The Quest for a Bighorn
ridgetop
5/22/10 9:28pm
I want to start this "Quest" of mine off by first sharing a few things about myself and how this whole Stansbury sheep hunt came to be.
My interest in Bighorn Sheep hunting started in 2005, when I heard that some sheep would be transplanted onto the Stansbury Mountains. At the same time, a new unit was about to open up on the New Foundland Range. In 2006, I bought my 1st bonus point and continued buying points the next three years.
In 2010, it was announced that two tags would be available for the Stansbury unit. One would be drawn at the hunting expo in Salt Lake City in February and the other would be in the DWR draw for residents only. I put in for the expo tag, along with 29 other deer, elk, and antelope tags. I didn't draw on any of the expo tags.
I have been buying pronghorn points on and off for the last ten years, so now I have six points altogether and am about guaranteed for most units. However, I wanted to put in for the sheep hunt once again, despite the long odds of drawing the ONE tag. If I drew a pronghorn tag, I would not be eligible for a sheep tag this year. Therefore, I decided instead to put in for a high quality deer hunt. If I drew it over the sheep tag I would be just as happy. I put in for the the Paunsaugunt muzzy hunt with one point and the Stansbury sheep with four points. The odds of drawing either were long. (About 1:100 for the deer and 1:400 for the sheep.) I could not believe it when I saw my credit card statement with the $508.00 draw from Utah DWR. A few days later an e-mail confirmed I had been successful.
Now the only problem remained was how to break the news to my wife. First, about how much time I'd be spending on the mountain and second, what the expense of the hunt would be. I emphasized to her the fact that we only live 12 miles from some of the sheep--not only would this help on gas money but would insure that I could spend time scouting and not driving. I also promised her she could ride her horse to scout for me while I babysat the kids. (Maybe not a smart move on my part!) The one thing I can't compromise is that family must always come first.
In May of 2007, we moved from the Salt Lake Valley to Grantsville, a small farming town about 35 miles to the west of Salt Lake. Grantsville rests up against the East side of the Stansbury mountains. This is looking like where home will be for a long time. I think it will be awesome to look back in 20 or 30 years and tell my grandkids that I was the first one to hunt Bighorns on the Stansburys.
The first sheep I saw on the Stansburys was in Nov. 2007, while I was looking for rutting bucks on the North end of the mountains. It was a lone ram high up on the ridge about a mile away. It looked like a good one. In late January 2008, Corby (sawtooth) and I saw some sheep on the West side of the range. We were able to get a few pictures. I'm hoping I can see these rams this year. They should be worth hunting.
Well, "THE QUEST" is on. Here's some pictures of the area and the rams we saw in 2008.
This is from my back yard.
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This is on the West side of the range where we saw the sheep in 2008.
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http://i374.photobucket.com/albums/oo189/ackc10_album/DSCN1519.jpg " alt="" />
P.S. From here on out, I will try and keep this post updated on a weekly basis. I have been out looking a few times already, so I'll be playing catch up with my reports for awhile.
My interest in Bighorn Sheep hunting started in 2005, when I heard that some sheep would be transplanted onto the Stansbury Mountains. At the same time, a new unit was about to open up on the New Foundland Range. In 2006, I bought my 1st bonus point and continued buying points the next three years.
In 2010, it was announced that two tags would be available for the Stansbury unit. One would be drawn at the hunting expo in Salt Lake City in February and the other would be in the DWR draw for residents only. I put in for the expo tag, along with 29 other deer, elk, and antelope tags. I didn't draw on any of the expo tags.
I have been buying pronghorn points on and off for the last ten years, so now I have six points altogether and am about guaranteed for most units. However, I wanted to put in for the sheep hunt once again, despite the long odds of drawing the ONE tag. If I drew a pronghorn tag, I would not be eligible for a sheep tag this year. Therefore, I decided instead to put in for a high quality deer hunt. If I drew it over the sheep tag I would be just as happy. I put in for the the Paunsaugunt muzzy hunt with one point and the Stansbury sheep with four points. The odds of drawing either were long. (About 1:100 for the deer and 1:400 for the sheep.) I could not believe it when I saw my credit card statement with the $508.00 draw from Utah DWR. A few days later an e-mail confirmed I had been successful.
