Hunting desert bighorns in canyon country

[gundog2]

I drew a desert bighorn sheep hunt for the Dirty Devil unit of Utah. By all accounts, I have read that it is rugged country and it can be a tough hunt. There seems to be some pretty good information available on the UDWR website about the locations (canyons) where the sheep can be found. My big question is how do people hunt these animals? Are you trying to approach sheep from the top of the canyons or from the bottom? Seems like it would be impossible to go from top to bottom in many areas judging by the size of the cliffs, and the distances required to shoot from the top of the canyons would also be prohibitive. I have read that it is mainly a glassing game, which makes sense considering the low density of sheep, so I would assume this means glassing from high points and then trying to figure out how to get there. It looks like there are some 4x4 trails that cover the flatter high country, but very few trails in the canyons. There are no obvious trails in many of the canyons.

 

[hunt30]

Fun hunt, but not an easy one. In my opinion, some of the country that the sheep and habit on that unit isn’t really huntable. Other times your glass up sheep that are 4 miles away, but it will take you 30 miles on an ATV to get to where you can hike to them from. Sometimes you’ll run into sheep and really random places. I’ve only ever hunted the dirty devil from the top down.

Here’s a couple of photos from the Dirty Devil to get you excited. For reference, the Canyon in the picture shown is almost 2000 feet from rim to bottom.

 

[yoteduster]

I would say that gundog has his work cut out for him

 

[littlebighorn]

The Dirty Devil is a very tough hunt. Not lots of sheep and rugged tough to access country, as has been mentioned. It's incredible beautiful desert country and I've helped on lots of hunts in that unit. My take is if you hope to be successful, you will need to plan to hunt at least a couple of weeks at different times of the season.
I've never hunted them from the bottom and always been on top looking into the canyons but as also been mentioned, much of the unit is inaccessible.
It's a great hunt, but it is really a HUNT!
Congratulations.

 

[littlebighorn]

I will also add, you may want to make a trip right away to learn roads and country. When it gets warmer, the desert gnats get bad and make it almost impossible to glass.

 

[gundog2]

I will also add, you may want to make a trip right away to learn roads and country. When it gets warmer, the desert gnats get bad and make it almost impossible to glass.

Probably going there on the 24th.

 

[littlebighorn]

Good plan gundog2
When my son had that tag it took us multiple trips to learn the country, but it was an amazing adventure. Keep us posted.

 

[LIK2HNT]

From the above photos I would make sure you bring your climbing gear. Or line up a few people that climb. Looks like retrieval will include rappelling down to the ram.
Wish you luck and please keep us posted.

 

[treedagain]

From the above photos I would make sure you bring your climbing gear. Or line up a few people that climb. Looks like retrieval will include rappelling down to the ram.
Wish you luck and please keep us posted.

I have found on my sheep hunts that at least the rams I found were not in the nasty country. I could see somebody making a bad shot and have them bail into it. But what do I know? My UT ram was a leap away from a 1000 cliff

 

[treedagain]

 

[PleaseDear]

Maybe deerlove has reach out to you by now.



Robb

 

[wweaver79]

Those pics really look like you will find yourself saying, big ram right over there couple miles away, now what. Looks like a fun adventure for sure.