Christmas hunt gift from wife

[Okanagan]

My wife gave me a terrific present:  she gave me a "civilized" winter safari.   She came with me on Christmas day to a resort town close to good predator hunting.  We booked a nice room and she reads by a fireplace all day while I hunt big predators up nearby logging roads.  Sure beats camping out in the winter snow alone! 

Was hoping for lynx, wolf, wolverine or lion, in that order, but predators have been scarce.  LOTS of whitetails, elk, bighorn sheep, and some mule deer and a few moose.  Today I pursued one big-footed lynx in the snows of the Rockies for seven hours.  Never got him but had fun trying and learned how to hunt the next one better.  Found a fairly fresh lone wolf track yesterday but couldn't unravel where he went, nor get a reply to my howls.

I've got lots of pics, but am working with a small netbook and am really tired, so will hope to put up some pics in a few days.  Bighorm ram in the parking lot of our motel.  I'm blessed, and grateful.

[shaddragger]

  Don't know what else to say...

[Okanagan]

Well, I got skunked, so things even out some!     Heading home tomorrow after three full days of daylight till dark hunting.

[Okanagan]

Very slow to load photos to photobucket but got a few ready.  First pic is where I did a wolf howl to try to locate some, but nothing replied.  Saw no wolf tracks in that watershed.



The rams were sure after a couple of ewes.  I thought the rut was long over for sheep.







Logging road bridge.

[HaMeR]

Nice pics Ok!! Glad you & the Wife got away for a couple days & were able to relax & enjoy. 

[bambam]

Beautiful pics !

[lacie23]

Sounds like a lot of fun !!

[Hawks Feather]

Sounds like you had a good time even if you didn't get to shoot.  And the pictures show it.

Jerry

[FinsnFur]

That sounds like a Christmas present I we all like to have Lucky guy!
I'm gonna call it getting away with getting away. It dont get much better then that.

[Hidehunter]

Love the pics 

[Okanagan]

Passing by home on our way to a late Christmas with Code & his family.  Every other year we celebrate on the day with our kids and on the off years they go to in-laws on the other side.  That's why we had Christmas free for our winter safari.

Here are some elk and whitetails.  A BIG 6x6 bull elk would not stick around long enough for me to get my camera out.  All of these animals are outside of parks, including the sheep.





In the photo below, four whitetails had crossed the road including one fork horn.  They kept looking back, tipping me off that another deer had yet to cross.  I was hoping it was a big buck  I focused on the road (through the windshield) and snapped when the deer broke cover.

[Okanagan]

A bit more on the lynx I tried so hard to get.  Huge feet on it, biggest lynx track I've seen and sinking deep, so it was a heavy animal.   Each of the three days I hunted I drove from 80 to 150 miles of logging road, looking for fresh tracks of the predators I wanted.  Most of those roads had no tracks made since the last snow but my wheels and the animals.  That is close to nirvana for me. 

At 10:00 AM I first cut his track where the lynx had crossed a main haul road within the previous two hours.  It was in a wide section of valley with old logging roads laced across stairstepping wide river benches that were all second growth timber of various ages.  He was travelling, and cats on the move like that, whether lion or lynx, are the hardest because they are moving so far so fast.  Over the rest of the day I found where this lynx had crossed six roads a total of 7 times, and I set up three calling stands for him.  I was always too far behind and he never heard me.  If I had known the roads better I might have gotten ahead of him or at least closer.  Lots of trial and error.  No regrets and I learned.  At dark I finished a last hope-so calling stand for him.  His last track that I found was about 5 air miles from where we started, but he had looped a great semi circle at that point.   

[KySongDog]

Those are some great pics and thank for sharing your story with us.   Here is a question for you.  Is that ram in your third picture considered to be a "full curl" ?  When I was in Alaska I went on a Dall sheep hunt with Tikanni and one of his friends who had the tag and he was looking for a full curl ram. He said only full curls were legal to take. 

[FinsnFur]

I focused on the road (through the windshield) and snapped when the deer broke cover.

Nice capture

[HaMeR]

More very nice pics!! The deer on the road pic is waaaay cool!!

Hiy Jim. Can you put a slideshow type box right below where it says FnF Forums with pics from everybody & just change em when you see something cool like this deer pic?? 

[Ladobe]

Okanagan:
Great pics and I enjoyed the hunt stories.   Sounds like the wife is a keeper for sure.   


