point. Despite the difficulty of the terrain everyone was moving at a good pace and it hadn’t taken too long to get there. With the signal from the guys back on the other knob that the sheep were still in place we creeped around the rocks and put the scopes into place (still over a mile away and we were creeping like the rams were 100 yards out, better safe than sorry). The other guys then began the hike to our location. Once the scopes were up and zoomed in it became very apparent that we were correct in our earlier decision to get a better look at these sheep.

mountainhawks · Dec 5, 2016

With the confirmation that there was a ram in the group my BIL wanted to make a run at we came up with a plan to get within range. It would require us to drop down into the god awful canyons in between us and him but it would keep us out of view and allow us the chance to get to slight rise that we figured would be 300-350 yards from the bedded sheep. There was a strong crosswind now that would help with the sneak but might make for a dicey shot opportunity. We talked about it and decided to cross that bridge when we got to it. My BIL had a dialed in gun and was very accurate with it but the thought of botching a once in a lifetime opportunity weighed on every move we made. We had to wait a bit for the other 2 guys to catch up and then we would once again leave them with eyes on the rams while we moved in. It was during this time that we were able to really watch the sheep. Such awesome animals. As one would drift to sleep and his head would hit the dirt another would come to and assume the lookout position. The largest ram in the group seemed to sleep the least and we started joking that he was like the Sphynx, head up and eyes forward at all times. A 6th, very young ram had joined the group at some point and was also bedded with them. At one point during this painful waiting game, 3 of the rams got up and walked towards a large outcropping and out of sight from us. We assumed they were headed for shade as the day was warming up and hoped the others wouldn’t follow. They didn’t. Shortly after this our 2 buddies arrived out of breath and we packed up and began to move in. This proved to be more difficult than initially anticipated because of the terrain. It’s amazing how a small drainage can turn into a very large drainage as you approach it. With loose soil and some serious pitch we all nervously laughed as we tried to maneuver through the country.

mountainhawks · Dec 5, 2016

Finally we made it to the last drainage we needed to cross before we were making our way up the rise and to a couple of large rocks that should give us a view of the rams, hopefully in range. We dropped the packs, got out the rangefinder, grabbed the thermarest (fantastic knee relief) and creeped toward the rocks. As we got there and poked around the rock we could clearly see the 3 remaining rams. My BIL was the first to look and then backed off so I could range for him. 374 yards. We had a mountain side conference between the 3 of us that were there (the 4th had stayed back about 100 yards). The wind was ripping now and my BIL made a decision that I’m sure was incredibly hard at the time but I’m glad he did. He decided we’d wait for them to do something, feed toward us, feed away from us, something. He didn’t want to risk a shot and we couldn’t see any way to get closer with them in the position they were in. So the waiting game began again. We got one scope set up on them, I was put on babysitting duty and the others had some snacks and water.

mountainhawks · Dec 5, 2016

It seemed like every 5-10 minutes one of the 3 would stand up only to lay back down in another position. This drug on. Then just after 1:00 one of the rams casually stood up and began to walk in the opposite direction from us. This time he wasn’t gonna lay back down and shortly after him, the other two (one being the guy we were after) got up and followed along. They fed out about 50 more yards from us and then disappeared in a cut. We began to gather our stuff to make a push at the sheep now that they were out of sight but just as we were about to get up they fed out on the opposite side of the cut and we were once again pinned down. There we sat for another 45 minutes, watching the rams feed on a hillside and make their way further and further away. At one point it looked like they were heading over the far ridge and they’d be gone for the day. As they reached that ridge they were met with what had to be a formidable blast of wind at this point and casually turned their heads and began to feed back the way they had come. They dropped back into the cut that they disappeared in earlier and we began our scamper.

mountainhawks · Dec 5, 2016

Our approach would require us to back out the way we had come, gain a couple hundred feet of elevation, and cross several large ravines. It always seems so much easier in your head. Knowing that the rams could pop out of the cut/bowl they were in at any minute made us quicken our pace. Not much was said during this whole push to get on the rams but everyone was on the same page. We knew that our new approach would put us in range (less than 300 yards) but we were running the risk of blowing the animals out because we weren’t exactly sure where they were going to be in the bowl. This was my BIL’s best chance at these rams and it was pretty evident by his actions that he wanted to make this move. As we closed the gap the standard confusion that arises when terrain looks different from one angle than another set in. After another hillside meeting of the minds and some communication with our buddy back manning the spotting scope we were confident that we were in the right spot and it was time to strip the packs and extra gear once again and make the final push to what we thought would give us a shot.

mountainhawks · Dec 5, 2016

Three guys, flat to the ground, inching up towards the crest of a hill while one tries to keep his gun out of the dirt, one tries to see into the basin immediately in front of them, and one helps the guy with the gun try to keep the gun out of the dirt, that was the scene. As I did the awkward prairie dog poking his head up ever so slightly thing for about the 5th time I felt a tug on my pant leg. I went flat and my BIL inched up to me. “There’s one of them” he said. I was confused at the direction he was referring to and reassured him that it was just a rock. As I began to inch further a bit more what he was actually referring to came into view and my head hit the dirt. Without saying a word my BIL worked to get around me and in position for a shot. Our buddy stayed just behind my BIL and was helping him get into position. While they were adjusting I was trying to determine which ram we were looking at. The following conversation ensued in stern whispers.
Me – “I think that’s him”
BIL- “Are you sure?”
Me – “No, are you?”
BIL- “You’re the one with the binoculars!”
Just then from lower in the bowl (out of our view) came another ram. He was slowly walking up to where the ram we were looking at was bedded. As he reached the other ram it was instantly apparent that the one we were after was the one that had just appeared, he had the lighter horns that we had noted earlier and was noticeably heavier. I whispered that the standing ram was the one and then ranged him, 241 yards. From this point I just watched the ram in the binos and let the BIL and our buddy take it from there. Kenny told him to take his time, control his breathing, and sqqqquuuueeezzzzeeee. I think he repeated that about 6 times. Alex replied back “I’m gonna f%$# this up.” Kenny assured him he had it. My mind was going a thousand miles a minute, there was a strong crosswind, the ram was slightly quartering away as he fed downhill. The ram lifted his head and at the exact moment that in my head I was saying “now” the rifle went off. It seemed like it took forever but a fraction of a second later I heard the slap that accompanies a well placed shot. “You hit him, get ready for another one,” Kenny said. I never lost the ram in the binos and as sheep came barreling out of the bowl (a total of 6 rams) that we didn’t know were there, I stayed on my BIL’s ram. He turned to run with the others but the uphill direction they headed was too much for him, he turned back downhill, took two steps and fell over. Instantly we all started doing the stuff that most guys would be ashamed to tell others about, hugging, high fiving, hollering gibberish. The feeling I felt is something that can never be duplicated. My BIL was on his knees shaking and I couldn’t have been happier for him. An entire summers worth of working towards one specific goal had come together in the most perfect way possible. We called the other two on the radio to tell them the good news, got some great pictures, broke down the ram, and had an interesting hike down the mountain and across the flat back to where we had started 9 hours earlier. This was without a doubt one of the best days I’ve ever had.