Now the only problem remained was how to break the news to my wife. First, about how much time I'd be spending on the mountain and second, what the expense of the hunt would be. I emphasized to her the fact that we only live 12 miles from some of the sheep--not only would this help on gas money but would insure that I could spend time scouting and not driving. I also promised her she could ride her horse to scout for me while I babysat the kids. (Maybe not a smart move on my part!) The one thing I can't compromise is that family must always come first.
In May of 2007, we moved from the Salt Lake Valley to Grantsville, a small farming town about 35 miles to the west of Salt Lake. Grantsville rests up against the East side of the Stansbury mountains. This is looking like where home will be for a long time. I think it will be awesome to look back in 20 or 30 years and tell my grandkids that I was the first one to hunt Bighorns on the Stansburys.
The first sheep I saw on the Stansburys was in Nov. 2007, while I was looking for rutting bucks on the North end of the mountains. It was a lone ram high up on the ridge about a mile away. It looked like a good one. In late January 2008, Corby (sawtooth) and I saw some sheep on the West side of the range. We were able to get a few pictures. I'm hoping I can see these rams this year. They should be worth hunting.
Well, "THE QUEST" is on. Here's some pictures of the area and the rams we saw in 2008.
This is from my back yard.
This is on the West side of the range where we saw the sheep in 2008.
P.S. From here on out, I will try and keep this post updated on a weekly basis. I have been out looking a few times already, so I'll be playing catch up with my reports for awhile.
57,981
First trip out looking for the year. I was tending my five year old son this afternoon while the girls were off doing something else. So the little guy and I decided to go look for sheep on the North end of the range. We found a nice looking canyon and started hiking up it. The mosquitos were really bitting us and I had no bug spray with us. I'll need to remember to bring it along next time. We made it about a mile up this canyon before the little guy ran out of gas and wanted to go back. No wonder, his pockets were full of nice looking rocks he had found on the way. lol We did see 3 small rams further up this canyon and I got some very poor quality video of them but I also forgot to bring along a still shot camera. So sorry, no pictures of this trip.
After I got home from work, Alauna, the kids and I went for a drive looking for sheep from the road on the West side of the range. We spotted 3 more young rams from the road but when we got out to go for a hike hoping get closer to these rams for pictures. We were vicously attacked by mosquitos and gnats. Again with no bug spray, when will I learn. :-k We stayed in the truck and drove on with no more sheep spotted that day.
This time I went hiking alone back where we had seen the 3 rams on the 3rd. I had plenty of bug spray this time. I hiked up to where I was in Jan. 2008 with Corby. After about an hour of glassing, I spotted 3 rams get up from their beds. It's amazing how you can glass an area for an hour and the same place back and forth a dozen times, then like a ghost, these sheep just appear. I'm sure these are the same rams I saw with my family on the 3rd. Just before I got to the spot where I sat down to glass, I jumped 2 adult coyotes. They only went about 300 yards and stayed at that distance for about 20 minutes. I wonder if they have a den nearby. :-k Just before dark, I looked to the south and I could see about 10 rams working their way out onto a rocky point with about a 100 foot cliff. All of these rams also looked to be in the 2-6 year old range. On a side note, I heard a lot of chukars clucking all around me. Looks like it might be a good bird hunt this fall. I think next week I'm going to try and get someone to come along, so we can call in those 2 dogs. This time we will have rifles along.
