DonMartin
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After being fortunate to be on Jerry Weier's sheep hunt in Unit 15D North in northwest Arizona,the AWO team then headed over to assist AWO guide Tad Levandowski on his hunt with Colorado resident Jerry Uzyn. It was like going from the Garden of Eden to the Sahara Desert!
Here is the background on how this hunt came together.
Uzyn drew this tag amazingly with just 8 bonus points, but as he learned, hunting sheep in this unit is nothing like he expected!
I had met Jerry last summer in Las Vegas after he found out he had drawn tag number 1 out of the three that were issued for this unit, which is located in the northwest corner of Mohave County, 70 miles north of Kingman, and northeast of Hoover Dam.
If you have ever driven to Las Vegas on Highway 93, then you have passed the western boundary of the unit.
Highway 93 is the western boundary, while the Temple Bar Road is the southern and eastern boundary.
We at Arizona Wildlife Outfitters have been hunting sheep there for many years.
Not many other guides have ventured into here I think for a couple of reasons.
First of all, generally the rams in this unit aren't very big; and many hunters think that just because they aren't gonna make Arizona book or Boone & Crockett, they don't need a to pay the prices that some Arizona guides charge for their hunts.
Second of all, a lot of guides in Arizona just don't want to have a smaller ram pictured on their websites of successful hunters, so they tend to concentrate on the "GLORY" units down south.
That is fine with me, as we truly are a service that works more closely with the "blue collar" kind of hunter, rather than the "rich and famous."
One just needs to compare price lists to see right away what the difference is.
But back to Jerry Uzyn's sheep story.
Jerry, like a lot of sheep hunters, really didn't expect to draw a sheep tag in Arizona, and he sure didn't know what kind of sheep call this unit home.
He initially told me he wanted a book ram, and while there has occasionally been a book ram taken in this unit in the past 15 years, with the long term drought, and now disease issues in this unit, finding a book ram would be like searching for a needle in a haystack or maybe even a ghost!
I told Jerry this information and he decided he wanted to look at the unit. So last August, it was decided that we would take my jet boat out and search for sheep. I knew what we would (or in this case, wouldn't find) but with this being a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, off we went.
A day on Lake Mead produced a sighting of just three burros, no sheep, and an old sunken boat!
The next day, with temperatures well over 100 degrees, we made a day trip into the back country.
Again, nothing was seen, except wild horse that aren't suppose to be there (that's another story!)
But it was a good learning experience to show Jerry where we would find sheep in December.
Note to future sheep hunters here. Unless you just want to drive around and learn the roads, don't bother to go scouting until later in the fall. The unit manager told me that he wouldn't start scouting until early November, and he is right. Those sheep spend a lot of time in Unit 15C North in the summer along the Colorado River.
Since I was going to be with Jerry Weiers on his 15D North hunt, Tad got the call and knew he was in for a potentially very long, and tough hunt.
Tad went up and scouted the unit in between fall hunting assignments with AWO, and he found exactly what we thought he would see. Not much.
The Game & Fish Department in Region 3 conducted aerial surveys in the unit in October and found that sheep numbers were down about 15%.
The most distressing news was they had seen just ONE ram that they though would score over 150, and that they had not seen any Class 4 rams!
So Tad and Jerry had their work cut out for them.
Trying to find a ram that would score over 150 and hopefully had some age on him would be their goal.
There are three sheep overpasses that were built across Highway 93 that each year save a lot of sheep up there. Tad even put up cameras to see what if any sheep, including rams, were crossing over into the unit from 15C North.
The start of the season found Tad and Jerry in the area that the AZ G&F Dept. had found the ONLY ram they though would go 150. They were joined by good friend and sheep aficionado Mike Samer, who comes up every year and spends some time with us glassing for sheep.
Problem was that ram was gone, or at least no one, including the AWO team, could find him.
The other two hunters in the unit were also perplexed after their pre-season sheep scouting trips didn't produce any big ram sightings.
On Day 2 of the hunt, one of the hunters got lucky when he reportedly spotted a band of five rams crossing over from Unit 15C North, and one of them was an old, mature ram.
He waited till they got into 15B West and decided to take the ram, which turned out to be 8 years old and scored 150.
A legal ram for sure, and a good decision by this hunter.
Was that ram a 15B West ram that had gone to the river, got a drink and was coming back home? Or maybe he and his friends were just out for a walk about and decided to visit Unit 15B West? We'll never know for sure, but we do know that AZ G&F had not spotted this ram on their October survey. It is anyone's call.
The hunter reported that counting that ram band, had seen just 9 sheep in the two days that he hunted. 6 rams, two ewes and one lamb.
On Day 3 Tad learned that we had been successful on Jerry Weiers sheep hunt in Unit 15D North, and were heading up to help. More eyes, more help and hopefully more sheep. Ryan Chan, Jay Chan,Laura Borden and I came on scene.
More help did turn up more sheep, and even a few rams, but nothing like we wanted.
This hunt was going to go exactly as I had predicted: long and tough!
On Sunday, Day 9 of the hunt, Tad and Jerry spoke with the other hunter in the unit who shared that he hadn't seen much.
Later that day I heard four gun shots in the area I was glassing and it turned out to be this hunter.
