2021 desert sheep adventure

mevertsen

Very Active Member
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I drew a Nevada 213 late ram tag this year.

My daughter hunted it in 2019 for ewes and was successful on opening morning.

I have been going to the area off and on for the last 10 years as it has intrigued me. It's one of the last remnant herds of central Nevada at the low point in 1960.

Pretty interesting herd. It's not known for big rams, with the biggest the last 3 seasons being 155.

We went scouting last week. We saw a total of 65 sheep. 25 rams. One stood out to me. I will be making one or two more scouting trips down there plus one or two days before the hunt opens.

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Congratulations on drawing the tag. Good luck and looking forward to following this and seeing how you do .
 
Sheep tags are rare indeed, especially desert sheep. If it were my tag, I'd milk every bit of adventure I could out of that hunt. Leave nothing on the table and have no regrets going forward.
Congratulations.

That's the plan. I have two more scouting trips planned prior to the hunt plus a couple days prior.

It sure is a special tag!
 
I’m going to ask what we all are thinking. How much dog food do you go through a week?
 
That’s a great follow up question.
Another great follow up question... Where do all the people fit in your truck with all those canines?
I'd like to see your camp all packed up! (ala Beverly Hillbillies?):ROFLMAO:

Really though, it's cool you are including everyone in the fun...even us.
 
I would have to dig up a photo. But all the gear goes on the 5x10 trailer. The truck has a near full length dog box which is flush with the bed rails and a tool box behind the cab. It's secured to the cargo hooks. Four dogs per side. The two small dogs just rode up front. I don't have a higher dog box because I like being incognito. I have had negative interactions in the past, and found a way to avoid them altogether. If you don't know my truck, you wouldn't know there are dogs in it.

Also. Really not too loud. Our geese make more noise than my hounds do at the house and the dogs are quieter when we are camping.

In the 4 days we were down there, we never saw another person, so no traffic to get them wound up helps. We ran them to exercise while we were there.

As far as the shih tzu? They're hounds, not t rex dinosaurs. They all get along quite well. It's rather funny watching the mop dog get drug around by the neck by one of the hounds.

Also,we have a 55 gallon water jug and 4 6 gallon water jugs we take with us for dry camping. I really like dry camping in inhospitable places....

Less people and I can run my dogs wit no interference.
 
Congrats on drawing that tag, that is a special place. My dad had the early tag last year and we had an incredible experience. I am happy to share any information I can with you if interested. We spent 8 days on the unit and my dad killed our target ram on opening day. Ended up being one of the better rams to come off the unit in recent years. Soak it all in, these experiences don't come along to often in ones life. I put this video together of my dads hunt.
 
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Congratulations on the tag. Hope you have a blast. Put in for the same tag after watching CGH’s video on YouTube and looked like a special type of hunt. Drive past the area regularly going deer hunting and hope to hunt it in the future. Hope to see your story and best of luck.
 
I haven't done an update on this forum yet. Truck is mostly loaded and i am now 5 wakeups away from leaving. My dad and father in law are going with me.

My dad has been with me on my first deer and elk. This will be his first ever time in the sheep hills. My father in law was able to be on my daughter's ewe hunt in this unit two years ago. Pretty excited.
 
My dad, father in law and myself, along with 5 dogs left my house before noon on Tuesday the 7th. We arrived in camp around 6 that evening and had everything set up by about 10 or so. This left us a full day of scouting the next day prior to the opener on the 9th.

It was quite pleasant all day. My dad and I left camp before sunrise to scout for a bit. We found 3 sheep right off, then 4 ewes and a 5 year old ram prior to returning to camp for breakfast. We went out later and ended the day with a total of 35 sheep spotted with one ram I guessed to be 7 years old or so. My friend from Reno arrived around 11 that night.

That night it started raining, which turned to snow and wind, and more snow. Opening day was miserable with no sheep spotted.

That night got into the low teens. We started the next morning in the valley floor and worked our way up. Well into the snow, we came across a lion track, which I thought was very fresh, but turns out had to have been made shortly after the wind quit the night before. All 4 of us had lion tags, so I turned the dogs loose. The track bailed out of the mountains and right down to the valley floor, likely headed to the next moutain range.

After a couple hours, we had recovered 3 of my 5 dogs. Two were still unaccounted for. My dad and father in law were in the same truck, and my dad had enough with the cold. He doesnt do well due to his blood thinners due to strokes he's had. (Read "A deer hanging in camp" from October). He decided to head to camp and then go home. My father in law went with him to help him out.

Andy and I then continued on to look for the other two dogs, which now had pinged 4 miles west. We also found two sets of dog tracks headed that direction. The problem there was 4 miles line of sight was more like 12 or 14 on the road. At about 1230 we got into the area and got a ping again, which was quickly lost, so I knew they were still moving.

