White Mountains Sheep Hunt 2023

highsierra · Nov 1, 2023

After 13 days spent on the mountain this year in search of a mature, “legal to take” ram we only managed to located three. One was found preseason north of White Mountain, and the other two were south of the mountain near Barcroft station. One to the south was actually taken by another hunter several days after Kenny (tag holder) had chose to pass on it (was legal…but not by much). In years past, it has not been uncommon to see 10 to 20 mature Rams a day in certain areas of this mountain range. This has was not the case for us nor any of the other hunters that were awarded this permit in 2023. In the end, only one ram was harvested out of 6 tag holders.

So….Why the big change?
Was it winter mortality?
Disease?
Increased predation?
Have they relocated to some new area?

These are all questions at the California Department of Fish and wildlife need to find answers for.

What we can say for sure from direct, first hand experience is that the age class of rams targeted for harvest appears to be almost completely non-existent from this hunting unit now.

Additionally, on one day our group personally spotted five dead sheep carcasses… All mature Rams that appear to be from the last year (fresh).

Nevertheless, our time exploring the Whites was not entirely unsuccessful. We experienced some of most incredible country that this state has in the pursuit of what is arguably the most iconic symbols of what is truly wild.

Snoopdogg · Nov 2, 2023

Disappointing. Was any of the six tag holders guided?

Did you boys pick up any deadheads?

Homer · Nov 2, 2023

All age groups down similarly?

Syncerus1 · Nov 2, 2023

Highsierra, first off congrats on all the effort expended in one of the truly wild NA wilderness regions. You have now seen first hand the desolation that encompasses the White Mts. high, dry, oxygen starved elevations. Many would have given up and packed it in very early on. The efforts required to reach the hunting areas in these "hills" is extreme enough to test anyone's resolve, mule ride in or not. If you hiked in 10x more congrats. It seems the CalDFG is paying its staff to show up and contribute reports/biologist comments on a random basis, or just a copy and paste of past results. Shameful, on so many levels, to waste a once in a lifetime tag for a valued species opportunity and have a very minimal chance at any real success... I feel for you personally. NAS Fallon, who controls sheep access to about 70% of the unit I drew in NV, decided to "limit access" for over 60% of the season to constrain hunt days. Ostensibly as the Navy needs to run more bombing exercises at a greater than past years pace, so they may have Christmas off, and leave December 15 - 31 to the hunters so they may experience the hunt... I feel your pain...

Homer · Nov 2, 2023

Syncerus1 said:
Highsierra, first off congrats on all the effort expended in one of the truly wild NA wilderness regions. You have now seen first hand the desolation that encompasses the White Mts. high, dry, oxygen starved elevations. Many would have given up and packed it in very early on. The efforts required to reach the hunting areas in these "hills" is extreme enough to test anyone's resolve, mule ride in or not. If you hiked in 10x more congrats. It seems the CalDFG is paying its staff to show up and contribute reports/biologist comments on a random basis, or just a copy and paste of past results. Shameful, on so many levels, to waste a once in a lifetime tag for a valued species opportunity and have a very minimal chance at any real success... I feel for you personally. NAS Fallon, who controls sheep access to about 70% of the unit I drew in NV, decided to "limit access" for over 60% of the season to constrain hunt days. Ostensibly as the Navy needs to run more bombing exercises at a greater than past years pace, so they may have Christmas off, and leave December 15 - 31 to the hunters so they may experience the hunt... I feel your pain...

....you do realize that Highsierra is the outfitter and knows the whites as well as anyone??....he's the scrawny tough one on the right in the pic of 3.....

highsierra · Nov 2, 2023

Snoopdogg said:
Disappointing. Was any of the six tag holders guided?

Did you boys pick up any deadheads?

Unfortunately, it is Illegal to pick up the deadheads.

Four of the other hunters were guided by Dry Creek. Only one was successful… And he shot the small ram that we passed up several days prior. The other three hunters supposedly never saw a ram. Terrible

highsierra · Nov 2, 2023

Homer said:
....you do realize that Highsierra is the outfitter and knows the whites as well as anyone??....he's the scrawny tough one on the right in the pic of 3.....

Nope… The guy on the right is Josh Schlugen, owner/operator of Sierra Crest Outfitters. Josh was kind enough to offer to assist on several of our shorter trips. Great guy. He was with us the day that we found the five dead heads.

I’m the guy on the left!

highsierra · Nov 2, 2023

Syncerus1 said:
Highsierra, first off congrats on all the effort expended in one of the truly wild NA wilderness regions. You have now seen first hand the desolation that encompasses the White Mts. high, dry, oxygen starved elevations. Many would have given up and packed it in very early on. The efforts required to reach the hunting areas in these "hills" is extreme enough to test anyone's resolve, mule ride in or not. If you hiked in 10x more congrats. It seems the CalDFG is paying its staff to show up and contribute reports/biologist comments on a random basis, or just a copy and paste of past results. Shameful, on so many levels, to waste a once in a lifetime tag for a valued species opportunity and have a very minimal chance at any real success... I feel for you personally. NAS Fallon, who controls sheep access to about 70% of the unit I drew in NV, decided to "limit access" for over 60% of the season to constrain hunt days. Ostensibly as the Navy needs to run more bombing exercises at a greater than past years pace, so they may have Christmas off, and leave December 15 - 31 to the hunters so they may experience the hunt... I feel your pain...