He had seen a single ram that looked old.
He decided to take it. Turned out to be a 6 year old ram that scored 135.
Now after 9 days, Jerry was the only tag holder left.
Here is the background on how this hunt came together.
Uzyn drew this tag amazingly with just 8 bonus points, but as he learned, hunting sheep in this unit is nothing like he expected!
I had met Jerry last summer in Las Vegas after he found out he had drawn tag number 1 out of the three that were issued for this unit, which is located in the northwest corner of Mohave County, 70 miles north of Kingman, and northeast of Hoover Dam.
If you have ever driven to Las Vegas on Highway 93, then you have passed the western boundary of the unit.
Highway 93 is the western boundary, while the Temple Bar Road is the southern and eastern boundary.
We at Arizona Wildlife Outfitters have been hunting sheep there for many years.
Not many other guides have ventured into here I think for a couple of reasons.
First of all, generally the rams in this unit aren't very big; and many hunters think that just because they aren't gonna make Arizona book or Boone & Crockett, they don't need a to pay the prices that some Arizona guides charge for their hunts.
Second of all, a lot of guides in Arizona just don't want to have a smaller ram pictured on their websites of successful hunters, so they tend to concentrate on the "GLORY" units down south.
That is fine with me, as we truly are a service that works more closely with the "blue collar" kind of hunter, rather than the "rich and famous."
One just needs to compare price lists to see right away what the difference is.
But back to Jerry Uzyn's sheep story.
Jerry, like a lot of sheep hunters, really didn't expect to draw a sheep tag in Arizona, and he sure didn't know what kind of sheep call this unit home.
He initially told me he wanted a book ram, and while there has occasionally been a book ram taken in this unit in the past 15 years, with the long term drought, and now disease issues in this unit, finding a book ram would be like searching for a needle in a haystack or maybe even a ghost!
I told Jerry this information and he decided he wanted to look at the unit. So last August, it was decided that we would take my jet boat out and search for sheep. I knew what we would (or in this case, wouldn't find) but with this being a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, off we went.
A day on Lake Mead produced a sighting of just three burros, no sheep, and an old sunken boat!
The next day, with temperatures well over 100 degrees, we made a day trip into the back country.
Again, nothing was seen, except wild horse that aren't suppose to be there (that's another story!)
But it was a good learning experience to show Jerry where we would find sheep in December.
Note to future sheep hunters here. Unless you just want to drive around and learn the roads, don't bother to go scouting until later in the fall. The unit manager told me that he wouldn't start scouting until early November, and he is right. Those sheep spend a lot of time in Unit 15C North in the summer along the Colorado River.
Since I was going to be with Jerry Weiers on his 15D North hunt, Tad got the call and knew he was in for a potentially very long, and tough hunt.
Tad went up and scouted the unit in between fall hunting assignments with AWO, and he found exactly what we thought he would see. Not much.
The Game & Fish Department in Region 3 conducted aerial surveys in the unit in October and found that sheep numbers were down about 15%.
The most distressing news was they had seen just ONE ram that they though would score over 150, and that they had not seen any Class 4 rams!
So Tad and Jerry had their work cut out for them.
Trying to find a ram that would score over 150 and hopefully had some age on him would be their goal.
There are three sheep overpasses that were built across Highway 93 that each year save a lot of sheep up there. Tad even put up cameras to see what if any sheep, including rams, were crossing over into the unit from 15C North.
The start of the season found Tad and Jerry in the area that the AZ G&F Dept. had found the ONLY ram they though would go 150. They were joined by good friend and sheep aficionado Mike Samer, who comes up every year and spends some time with us glassing for sheep.
Problem was that ram was gone, or at least no one, including the AWO team, could find him.
The other two hunters in the unit were also perplexed after their pre-season sheep scouting trips didn't produce any big ram sightings.
On Day 2 of the hunt, one of the hunters got lucky when he reportedly spotted a band of five rams crossing over from Unit 15C North, and one of them was an old, mature ram.
He waited till they got into 15B West and decided to take the ram, which turned out to be 8 years old and scored 150.
A legal ram for sure, and a good decision by this hunter.
Was that ram a 15B West ram that had gone to the river, got a drink and was coming back home? Or maybe he and his friends were just out for a walk about and decided to visit Unit 15B West? We'll never know for sure, but we do know that AZ G&F had not spotted this ram on their October survey. It is anyone's call.
The hunter reported that counting that ram band, had seen just 9 sheep in the two days that he hunted. 6 rams, two ewes and one lamb.
On Day 3 Tad learned that we had been successful on Jerry Weiers sheep hunt in Unit 15D North, and were heading up to help. More eyes, more help and hopefully more sheep. Ryan Chan, Jay Chan,Laura Borden and I came on scene.
More help did turn up more sheep, and even a few rams, but nothing like we wanted.
This hunt was going to go exactly as I had predicted: long and tough!
On Sunday, Day 9 of the hunt, Tad and Jerry spoke with the other hunter in the unit who shared that he hadn't seen much.
Later that day I heard four gun shots in the area I was glassing and it turned out to be this hunter.
He had seen a single ram that looked old.
He decided to take it. Turned out to be a 6 year old ram that scored 135.
Now after 9 days, Jerry was the only tag holder left.
