Story By: Michael Martell
I was fortunate to draw a bighorn sheep ewe tag. Yes, it was just an ewe tag, but it was way more than “just an ewe tag” to me; it was an opportunity to hunt bighorn sheep in Oregon. So, after the results came out, my wife Sharlene and I went over and did some scouting.
I had looked up some spots through onX Maps that I thought would be good for sheep. On our first scouting trip, we stopped in The Dalles and talked with a biologist who had just finished a four-day float of the Columbia. He said there was no shortage of sheep in the unit, but most were in spots you couldn’t access unless you floated the river. We made several more scouting trips, but we weren’t seeing the numbers he said we would. In fact, we saw more rattlesnakes than sheep. It was starting to feel like the best option was going to be floating the river.
I was okay with floating, but Sharlene did not want to spend four days on the river. I wasn’t okay going without my wife. We’d done everything together so far. She was with me on all the scouting adventures, so I didn’t want to go alone and have her miss the opportunity to be there if and when I was successful.
We headed out the day before the season started after loading up our gear. We got over, set up our camp, and went out for an evening scouting trip. We got just outside the safety zone of the campground and located a good herd of sheep. We watched them until dark and figured they were going to be there in the morning.
The next morning, we got up, got our packs, and headed out. By daylight, we arrived at where we figured the sheep should be, but there were no sheep. We started glassing, knowing they couldn’t be that far, and located them on the next ridge over. We made a game plan to hike up the finger ridge they’d been feeding on the previous night. We would be out of sight from them until we reached the top.
It was a perfect plan… Until we got to the top and came around the rock face to find there were no sheep. After a short time glassing, we located them again. They’d moved down close to the river. Two ewes were about 250 yards away, bedded on some rocks. I slipped down the rock face and shale to get within 200 yards. Sharlene stayed up top to video. I got into position and set up my rifle. I have never, in all my years of hunting, shot an animal in its bed.
Well, I decided I would change that. I exhaled and shot. The two sheep bedded on the rocks got up and jumped off the cliff they were on. Below them, twenty other sheep ran up the other side of the open hillside. I couldn’t tell if I’d hit the sheep or not. I left my pack and gun and went back to Sharlene. We watched the video several times, but we were still unsure if I’d hit the ewe or not. We decided we should go down and see if we could locate the ewe I shot at.
We made our way down the rocks to where they’d been bedded. There was no sheep or blood. We watched the video a few more times, zooming in on the shot. Right next to the sheep was a rock I hadn’t seen through the scope. It would have been a perfect shot had that rock not been there. It was a complete miss. Disappointed in my decision, we decided the best thing to do was to go locate some other sheep; these ones were moving off.
After stocking our packs for an all-day adventure, we set off to see if we couldn’t find some other sheep we’d spotted while scouting. During our hike out, I located four sheep sitting on a bluff just above the trail we were on. We had to go about a hundred more yards to be out of the safety zone before I could shoot. When we got to where I could shoot, I threw my pack off and got my rifle set up for the shot. Sharlene said she was ready with the camera when I was.
I ranged the sheep at 189 yards. By then, they’d gotten up and were feeding along a rockslide. When they stopped to look at us, I exhaled and squeezed the trigger. My .300 Win Mag echoed through the canyon. The bullet hit her perfectly behind the front shoulder, and she fell. She rolled down the rockslide, coming to a stop 75 yards from where I’d shot.
Once we had her cut up and back at camp, I ran into another hunter with the same tag. He had planned on floating the river in October. I told him where I’d shot mine as well as where he could find a decent-sized herd of sheep if he didn’t want to wait. The next morning, after checking in my ewe, he pulled into camp and said, “Hey, man, I really appreciate you telling me about that spot.” He’d decided to go check it out and ended up shooting one himself. I’m very thankful I had my wife beside me on this hunt every step of the way.