recurveman
Well-known member
A rifle is the answer for me. I won't carry bear spray again. If the bear has decided that we are going to have a confrontation then I'm going to put lead in his direction and not a can full of spices.
Endangered Grizzly Bear Photo Thread
- Thread starter BigHornRam
- Start date
A rifle is the answer for me. I won't carry bear spray again. If the bear has decided that we are going to have a confrontation then I'm going to put lead in his direction and not a can full of spices.
Irishman
Well-known member
Good point about the unit and conditions. The area I hunted meant driving a long way up the Boulder river road, and some years by mid November you might not be able to make the drive before you start to hike. The other thing about later in the season is the short amount of daylight, and the long nights you have to spend in a cold tent - I'm getting too old for that.
recurveman
Well-known member
but your tear ducts were probably clean after a night in the tent with it.
OH you funny man!!!!!!!! Call me in October and let me know how it goes!!!!!!!!
bsmith
Active member
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2014
- Messages
- 55
It is hard to believe sheep season is just over 4 months out. I’m not able to make it out for a summer scouting mission but at least I’ve bear hunted the same area I’m heading into in September and have my potential campsites already marked on OnX from last year’s hunt. It is definitely a different feeling with a sheep tag in my pocket this time for the first time. Good luck to everyone with a tag this year! Not sure if this is the right place for this question but what size spotter do you guys use to help determine legality?
85mm. But I may just take 15x binos and no spotter this year to save the weight, because I’m not going to shoot a barely legal ram anyway. I’d rather hunt until I find a mature ram than sit at home for 7 years staring at a 25” 4.5 year old ram.
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recurveman
Well-known member
I Bring my swaro 65mm BTX. I'm thinking about getting the ATX to save a bit of weight. Not sure yet. Not sure I would give up my spotter on this hunt. I am going in with the swaro NL 12's this year instead of my 15's. Should save some weight and they are really clean with an incredible FOV. Time will tell.
BAKPAKR
Well-known member
buffybr
Well-known member
I used to hunt sheep unit 302 a lot. When it was an unlimited ram unit I took 2 rams out of it. I took my 2 Shiras moose out of it and I helped a friend get his moose in it. I think I took 6 bull elk out of it, and it was on one of those hunts where I bounced a rock off a grizz.
One year 4 of us took 6 horses in there the day before the general elk season opened (Oct 22?). We had 3 pickups, each pulling a 2-horse trailer, and with all 4 wheels chained up just to get to the trailhead. There was 2-3' of snow on the ground going in, We spent one night in our camp, it snowed all night, and the next morning we broke camp and came out. We took turns walking in front of the horses to break trail...the same trail that we has rode in on the day before. Several draws that we crossed, the snow was chest deep on the guy walking in front.
I also killed my mountain goat in that unit on November 14 of that year. We had camped in a Forest Service campground along the highway. It was -5* F when we left camp that morning. My partner had a cow elk tag there so I dropped him off a couple of drainages before where I went up after my goat. The snow was almost crotch deep up where I shot my goat. I completely skinned him out up where I shot him, and it was so cold that for much of the skinning I kept his hide over my hands to keep them from freezing.
Some of the Unlimited sheep units also used to have a limited number of late season ram tags for when the sheep left the high country and were down near their winter range. That was also back in the days when the unlimited sheep season ran from the 1st of September through the end of November, and the quota of rams wasn't filled every year.
bsmith
Active member
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2014
- Messages
- 55
True, thank you. I’d like to think I won’t shoot barely legal either. It’s a big investment in time and money coming from across the country and I want to sheep hunt many more years and don’t mind eating tags in order to live that dream. I have a vortex razor 11-33 so I’m thinking I’ll stick with it and at least see how it goes for a few years before maybe upgrading. Has worked great for my other hunts and it’s easy to carry.
The ram we killed this last season was picked up in 15s while on the move in low light. We got a spotter on him in time to confirm that he was indeed a mature ram. We went after him knowing that he wanted to kill him and 11 hours later thats exactly what happened. It would have really sucked blowing our plan apart and pushing all the way over there wondering if he was a shooter, just to lay in the sun all day waiting for him to feed out, to find out he’s not a shooter.
Bring the spotter.
Bring the spotter.
buffybr
Well-known member
I hear you about not wanting to shoot a barely legal ram. That's one of the reasons that I quit hunting the Unlimiteds, although there have been B&C rams taken out of them. And actually the last time I hunted an Unlimited unit, the day before the season opened I saw a ram that I could have easily shot that had both horns broomed off and were as long or longer than any of my bighorn rams.
Genetics and feed have a lot to do with horn growth. In the picture below, the second ram from the right is the last unlimited ram that I shot. His horns are 32" long and he is 9 1/2 years old. He would have been legal when his horns were 29" long. I actually passed on him and another ram that could have been his twin the year before.
They were close enough that I threw a walnut size rock (again) underhanded that hit one of them and they both ran up the mountain where a guided hunter shot one of them. That hunter gut shot the ram and when it ran back by me, his small intestines were dragging on the ground behind him. I couldn't stand to see that ram suffer so I followed it to the next avalanche chute and killed it. I then went back and found that hunter and her guide and took them to their ram.