On this trip out my cousin John came along in hopes of getting a shot at one of the coyotes I had seen. This time the bugs were at their worse and HUGE! At times, I thought I was being attacked by a flock of snipes but they were only really big mosquitos. We decided to hike in a different way than I had before to get the wind in our favor. We decided to hike up a steep rocky face, which made me realize how out of shape I really am. As we finally topped out at the head of a small canyon. This is where I had last seen the two big coyotes last week. I instantly could see something white flickering and it seemed out of place about 200 yards across this small canyon. Just as I got my binos up and starting to focus, John whispers, there's your sheep. I could see a ram bedded looking right at us with two big white ear tags. That was the white flickering I could see. I think the bugs must have been bothering him and causing his ears to twitch a lot. We stayed right there and in just a few minutes had located 21 different rams. All in the 2 to 6 year old range. I was able to get video of one ram "raking" his horns in a bush and tearing that bush up. Also, one ram almost pushed another one off a cliff and I got it on video as it tried not to fall. It was able able to get out on a 12" ledge, turn itself around and jump safely back to where it started. After about an hour of watching them as they moved further up the mountain. John says, there's your coyote. It was about 300-400 yards across the canyon. We also realized our guns were about 50 feet up the hill leaning on a rock. We had moved down hill to get a better look and video of the sheep. We snuck back up to the guns and John got ready for a shot. The dog was starring right at us but John wanted me to try and call it in anyway. I called out, sounding like a pup in distress. The coyote didn't even hesitate to come. It was running at full speed right at us. It stopped when it got within 100 yards of us and started peeing. At this time I had the camera on the dog and told John to take it. A shot shot rang out and dust flew over its back. ](*,) It bolted out of sight in about a half second. A second shot could not be made and we never saw it again. We had about an hour and half before it was completely dark, so we went back to the truck and drove about five miles to another spot where I have heard sheep are. As it was about to get too dark to see, we spotted 7 more young rams but it was really hard to tell for sure with the low light conditions. There was also one deer with them high up in the rocky cliffs but we could not tell if it was a buck or doe. So in a little over two hours, we had seen 28 different rams. What a great afternoon. 10sign:
John called me at about 3:00 PM and told me he was just getting off work. He wanted to know if I wanted to go look for the sheep again. I was still at a job about 75 miles away and would not be finished for a couple more hours. I also have been suffering from a bad cold all week. So I declined and asked him to call me if he saw anything. John told me that he had gone back where we had seen the 21 rams and coyote two other times in the last two weeks, but had not seen anything. Sometime in the last week, the BLM has closed off all the dirt roads in the area due to erosion problems from last summer's big fire which burned about 50,000 acres. This will slow down my ability to glass a lot of country from those dirt roads. It also should really keep the sheep calmed down and help reduce the pressure on the deer hunt this fall. The BLM has said it will be 2 years until they reopen the area. I told John that he should try a different area and to go to the spot where my 5 year old and I saw the 3 rams on my first trip out. I was told by someone, that I should look into this area a little more. :-k
On a side note- In the past few weeks, I have talked to a lot of people about the sheep for any good ideas of where to look for the older rams next. Most of the info. has been very general but it's ok. I've got all summer to get things figured out and I do have an ace up my sleave for this fall. [-o< I talked to the Biologist and he wasn't much help at first and was also very general in his answers but did open up a little after realizing I'd been out a lot already and had seen several rams. Just not the older ones yet. Well, John called me about an hour before dark and said they had seen some ewes and a lamb but no rams but he would keep looking until dark and let me know of any more sightings. I didn't hear from John again. So maybe they didn't see anything more. He had taken a friend of his who has never seen a Bighorn sheep before, so I'm sure even the ewes were fun to see.
John called today to tell me that he had tried to call last night but for some reason could not get out on his cell phone. They had hiked up to get a closer look at the ewes and lamb. He said after hiking about a half mile, they looked over to their left and there was 12 rams starring at them. John said that 2 of them were much bigger than the rest and very heavy. I think we may have found a keeper. I wanted to go look at them today but I was in the process of passing a kidney stone. :>/ The severe pain came on about 11:00 AM and I didn't give birth to the stone until about 6:00 PM . ](*,) After that I just didn't really feel like doing much but stay home. John also said that when they got closer to the ewes, about 15 in all. He could see at least 6 young lambs running around. That's great news to see them reproducing so well. I think I'm going to try and get out on Monday the 31st in the morning for a few hours. I think I might need to change the title of this post to - THE ADDICTION These sheep are very addicting to watch and look for. John has told me once he draws out on his Moose tag, he'll be putting in for Bighorn Sheep next. :)
This is the first time out in the morning this year. This time I took my 10 year old daughter along. We left home at first light and were glassing the cliffs where John had seen the sheep two days ago. I spotted one young ram about a 1/2 mile up a canyon to the North of where John had been. When John had last seen the 12 rams, they had gone over a ridge to the South. So we decided to move on and look in that direction, leaving the lone ram. After about an hour of glassing and no sheep in sight, we decided to hike up to the top of a ridge to the North of us and hopefully see the location of where the lone ram was last seen. As we topped out on the rocky ridge, my daughter found some fresh sheep beds. As I looked to where I had seen the lone ram, I spotted a good sized ram walking quickly, it was sporting an orange ear tag. By the time I got my spotting scope set up, I could not longer see this ram or any other sheep. We stayed there for about an hour and ate some snacks and took some pictures but did not see any more sheep. They must have been bedded down by this time anyway. I have to admit, my daughter was a real trooper. The gnats were really bad and biting us but she never complained. At times, it looked like someone had thrown black pepper into her blonde hair because of the thousands of gnats. We also saw a lot of mormon crickets on our way back down to the truck. I really hate those evil insects. :>/
Here are some pictures of this mornings hike.
