After my mountain bike ride early in the afternoon (man, did I wipe out yesterday, still sore!) headed up along the Columbia River, looking for wildlife. Found the bighorns just north of town:
What a fun animal to see and watch. We were fishing in Hells Canyon a few years ago, and there was a group of 12-15 on the slope adjacent the fishing hole we were in. On our arrival, they were just laying around enjoying the sun. After a bit, they wandered over to a vertical chute on the slope, gathered at the top, and then took turns running/bouncing down thru this chute like kids on a playground taking turns on a slide. As soon as one got to the run-out at the bottom and started back up, another would hit the chute while the previous climbed back up and waited his turn. This went on for quite a while, with no apparent reason on their part other than pure fun. We probably had more fun watching the bighorns play for that hour than we did fishing.
This is my friend, and local hunter, Aaron, with his ram from the same herd/area, just a couple of years ago. His turned out to be a world's record for the "California" subspecies of bighorn. I don't recall the measurement. "Big" is good enough for me. :grin: There are several others in this same herd, nearly as big...
I hike up in that country a lot. Will try to get some photos of the big boys when I can. Didn't see them today.
Right now the local bunny loving, tree hugging, granola eating ferrets are all atwitter in my desert oasis.
The Game and Fish released some bighorns to repopulate a local mountain range that last saw bighorns in the 1990's when the last of them died. Well the mountain lions had a feast so Game and Fish went and shot a few lions and the birkenstock crowd went bat fecal matter crazy.
I, and other hunters, support the reintroduction of this native species but the tofu eaters don't. Kind of hypocritical if you ask me. They support the reintroduction of the Mexican wolf but not the bighorns all because some lions needed to be thinned out.
I'm in hopes that this new herd can get established and be viable. It would be great to maybe see some so close to home one of these days.
I do keep putting in for the tag, and believe that I'd go with the 115 gr Nosler Partition in this case. These things go 300 pounds, for the big fellows.
Odds are Strongly against EVER being drawn, but it's kind of fun to send the State of Washington my money every year, asking for the tag... :grin: