The Oregonian
Well-Known Member
This magical ride continues…last year my son drew a John Day Cali tag and it was an amazing hunt, described here. This year I drew the lone NR Colorado Desert Bighorn tag - I can't even explain or describe the luck we stumbled onto but no complaints here.
We were hunting near Grand Junction in unit S62 and found this guy yesterday morning. Probably a half dozen rams chasing a few ewes around pretty good but not frantically. Soon 4 more rams chased a really hot ewe into that other group and it was like someone lit a firecracker. She had 6-8 rams running her ragged, trying to mount her as she was running, and so on. We watched this for maybe 45 mins in all, then she dove into a canyon and they all disappeared. We had pegged two as shooters so we dropped down, crossed the river, and hiked up to put on the stalk. We got across the canyon from them at 180 yards - only real spot we had to see into the canyon where she was now bedded. This guy had chased the others away and she was bedded at the base of a cliff, he was standing not looking nervous at all but looking right at us. He turned broadside and started to lay down next to her when I I shot.
A Berger 156 out of a 6.5 PRC from Snowy Mountain Rifles turned his insides to jelly, entrance in right shoulder, small exit, likely from a fragment and not the whole bullet, just behind the left shoulder. Impressive work by the Berger. Got him cleaned up and back to the truck right around dark. Super pretty coat with chocolate lower body and silvery, grizzled body. My son has good grades and we timed it with two days of teacher workday and Veteran's Day so he was able to come along for my hunt. Just incredibly fortunate to be able to do these hunts with him.
And thank you to all the veterans out there. Without you this wouldn't be possible.
We were hunting near Grand Junction in unit S62 and found this guy yesterday morning. Probably a half dozen rams chasing a few ewes around pretty good but not frantically. Soon 4 more rams chased a really hot ewe into that other group and it was like someone lit a firecracker. She had 6-8 rams running her ragged, trying to mount her as she was running, and so on. We watched this for maybe 45 mins in all, then she dove into a canyon and they all disappeared. We had pegged two as shooters so we dropped down, crossed the river, and hiked up to put on the stalk. We got across the canyon from them at 180 yards - only real spot we had to see into the canyon where she was now bedded. This guy had chased the others away and she was bedded at the base of a cliff, he was standing not looking nervous at all but looking right at us. He turned broadside and started to lay down next to her when I I shot.
A Berger 156 out of a 6.5 PRC from Snowy Mountain Rifles turned his insides to jelly, entrance in right shoulder, small exit, likely from a fragment and not the whole bullet, just behind the left shoulder. Impressive work by the Berger. Got him cleaned up and back to the truck right around dark. Super pretty coat with chocolate lower body and silvery, grizzled body. My son has good grades and we timed it with two days of teacher workday and Veteran's Day so he was able to come along for my hunt. Just incredibly fortunate to be able to do these hunts with him.
And thank you to all the veterans out there. Without you this wouldn't be possible.
