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Christian Outdoor Recreation: Reporting on: Hunting Big Horn Sheep in the Strawberry Mountains:
Sometime back I was sitting in a barber shop and a fellow came in that had been hunting Big Horn Sheep in the strawberry range of Oregon. He proceeded to tell us he had talked to the Game commission first off to find out how many Big Horn Sheep were in different areas and how accessible the roads were as he had very little knowledge of the area. They told him what they knew and directed him to the local sporting shops to possible find others that had hunted the area that he could talk to as well as direct him to a possible Guide if that was what he wanted. The next few days were spent talking to a number of hunters that had gotten big Horned Sheep and others that had not! Before leaving each person though, he asks them where they would go if they had a tag. With the knowledge he had gained from others and for what they had suggested was all that was needed to get him excited about climbing hills and glassing for Sheep for the next several weeks. During this time he made a note of all the larger Big Horn Sheep he had found in each area he had went to. With the day fast approaching for hunting to start, he took long walks and did a fair amount of shooting. The first few days out hunting he got to see a number of Big Horn Sheep but could never get the largest one into the scopes view without another smaller one moving in front of it! So he made a decision not to spend more than 2 days at any one area as he felt it would incite the Big Horn Sheep to move around more! As it came near to the time he had to call it quits, he got to shoot at a fairly large one and missed it and left to go to one other place before he left for home. As he was driving into the area he realized that the road was on a slightly constant uphill slant and after a time, he thought he could see a couple of Big Horn Sheep out lined against the sky above standing on a large knoll. It was then that he started looking for a place that was level enough where he could unload his 4 wheeler if he needed too; but he never did find a level spot so he parked it and put a rock in back of the wheel. By this time he was aggravated but was still driven to go after the sheep and found a rock he could peer over and could make out several of them using his binoculars just under a rim. He had seen one that was very large but could never get a shot at it so he decided to shoot at the next largest one. As it was getting late in the afternoon and he wanted to get out of there before dark. The first shot found its mark and it fell! He then proceeded to go back and get his 4 wheeler out of the back of the pickup and was wrestling in his mind as to how he was going to do that with the pickup being on a slant. Without even thinking of turning the pick up around to where the tail gate was facing up hill he placed his gun back into its scaffold. Then he proceeded to open the tailgate; and take out one of the wheel ramps. The top ramp had the spare tire on it as he did not have room for it elsewhere and of course the top ramp could not slide over the top of the second one with the weight of the wheel on it. so he thought he would pull the ends of both ramps out and take the tire off of them but in doing so the tire came up on end and proceeded to roll down the mountain till it hit the road below and bounced very high in order to land up the hill in the high brush on the other side of the highway. Back at the pickup he set about putting the ramps in place and started rolling the 4 wheeler down the ramp, but he found he could not hold the 4 wheeler for he was facing the front of it and using the brake and ended up on the ground with him holding on to the bike with one hand and holding on to the bottom of the ramp with the other. He realized there was only one way to save the 4 wheeler and that was to kick a large enough rock in back of a tire to hold it in place! During this time he was crying out to GOD for help as it took several mins. to dig a rock out of the ground with his feet to push behind a tire. Tell me who put that rock there for him to kick out of the ground? If you answered anyone but God you are wrong! Did that fellow get his Big Horn Sheep out? Yes he did and the following day came back and found his tire across the highway fairly high up on the side of the hill. How many of us have pulled boners like this? Ha.
Written by Christian Outdoor Recreation:
