OIL '24 California Bighorn Sheep Hunt

dgfavor · Oct 15, 2024

TKMP · Oct 15, 2024

Awesome video! Congrats!

yoteduster · Oct 15, 2024

Cool video and congrats on your ram...

treedagain · Oct 15, 2024

Great ram Doug, you put in alot of work and it showed. So happy for you.

LIK2HNT · Oct 15, 2024

Great video!!
How many sheep do you think you looked at? That one picture had more than I could count.

jic3558 · Oct 15, 2024

nice ram. surely not unit 41

twdjr · Oct 16, 2024

Congrats!

dgfavor · Oct 16, 2024

treedagain said:
Great ram Doug, you put in alot of work and it showed. So happy for you.

Thanks Jim and thanks again for the help. That big group of white butts is right where Rick mentioned seeing good rams in past. I thought, or imagined, I could see one decent mature ram in with them, hiked in, relocated them, and set up at 300yds but nothing but a few young rams running the show. So fun! Catch n release!!

Unbelievable outpouring of help and info from literally everyone including MM members. Multiple times other hunters after other game voluntarily and insistently abandoned their hunting plans in same area/draw/ canyon when they learned I was after a ram. So humbling.

Re. Number of sheep I saw. I am now self declared expert of finding lambs, ewes and banana head rams! I may well have found all of them in the unit which is estimated to be 120'ish. Mature rams were much more difficult to not only locate but then observe - they seem to survive by being random and just on the move. Based on Biologist numbers I may have seen 1/4 to 1/3 of mature class 3/4 rams. Per Biologist my ram is "for sure 9.5yo, possibly 10.5yo" so I do feel I bagged one of the oldest in the unit. The unit is not a big ram unit. The other tag holder bagged a great ram that I'm told is the largest ever taken in the unit. It's a beautiful ram, a tank...but score wise at 166 would be overlooked in most other ID units. This unit to me is all about the chance to experience hunting sheep and was just so fun!!

Snuck in to 60yds, sniped him standing on a basalt rock outcropping quartering away looking out over nothing but blue sky and space. At the shot he disappeared off into space then immediately him and 4 other smaller rams came running right back at us. My ram stiffened up, tipped over, and died literally at my feet maybe 20yds away. Unforgettable.

Rick Irvin · Oct 16, 2024

Thanks for posting, what caliber were you shooting?

dgfavor · Oct 16, 2024

Rick Irvin said:
Thanks for posting, what caliber were you shooting?

I was shooting a 6.5-300 Wby. I waffled back and forth over 143gr eld-x or 129gr Hammers...ended up using the 143gr eld-x. I just got marginally more consistent groups with them but both were generally around 3/4moa...not that it would have mattered at 60yds..
Gotta say the carbon Stocky's VG2 stock in Strata was a good camo match - had to look around for my rifle a couple times setting it down!