The Whites are truly a special place. I’ve been doing trips in there for many, many years now, and feel fortunate that at least a good friend of mine drew the tag and allowed me to help plan and carry out his hunt. We did backpack in several times. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart. Without the right gear and, most importantly, experience, someone could really get into trouble back in there. The majority of the Rams that we did find were all located around the 13,000 foot elevation level. Not an easy place to reach on your own two feet when you’re starting at around 9000 with fully loaded packs!

highsierra · Nov 2, 2023

Homer said:
All age groups down similarly?

Hard to say. We did see several bands of sub-legal rams, so there is some hope for the future. What I can say is that I’ve gone into the whites a lot over the years and I’ve never had an issue finding large mature rams. Just two or three years ago we had three different bands within sight of our main camp, all with at least one or more older, trophy, class, ram in them. This year it was nothing like that. I’ve never worked so hard to see so little.

ElmerFudd · Nov 3, 2023

Thanks for sharing. Were sheep numbers in general way down or just mature rams? I would think disease would have taken every sex and age class down. Maybe the heavy rains allowed the older rams to move further and away from normal haunts and water sources which they like to do? But then the carcasses... Hopefully it wasn't a die off. Maybe DFG will figure it out.

Hate to think this, but if it was only big ram skeletons you found, maybe poachers? What else would be that selective?

Prime_Beef · Nov 3, 2023

ElmerFudd said:
Thanks for sharing. Were sheep numbers in general way down or just mature rams? I would think disease would have taken every sex and age class down. Maybe the heavy rains allowed the older rams to move further and away from normal haunts and water sources which they like to do? But then the carcasses... Hopefully it wasn't a die off. Maybe DFG will figure it out.

Hate to think this, but if it was only big ram skeletons you found, maybe poachers? What else would be that selective?

Lions.

Great pics, btw. I've hunted in the Whites, though not that high!

highsierra · Nov 3, 2023

ElmerFudd said:
Thanks for sharing. Were sheep numbers in general way down or just mature rams? I would think disease would have taken every sex and age class down. Maybe the heavy rains allowed the older rams to move further and away from normal haunts and water sources which they like to do? But then the carcasses... Hopefully it wasn't a die off. Maybe DFG will figure it out.

Hate to think this, but if it was only big ram skeletons you found, maybe poachers? What else would be that selective?

Our working theory is that the early storms that hit last fall pushed the ewes and younger age class animals off the mountain. The older Rams, like big buck deer, tend to hang back and migrate down later. Our thought is that the ones that hung back got caught in some of those really nasty storms that came a little bit later… Probably buried them. That could explain the selective die off.

Poachers are typically lazy… There’s no way a lazy individual would expend the effort to get up to where these Rams died.

Both our group as well as the Dry Creek team, searched high and low and everywhere in between. Lots of eyes with lots of experience finding rams were involved. Trust me when I say the big rams that used to inhabit the Whites in large numbers just weren’t there. Finding all the dead rams that we did combined with what Dry Creek supposedly found tells a very sad story.

DFW is investigating.

backcountrybutcher · Nov 3, 2023

Dang! Tough experience. Hunting can be brutal.

backcountrybutcher · Nov 3, 2023

@BradA

Wiszard · Nov 3, 2023

13,000 feet? I spent a little bit of time at 10,000 feet a month ago and realized it's A LOT different than the 225 feet elevation that I exercised for the hunt at. LOL. You can't really "train" for lack of oxygen. You guys are studs. At least you enjoyed yourselves and made it successful just by the experience. I give you kudos. I couldn't do it and I am only 52.

ElmerFudd · Nov 4, 2023

This is about California Bighorns across Owens Valley. The storms were tough on them.

California's Big Snow Year Decimated Endangered Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep

Half of all Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep tracked by scientists died last winter, leaving a total population of around 360 animals.

laist.com

Rie bread · Nov 4, 2023

ElmerFudd said:
This is about California Bighorns across Owens Valley. The storms were tough on them.

California's Big Snow Year Decimated Endangered Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep

Half of all Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep tracked by scientists died last winter, leaving a total population of around 360 animals.

laist.com

Make sense

muleyczy · Nov 5, 2023

highsierra said:
Our working theory is that the early storms that hit last fall pushed the ewes and younger age class animals off the mountain. The older Rams, like big buck deer, tend to hang back and migrate down later. Our thought is that the ones that hung back got caught in some of those really nasty storms that came a little bit later… Probably buried them. That could explain the selective die off.

Poachers are typically lazy… There’s no way a lazy individual would expend the effort to get up to where these Rams died.

Both our group as well as the Dry Creek team, searched high and low and everywhere in between. Lots of eyes with lots of experience finding rams were involved. Trust me when I say the big rams that used to inhabit the Whites in large numbers just weren’t there. Finding all the dead rams that we did combined with what Dry Creek supposedly found tells a very sad story.

DFW is investigating.

Who is the bio for the whites? Is it still Mike?