Semp:
Can offer this, although  I don't know where he was or the regs there. 

The description of what constitutes a full or 3/4 curl ram for legal hunting purposes depends on where it is at and when, AND sometimes also which species.   IOW, sheep hunting regs have changed their descriptions many times in some places, and they are not always the same in the different places a species occurs.   Ad that at some places only full curl or better may be taken while at some 3/4 curl is a legal ram and you really need to know the regs where you are before you shoot.   

I grew up with for a ram to be a full curl the horn has to grow far enough to reach the base or beyond, and whether broomed or not.   A 3/4 curl was anything shorter down to a line drawn from the front of the base through the center of the eye socket that also crossed some horn below.   Based on that this ram would be a 3/4 curl.

FWIW
L.

[KySongDog]

Thanks, Ladobe.  Good explanation.   

[Okanagan]

Yep, good description from Ladobe.  Like he says, each jurisdiction may define a full curl etc. differently.  I called that ram you asked about a 3/4 curl but when I checked BC Game Regs, he is close to their definition of a legal full curl -- so close I'd need to look closer and remove all the blurriness.  I'll paste from the regs how BC defines it, where these sheep are.  Old timers scoff at the BC game regs definition of full curl and say it is only a 3/4 or maybe 7/8.  And yes, they do get down into those kinds of fractions.  FWIW full curl means that the horn has grown till it makes a complete 360 degree circle (the devil in in the details of deciding what makes a full circle!)

Notice in the following regs, they define a full curl bighorn quite a bit shorter than a full curl thinhorn.  Dall sheep and Stone sheep are thinhorns, with less bulk and normally quite a bit more flare out away from the face than bighorns.



Mountain Sheep - Full Curl Bighorn Ram
- means any male bighorn mountain sheep, the head of which, when viewed squarely from the side, has at least one horn tip extending upwards beyond a straight line drawn through the centre of the nostril and the lowest hindmost portion of the horn base. If the skull and horns are presented for examination, when viewed squarely from the side with both horns in alignment, at least one horn tip extends upward beyond a straight line drawn through the lowest hindmost portion of the horn base and the lowermost edge of the eye socket.

Mountain Sheep - 3/4 Curl Bighorn Ram
- means any male bighorn mountain sheep, the head of which, when viewed squarely from the side, has at least one horn tip extending beyond a straight line drawn through the back of the eye opening and at right angles to a line drawn between the centre of the nostril and the lowest hindmost portion of the horn base.  If the skull and horns are presented for examination, when viewed squarely from the side with both horns in alignment, at least one horn tip extends beyond a straight line through the back edge of the eye socket and at right angles to a line drawn through the lowest hindmost portion of the horn base and the lowermost edge of the eye socket.

Mountain Sheep - Mature Bighorn Ram
â€" means any bighorn ram mountain sheep that has attained the age of 8 years as evidenced by true horn annuli as determined by the regional manager or designate, or whose horn tip, when viewed squarely from the side extends upwards beyond the forehead-nose bridge.

Mountain Sheep - Full Curl Thinhorn Ram
- means any male thinhorn mountain sheep whose horn tip extends upwards beyond the forehead-nose bridge when viewed squarely from the side or which has attained the age of 8 years as evidenced by yearly horn growth annuli as determined by the Regional Manager or designate.  Do not use yearly horn growth annuli to determine the age of a ram in the field, because "false" annuli may be present.


And a few more ram pics.  This first one I picked to show an almost 90 degree side view of a ram (the only way to tell if it is full curl, etc.). 



The next one I picked because it shows the anuual rings so strongly.



Bighorns break and rub off the ends of their horns more than most of the thinhorn sheep, so one old enough to be full curl may have horns broken off back so far that the tip is as big as a man's wrist or forearm.  Interestingly, because they measure mass (circumference) farther back on broken horns where the horn is bigger, a lot of rams will score pretty close to the same even when broomed way back. 

A lot of rams never live long enough to make full curl.

FWIW, for field judging I count a full curl ram to be when the tip of his horn extends above the bridge of his nose when viewed from 90 degrees to one side.

[KySongDog]

Thanks! I learned alot.   I guess the fines are pretty stiff if one makes a scoring mistake, huh?

[Okanagan]

Yep!      Sheep are glamor animals, with glamor fines! 

I'd want to see a little margin for measuring error on a ram before I shot.