When I checked one of my rams in with FWP there was another ram there that was 4 1/2 years old and his horn measurements met the B&C minimum for their Book. He wasn't shot in an unlimited unit.
shines@times
Well-known member
I always appreciate the information, and the photos, that you share. I never had stock to use, so my hunts were all shank's mare; but I sure wish I had made my way into that country a dozen years earlier than I first did.
I had a good friend up in Alaska who was a wildlife biologist. I'd gotten to know him during a couple semesters at University of Alaska in 1969-70. We'd always intended to go on a Dall sheep hunt in the Brooks Range together. Tough times saw me back in Washington helping my folks and myself eke out a living in a small town business and I lost touch with Spencer. I was reading up on elk in an Outdoor Life magazine in 1980 when I got distracted by an article about the dangers of the job for biologists and game wardens--that's how I learned my friend had been killed in a plane crash five years earlier while doing aerial surveys in the Brooks. It was there and then that I made the commitment to myself that I would go hunt sheep one way or another. The logistics still took awhile, especially since the timber sale closures precipitated by the Spotted Owl recovery plan in 1981 severely impacted our business; but by the mid 1980's I could at least say I had hunted sheep even if no 40" rams lived on the mountain.
shines@times
Well-known member
That's a damn solid bit of advice from someone all of us on this forum thread respect. What I have to add is neither contrary nor argumentative; it's just coming from a slightly different perspective and only applies to a limited number, perhaps none, of the hunters who will give the unlimited units a go in any year. If you are part of a backpacking hunting team consisting of at least two hunters, by all means pack the spotting scope in with you. If you are going at it solo, you might have to take a different approach strictly due to the weight and bulk limitations of your pack.
In the 1980's I opted for Bausch & Lomb 7x50 armored waterproof binoculars that were both bulkier and heavier than newer options available today; but I had significant experience with their extraordinary light gathering ability and their utter reliability in any weather. I would wash the glasses in the kitchen sink after duck hunts in saltwater. (Later on, I bought Fujinon binos with the same specifications but slightly lighter that, save for a lost eyecup, have been just as reliable.)
I had shot rifles mounted with 3-9x 40mm variable power scopes for decades. Wanting to stay with a variable whose lower power would still provide fairly quick target acquisition in my typical deer and elk hunting situations, but provide more magnification for judging distant rams, and stay within my budget landed me on a 6.5-20x 40mm Leupold VariXIII scope. I would have liked a wider power range and larger objective lens*; but the binoculars and rifle scope both served me well.
I never felt handicapped by my decision. I saw rams two of the three years that I hunted--I never even reached the appropriate elevations the first year--and I saw multiple rams that last year when I scored. It was always obvious to me when I was looking at a ram that was generously legal and I wasn't interested in lesser ones**. The biggest difficulty I had was closing the distance on rams that were on the move during rut activity.
*Even though I had pushed for larger objective lenses on rifle scopes every time I got to talk to factory reps, I could not sway those I spoke to in those earlier days. Swarovski built 56mm bells on 30mm tubes at the time, but they were out of the reach of my money.
** In a posting to this thread a couple years ago that I titled "More Than One Way To Miss A Ram" I described how I did intently study a barely legal ram for awhile at relatively close range before it finally dawned on me why I had missed a bigger and obviously legal (even viewed head-on) ram a mere hour or two earlier. There is a "know your gear" lesson embedded in that anecdote, and highly I recommend reading it to anyone acquiring new gear for their first sheep hunt, even if they think they've broken in and familiarized themselves with the new stuff.
Here is a link for new readers of this thread who don't think they want to wade through 106 pages of posts, though I would suggest that they do precisely that if they are serious about pursuing Bighorn sheep in the unlimited units. I don't know whether or not health and circumstances will allow me to return to the high plateaus of the Beartooth country--it is looking more doubtful with each missed season--but I do know that I have gained much more from this forum and thread than I have contributed. https://www.hunttalk.com/threads/mt-unlimited.265075/page-20#post-2690229
Added note: There are some great photos posted by other HuntTalk members in the pages surrounding my "...Miss A Ram" sob story. Check them out!
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recurveman
Well-known member
I owned the razor 11X33. Leave it in the truck for this hunt. You need something much better glass than that for hunting in the UL's. If you want the razor line then look at their bigger glass.
Swaro 115 BTX minimum
recurveman
Well-known member
If weight wasn't an issue I would have it up there........plus a bigger tripod!!!!!!!!!
Could prob offset the weight by leaving stuff at home that you wont use. Like a rifle!
All kidding aside I'm sure it would be pretty awesome after you got it up there.
Always trying to find ways to shave a little weight and I already feel I'm a little on the heavy side packing an 80 over a 65.
Looking at the weight it would be about like me packing my scope twice!
recurveman
Well-known member
Could prob offset the weight by leaving stuff at home that you wont use. Like a rifle!
All kidding aside I'm sure it would be pretty awesome after you got it up there.
Always trying to find ways to shave a little weight and I already feel I'm a little on the heavy side packing an 80 over a 65.
Looking at the weight it would be about like me packing my scope twice!
Me and my rifle are best friends when I'm in the UL's. I don't think it ever gets out of reach the entire time. I have been adding weight to certain areas of my pack and taking weight from other areas. It's kind of a game and there really is no finish line.