This is the North end of the Stansburys with Deseret Peak in the background.
This is a little further north. Basically the other side of the mountain from the sunset pictures I first shared.
Classic sheep country
This is one of the beds we found. It's just to the right of the stick.
Behind us you can see Stansbury Island, then Antelope Island and the Wasatch Front in the far distance.
And here's a closer look at those evil mormon crickets.
You may recall I posted a pic of this green mormon cricket a while back. They were every where on one sheddin trip out in the west desert.
Congrats again on the tag
9er
June 19th
Today a friend of mine from Idaho (Paul) joined me. My wife and kids had taken our truck to Southern Utah, so Paul offered to drive. On our way out to the sheep location, we passed a truck where a guy inside had his spotting scope set up and was looking at some rocky hills. We turned around and asked him what he was looking at. He quickly replied, "Oh, nothing; I'm just looking." I said, "We thought you might be looking at sheep." He said, "No; there's no sheep in this area." Which I believed to be true, but what was he really looking at without wanting to tell? I just might have to keep an eye on this spot.
We decided to park about a mile from the mountain this time and glass more country this way. The past couple months I have only seen rams and not a single ewe. Today, we hit the mother lode for ewes and lambs. We must have seen close to 30 ewes and somewhere between 15-20 lambs. One ewe had three lambs trailing behind her. This was great to see and very promising for the growth of this unit. Once again, we were being swarmed by mosquitos. Even with spray on us, we were being bit through our pants and two layers of shirts.
We later drove to the base of a canyon which held most of the ewes we had seen, hoping to find some rams hanging out nearby. We had our first rattlesnake sighting while driving over to this spot. It was right off the road and about 3 1/2 feet long.
After setting up and glassing again, we spotted three rams feeding on a bench between a set of cliffs above and below them. By the time we got the spotting scopes set up, we could only see two of the rams. One of them appeared to be the best ram I've seen so far. Not quite what I'm hoping for but a nice last day ram. It's amazing how well these sheep blend into their surroundings. I'll glass an area several times and then they will just appear.
We finally spotted the third ram bedded right behind one of the rams we had already been watching for about 45 minutes. It didn't look to be bigger than the other two, but we could only see a side view of one horn. The rest of its head and body was behind brush. After about an hour or so looking in this location, we decided to try glassing one more place. By the time we arrived there the air had gotten very hazy and hard to see. It was time for Paul to get back to his family, so we called it quits.
This morning I took my Father-in-law for a look. We only had a couple hours, so we started glassing the canyons at a distance to see if we could spot anything. After about an hour I spotted one lone ram rather low on the mountain out on an open hillside. He looked like a good one and was in a spot that we could get closer! I just hoped he wouldn't lay down in the high grass or behind a rock or something. By the time we did get closer, he had disappeared. We looked for about an hour before we had to leave. We never did see him again. I think I'm going to take a break from sheep scouting for a while and see if I can find a big old muley elsewhere. I'm really getting the itch to see some good bucks. I'll keep you posted how that goes too.
I LIVE IN CENTERVILLE, MY MOM AND DAD BOTH HAVE THEIR DESERTS FROM UTAH, DAD ALSO HAS HIS ROCKY FROM HERE, MOM HAS THE POINTS TO RECIVE A TAG IN THE NEXT 3 YEARS ON HERE ROCKY, RATTLESNAKE OR NINE MILE SHE COULD HAVE TAKEN THE ROCKY ON THREE DRAWS THIS YEAR (POINTS) I LEAVE FOR ALASKA NEXT WEEK FOR MY DALL HUNT,
WHEN I GET BACK IF YOU NEED SOME EXTRA EYES SEND ME A PM I AM SURE THAT THEY WOULD LOVE TO HELP OUT( AWSOME,AWSOME ,AWSOME )
Thanks, Koby
This time Tom (JohnyUtah5) came along with me and we met in downtown Grantsville at 3:45 am. We had quite the hike ahead of us. We ended up going back in farther than I've been yet. We must have hiked 8-10 miles in some really rocky nasty stuff. We covered alot of country and we ended up seeing 33 rams this time and I liked 3 of them. We named three of them double radar, money and sunny. Well I liked sunny the best and I have some video of him you guys can look at. I'm sure you can tell which one he is. :-k I'm leaving some of the details out for now for various reasons. Here's the link to the video.