So we decided to just sit and glass for a moment when Andy spotted a band of 4 rams. We set up the spotter and identified 2 young rams, a slightly older ram, and a much mature,, heavier ram than the other 3.

It took a moment, but Andy concinved me I was going to kill that ram. We had to move down the road some, and make about a mile and a quarter stalk to get into range. The stalk would be blind, with no one else to spot.

Prior to leaving the truck, Andy gets my gun out and notices the bell had fog in it. I confirmed, and it was cloudy, but I could still see. The only other spare I had in the truck was my 30-30. I was not worried about the cross hairs, and we had good light, so we went for it.

At about 215, we arroved about 300 yards from the prominent rockpile which was our anchor point. We had not seen the sheep for over an hour. There was one rock that I wanted to get to which would put me within about 200 yards of where we last saw them bedded.

Andy and I talked on the way up and figured things were going to go one of two ways. It was going to be a fast and furious goat rope, or we were going to be laying up in the snow and wind until sunset waiting on them to move.

We made it to the rock with no problems, but could not see the bedding spot yet. As I crept a little farther out on the rock pile, I had sheep now 20 yards below me. They had gotten up to feed, and when I showed myself, they went right back to the chute they were bedded near. I had a matter of 2 or 3 seconds to make a decision and a shot. The lead ram happened to be the one I wanted, and even in my fogged scope, he was clear. I had a split second where he paused befoe topping out to put a bullet in the right spot with a very steep (10 degrees at best?) quartering away shot. As soon as the crosshairs touched just to the left of his spine abou mid body, I touched one off.

All the rams made it over the top before I could take in what happened. There was no reaction. There was no thump. The ram didn't drop, he just disappeared over the ridge with his friends.

Andy scrambled up the rock pile we were on as I reloaded. When I got to the top, Andy was about 30 yards ahead of me looking forward, and then made a very distcinct motion to get my ass there rfn.

When i got to where Andy was, I was looking at 3 sheep. 2 young rams and a slightly older ram, all pale. Andy was very loudly telling me not to shoot. I kept counting. 1, 2, 3… 1, 2, 3. Yup I am good enough at math to know 3 does not equal four even in the common core era.

The three finally got tired of us and trotted off after a few seconds. We started walking their direction and Andy put his binos up. There he is! There were so many rocks it was hard to see what i thought was the nose of a sheep sticking up!

We made it to my ram, and it was quite a feeling picking that up. He was an old battle scarred warrrior, which i guesed to be 8 plus years old, which is old for this unit. He had a big roman nose, was heavily broomed and had a thick chocolate coat. His body condition was pretty poor, skinny, no fat.

Upon inspection, we found the entrance hole just in front of the hip on the left side, certainly not far from where my crosshairs were for the 120 yard shot.

After punching the tag, and taking a few pictures, we caped, skinned and quartered him out. We never recovered the shank or petals from the 152 grain Hammer Hunter, but did find some blood shot in the left shoulder area, which I suspect was from a petal. I imagine the shank and other two petals made it deep into his chest, as he only went 20 yards from the shot, so it had to have penetrated 18 plus inches to make quick work of it.

We made it to the truck about 5 pm. Camp by 6. My father in law and I then fou¹nd the last two dogs. My dad also got news from my mom after he left camp via my spot message and went back to camp and left a note congratulating me.

My father in law and I went into Tonopah the next day and checked in the ram. They aged him at 8 and 140 for the score.

The gun I used was bought by my grand pa in the late 60's. A Sears model 53 30-06. I have since removed the Nikon Buckmasters II scope, and will likely replace it with a Leupold of some flavor in the near future.

For those who are banking points, for sheep, all I can say is apply and hope you can get it done while you can. I am fairly young, but have had some pretty major health issues and fought a bad case of covid this year. I was in an "easy" to draw unit and an "easy" unit to hunt and am glad I got it done now. It was quite an experience.
 
Congratulations!!
Sounded fun. Amazing how quick some hunts can be successfully over. All the planning, scouting and preparation really paid off.
 
great story....I'm still laughing about a desert sheep hunter with a desert sheep tag.....wasting time with a pack of dogs...lmmfao
 
great story....I'm still laughing about a desert sheep hunter with a desert sheep tag.....wasting time with a pack of dogs...lmmfao
It's all good. It worked out in the end and I still had plenty of time. Really difficult to pass on a fresh lion track, and certainly wouldn't hurt to kill one in that unit.
 
Dandy ram mevertsen
Sheep hunts are so rare, it's always great when someone lets us ride along.
Old and Broomed are my favorite kind.
You did well!
 

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