Sorry for waiting so long to post a story, but I'm waiting on getting the pics from BOY. Anyway...
We flew into the river with all our rafting gear only to find out that 4 of Mr. Outfitters crew were 25mins behind us coming into the same landing strip. They had flown in 3 rafts and river guides the day before. They land and are gone before we are even set up! In talking with the river guides, we learned that they were heading to the exact same camp and hill that we were planning on going to!
Here we are loading the plane:
We hit the river with the 14' raft loaded about as heavy as can be. The river was fairly uneventful except for me catching an oar to the back of the head, nearly knocking me out and losing my ball cap in the process... We finally make camp about 3/4 mile upstream from where Mr. Outfitter is supposed to be and make a plan the next day to get up the hill and try to see some country they can't. Here's a pic of 'River Camp'.
The next morning, after a good breakfast of chorizo and eggs we load up the packs with all the camp and hunting gear we'll need for up to 4 nights. Then not knowing the water situation on the hill we each pack about 3.5 gallons of water! We cross the river and get up the hill and finally find a flat spot to make camp.
Checking my GPS, I'm pretty bummed to find out we're only 0.6 miles from the river, but we are over 2600 feet higher. We glass a bit before dark, seeing nothing but 3 of Mr. Outfitter's folks on the hill where we intended to be... Here's a view back down towards the river.
On the 5th we climb to another vantage point to glass up a big, big drainage running to the northeast. The climb is another MF classic, go about 0.5 miles over and 0.5 miles up... All through the morning we see no game, nothing. Shortly after lunch we start hearing echoing knocks...like someone's rapping on a hollow log. We keep glassing and finally BOY spots 7 rams on taking turns rubbing a tree and knocking heads!! We could just make them out well enough in the spotter to know that at least 4 of them were legal and 2 looked pretty decent. The plan evolves to me staying where we are currently camped with an eye to the spotter while BOY grabs some food and his bivy and takes off to try to get to that hill by the next morning. BOY takes off and I get all 7 rams accounted for before turning in. The sheep are that way...
Bright and early the next morning I'm up and on the scope, but can only see 2 rams and only for a short while. BOY got a bit turned around in the dark the previous evening, but finally gets his bearings and heads up to where we had seen the sheep the previous afternoon. Once there he finds no sheep, just lots of sign and some of it very fresh! He starts down the hill following the sign, moving as quietly as possible, but as anyone who's hoofed it in this country knows rocks can and will roll on you at anytime. About that time he hears a rock roll...then another. Looking across a canyon he sees a ram step out from behind a rock at about 300yds. He steps to a limb, BOOM...crack. The ram turns up hill and he takes a Texas Heart Shot...BOOM...crack! It steps out from behind a tree and he takes a shot at the neck and whiffs. All of the sudden the legs go wobbly and he's down. I'm about 87% asleep 1.5 miles away at this time and hear, "Ram down" on the radio!!!
So BOY starts getting pictures and processing the critter while I pack up all our camp and head back to the river. The plan is for BOY to get all the meat, hide, horns ready and start packing it down the creek the next day while I hike up the creek to meet him. We meet up and I take the boned out meat and we finally make it back to the river. Then it's time for cocktails and sharing the story with his dad who had been at the river the whole time. Here's a view of the creek I got the 'priviledge' of crawling up...
We stayed one more night at that camp and then starting the float out. In passing Mr. Outfitter's camp we learned that they have been having a very hard time finding any rams for the client. So, I guess it turned out that them taking 'our' spot didn't work out so bad for us... Here are the three amigos with the prize:
All in all it was a great trip in some of the raspiest, steepest country I've been in. While I'm glad to have been able to help out with this trip, I'm not too certain that I'll be putting in for sheep there. The jury's still out on whether the two trips I've made into the MF country has whetted or quenched my desire to shoot a sheep...
We flew into the river with all our rafting gear only to find out that 4 of Mr. Outfitters crew were 25mins behind us coming into the same landing strip. They had flown in 3 rafts and river guides the day before. They land and are gone before we are even set up! In talking with the river guides, we learned that they were heading to the exact same camp and hill that we were planning on going to!
Here we are loading the plane:
We hit the river with the 14' raft loaded about as heavy as can be. The river was fairly uneventful except for me catching an oar to the back of the head, nearly knocking me out and losing my ball cap in the process... We finally make camp about 3/4 mile upstream from where Mr. Outfitter is supposed to be and make a plan the next day to get up the hill and try to see some country they can't. Here's a pic of 'River Camp'.
The next morning, after a good breakfast of chorizo and eggs we load up the packs with all the camp and hunting gear we'll need for up to 4 nights. Then not knowing the water situation on the hill we each pack about 3.5 gallons of water! We cross the river and get up the hill and finally find a flat spot to make camp.
Checking my GPS, I'm pretty bummed to find out we're only 0.6 miles from the river, but we are over 2600 feet higher. We glass a bit before dark, seeing nothing but 3 of Mr. Outfitter's folks on the hill where we intended to be... Here's a view back down towards the river.
On the 5th we climb to another vantage point to glass up a big, big drainage running to the northeast. The climb is another MF classic, go about 0.5 miles over and 0.5 miles up... All through the morning we see no game, nothing. Shortly after lunch we start hearing echoing knocks...like someone's rapping on a hollow log. We keep glassing and finally BOY spots 7 rams on taking turns rubbing a tree and knocking heads!! We could just make them out well enough in the spotter to know that at least 4 of them were legal and 2 looked pretty decent. The plan evolves to me staying where we are currently camped with an eye to the spotter while BOY grabs some food and his bivy and takes off to try to get to that hill by the next morning. BOY takes off and I get all 7 rams accounted for before turning in. The sheep are that way...
Bright and early the next morning I'm up and on the scope, but can only see 2 rams and only for a short while. BOY got a bit turned around in the dark the previous evening, but finally gets his bearings and heads up to where we had seen the sheep the previous afternoon. Once there he finds no sheep, just lots of sign and some of it very fresh! He starts down the hill following the sign, moving as quietly as possible, but as anyone who's hoofed it in this country knows rocks can and will roll on you at anytime. About that time he hears a rock roll...then another. Looking across a canyon he sees a ram step out from behind a rock at about 300yds. He steps to a limb, BOOM...crack. The ram turns up hill and he takes a Texas Heart Shot...BOOM...crack! It steps out from behind a tree and he takes a shot at the neck and whiffs. All of the sudden the legs go wobbly and he's down. I'm about 87% asleep 1.5 miles away at this time and hear, "Ram down" on the radio!!!
So BOY starts getting pictures and processing the critter while I pack up all our camp and head back to the river. The plan is for BOY to get all the meat, hide, horns ready and start packing it down the creek the next day while I hike up the creek to meet him. We meet up and I take the boned out meat and we finally make it back to the river. Then it's time for cocktails and sharing the story with his dad who had been at the river the whole time. Here's a view of the creek I got the 'priviledge' of crawling up...
We stayed one more night at that camp and then starting the float out. In passing Mr. Outfitter's camp we learned that they have been having a very hard time finding any rams for the client. So, I guess it turned out that them taking 'our' spot didn't work out so bad for us... Here are the three amigos with the prize:
All in all it was a great trip in some of the raspiest, steepest country I've been in. While I'm glad to have been able to help out with this trip, I'm not too certain that I'll be putting in for sheep there. The jury's still out on whether the two trips I've made into the MF country has whetted or quenched my desire to shoot a sheep...