Enjoy!
Nothing like a little scouting to keep you chomping at the bit.
Nice video. :thumb Thanks for posting it up.
Why you leaving out details?
:) Sorry I couldn't resist. :)
The video link:
I got a great tip today where to look next for the better rams. This is how it played out.
Today was the opening of the archery deer and elk hunt. I decided to go up where I will be hunting during the muzzleloader deer season. This time I took my oldest daughter with me. We took some extra water, a tarp, and a tool to dig out a tent spot. I must have loaded her down a little too much because she sure was dragging.
The wind was blowing around 50 mph which caused a lot of dust to be blown into our eyes. Out of all the different weather elements, I hate high wind the most. I was curious to see if there would be any archery hunters in this area--maybe they would stir up something I haven't seen yet.
We headed up the trail at 5:00 AM and there were two people about 1/2 mile ahead of us; we knew this by the two flashlights we could see. As we got about 1/2 mile up the trail, another vehicle pulled up to the trailhead. Luckily, as we reached the ridgeline, we could see the two lights ahead of us heading south, while we were heading north.
About another mile in, as it was just getting light, I noticed two hunters coming up behind us about 1/2 mile away. Right then I saw 7 bucks in a small bowl about 300-400 yards away and as soon as I was able to get my binocs on them they were off and running. All of them seemed to be 2-3 year old deer. We hiked awhile further and, as we descended down into a little basin, I could see the 7 bucks feeding and working their way up the far hill side.
I also noticed a group of deer down below us about 300 yards. They were first moving to the west but then quickly turned around and headed back to the east. They soon were out of site and a few minutes later, as I was getting up to move on, they re-appeared 200 yards below us. This is when I started to video. As you can see on the video, the deer spot something ahead of them and bust out of there. At that point, I looked over and saw two guys glassing the deer. I walked over and talked to them, to see what their plans for the rest of the morning were, so I wouldn't mess them up. I showed them my video, hoping they would see the bucks were looking in their direction when they spooked and not at my daughter and me.
I told them about the sheep tag I had drawn and they asked me if I had seen the 3 big rams above a certain spring. I told them I hadn't seen any big rams yet and was hoping not to shoot one with a collar. The one guy said, "You probably don't want to shoot the one with the red ear tags because he has a collar." Wow! I think he was talking about "Bling," the ram I have been looking for from the 2008 pictures. Maybe the older ram might be with him still. It's funny how you can get some great leads from the strangest places. Persistance is starting to pay off by talking to so many people about the sheeps' locations.
Back to the deer for a minute. A cactus buck really caught my interest. I loved all the trash he had around his bases. I ended up seeing two other nice bucks down in a real steep, rocky canyon bedded with three does. I really hope the one buck survives this year because he is young and has potential to be something great. Well, that's enough for now. I'll need to check out that spring the hunters told me about where they saw the big rams. It's really start to get exciting.
Here's the video of the bucks we saw today.
I had a light schedule at work this morning. So I decided to run out and look for some sheep from the road at first light. After all the hiking I've been doing trying to find the rams further back away from the roads. I caught this guy just leaving a road side pond. lol I've been in this area several times and have seen some sheep about a 1/2 mile above the road but this is the closest I've ever seen one this close to the road. Usually they will only let me get within 200 yards and then are running off but not this guy. After I took several pictures through my spotting scope to get a better view, he ended up bedding down. I'm guessing he would score in the mid to upper 150s but I don't know. Right now I'll be using him as my benchmark for something better but I honestly would be happy with him on my wall. :thumb
Here are the pictures. I'm calling him "Mr. Clean" because of no ear tags or collar.
Just make sure that you push him a couple of miles away from the road before you shoot him so that all of that hiking that you have done doesn't go to waste. lol
How long before your hunt starts?
It's coming all to fast now. lol
How did it go.
Oh yea??!?! Well......................................
CONGRATS and I can't wait to see the pics!
I hope that your hunt was as good as you hoped it would be.
I'm sure there will be a few mags. that will want the story.
I really appreciate all your support on this thread and I really hope you understand why I need to wait a little while before I come out with the whole story but I will surely keep you guys in the loop. I really think I have caught the sheep fever because I've been very sick the last few days after the hunt has ended. :)) I think my body just finally relaxed and has given out.
Just one fact about the hunt though, I ended up letting the new WORLD RECORD walk, not once but twice, hoping to find one that I was told was even better #-o ](*,) but that's how it goes sometimes and I have no regrets. :-$ Once again, thanks for all the support and stay tuned for the rest of the story.
9er
Yesterday I was able to see the other hunter get his ram, which is in the 155-160" range. He's a really nice guy and I'm very happy for him. He ended up hunting 21 days. :not-worthy
Man, I understand why you've held off and if you have to continue then go ahead and do so.
However, it sure is tough on the rest of us after following your exploites for so long and then when it comes down to the grand finale we are shut out...LOL!!! Again, understand completely though.
Good on ya bud!
I really hope you guys enjoy my hunt adventure challege story. It was really an awesome adventure in the 9 days I hunted.
proutdoors wasn't kidding when he said that they were big and dark.
It will be an awesome story to read when you post it up.
Thanks for the preview. :thumb
congrats to you RIDGETOP, that looks like a dandy sheep! I'll have to go check on your hunting adventure challenge and read some more.
again, Great job. Anytime you can say you killed the biggest animal in your unit- i'd say you did VERY well!
way to get it done!
Just kiddin' ya bud. Pretty dang cool!
:not-worthy :not-worthy
What makes his horns so dark? Were any other Rams that dark?
Are we gonna see this ram at any expo or in a magazine?
Do those rams spend there time during summer in the burn and then migrate for the rut/winter?
9er
9er
Man what an awsome hunt!!!
it was getting pretty intence towards the end( which ram is he going to kill).
you did AWSOME!!
that ram has great mass and alot better than a normal california bigorn for length. they are broomers for sure.
super cool hunt, i'm glad i got to go on a hunt with my cousin- and a hunt with ridgetop- via WWW., thanks for all those updates! i think you should win that hunt easily, well between you and predator( only because she's a girl:))
thanks a bunch, it's a great read!
I thought you guys would like a review of the unit I hunted. First of all, the herd is very young with 90% of the rams under seven years old. There are only 3 or 4 rams that are 8 years or older. Only two of the older rams don’t have collars. Those two have ear tags.
Since these sheep have never been hunted before, I thought it was going to be extremely easy to get into muzzleloader range. Wrong. I don’t know if the sheep were so traumatized from being captured by helicopter, then loaded onto a trailer blindfolded, but they are very spooky. Most of the time, I couldn’t get within three hundred yards before they were off and running.
A lot of new habitat was opened up for the sheep this summer due to a big fire which burned over 50,000 acres. Because of this fire, the BLM closed off the West side of the range to motor vehicle travel from the reservation to I-80 (around 15-20 miles). This new roadless area, along with new open rangeland, caused the sheep to explore new areas, making them a lot more difficult to find.
If any of you draw this unit, I would be willing to help out the best I can. Do not expect any help or useful information from the local biologist–from experience. I have to say he won’t give it.
If you are looking for a big, non-collared ram, it will be hard to find one next year. I recommend holding off for a few more years. In four years or so, this unit will be unbelievable. If you just want to see sheep on a daily basis, with almost a 1:1 ram to ewe ratio, this is a good unit to put in for. Just expect to put in a lot of miles and have a really good optic that can spot three miles away from the mountain.
If the sheep continue to move South next year, it will be harder to scout during the summer–there are just so many places to look. The good thing is, so far, they have always shown up on the North and Northwest side of the range to rut and winter. There’s always the chance that chukar hunters will spook the sheep too while your trying to put on a stalk.
I ended up taking my ram on the 22nd day of the hunt. The other tag holder took his 160" class ram on the 29th day. In comparison, the guys hunting the Newfoundlands the last two years have shot their rams in the first three days. Be prepared to hunt hard early in the season with lots of gnats and mosquitos. Later, you may find a foot (or a lot more) of snow on top of these mountains, which will drive the sheep down into the foothills.
Hopefully, this info will help any of you who might be interested in this hunt to know if it is the right unit for you.
Happy Hunting! Happy New Year!