Non trophy Sheep
To all you sheep fanatics out there, I have been looking to wet my feet in the sheep world for years so to speak.
I gave general rams a go and realized that I needed to invest a lot more time and boot leather into this before anything realistic is ever going to transpire period. I would however love to go on a non trophy sheep hunt just to wet my whistle and see if sheep is something that I may like to eat. I have been told that a good ewe rivals a good elk. Grits wise i could live on Elk so if sheep's better that's a wow factor for me. In any case I have been building priority points and have lots in the non trophy sheep world so I guess my questions is , if you were looking to get into the sheep world and give it a true effort where would you head to ? I live in decent sheep country but would travel many hours to have a better chance, any info or pointers would be greatly appreciated. I am not looking for anyone's secret stash I am just looking to have a realistic chance at bagging a sheep and am willing to put the time, effort and boot leather into this. I am asking well in advance as I would like to get scouting and see where things may point me come fall. Please let me know if you have any insight or pointers as to where i should head. Thanks gents . |
Bighorn this is no secret or anybodies sweet spot, if you want to try ewe sheep meat then draw your tag in zone 422 quad up the Hummingbird shoot your ewe and be back in Rocky for a late supper.
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can you
Can you still quad in the Bighorn Back country around Hummingbird? I was thinking they had it closed down during the hunting season now.
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Ya you can loop onion lake through hummingbird or the Canary. Just can't get into the headwaters or quad all the way down to the ram. That gets you into a lot of ewe habitat. Check the srd sites for bighorn back country maps.
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Just what are you looking for?
The easiest hunt possible? Or a hunt that will give you more insight and experience ? Almost every area with ewe tags offers easy and harder hunts. The difference is usually just based on how far from the road you are willing or want to go. It is up to you to decide if you want to have the easiest hunt possible or do you want to go past the easy sheep and have a hunt that offers the flavours of both the meat and sheep hunting. As you are willing to travel, burn leather and do your research, I'll suggest that you choose an area where you want to hunt sheep in the future, then seek advice, research and scout. Put in the effort and you will have a great chance to fill the ewe tag while learning the area for future hunts. You might even fill your ram tag at the same time. Elk meat is great, but it is simply not the same as what you will experience with flavour from a Rocky Mountain ewe. IMO, ewe (or lamb :D) is the best tasting wild big game meat available in Alberta. http://i772.photobucket.com/albums/y.../406ewe010.jpg |
Agree with WB ! Every time I've hunted Rams I've seen ewes somewhere along the way ! The more you invest into an area the better prepared you will be in the future when you do see a ram because you will have a better familiarity with the terrain / escape routes etc ! Good luck and enjoy !
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The non trophy trophy
I saw an old old ewe once with long spikes and one was even broken about 4 inches up. I always thought she would have made a nice euro mount or even a complimentary mount for a ram if a guy has one. Not to mention a freezer full of sheep meat which doesn't seem to last long.
Like was mentioned before you might even come across a ram! |
Thanks for all the replies guys, I wouldn't say I am looking for an easy hunt at all as I am willing to burn some leather, just more of a " sure thing " kind of deal if I am going to burn this priority
I want to taste some sheep and am willing to do whatever that takes to make it happen weather it be a ten mile hike or a 70 mile hike. |
Would anyone be willing to share anything information about WMU 406B in regards to NT sheep? I have finally lined up some vacation time and a hunting partner (and priority) and wondering if anyone has had any positive or negative experiences in this area.
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What the average prioraty for non trophy sheep?
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422 ia Bad Idea for ewe hunting.
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Good Luck, |
There is no ewe season in wmu 400.
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According to our Bighorn sheep management plan. A long boring read but very informative, we are well below sustainable numbers.
http://esrd.alberta.ca/fish-wildlife...ep-Jul1993.pdf This indicates to me that Ewes should not be harvested until numbers are increased, however we still have plenty of ewe tags available. This is part of our provinces strategy to "increase" hunter opportunities by adding the ewe season. Im not really sure how killing females "increases" opportunity??? Back before the human population influx when Wilmore ewe tags were grossly undersubscribed, the population was below sustainable levels, now that there are more applying for this draw than available tags it is not a good thing. Decisions like this are part of the reason our F&W is considered one of the most reactionary regulators. They need to become more pro-active and intuitive if we are to truly improve our opportunities. Having said that, if hunters who drew tags self regulated by only taking ewes >9yrs old they would have no affect on the population and the ewe harvest would truly be an increase in hunting opportunity. |
That document is 22 years old. A whole lot can and probably has changed since that document was wrote and published.
I agree that SRD and F&W need to be more proactive, just look at the Suffield elk problem, |
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I don't believe the numbers of ewes being harvested are realistic to what our goals should be - maximum sustainable numbers of sheep. The one and only change I have really seen there is the number of females being harvested. I wont speak for the rest of the province since I have not hunted the majority of it. |
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You post sounds like it is composed from a pre-existing bias. The sheep plan is a fantastic management document and not at all boring when read with insight to what our past biologists are saying, though unfortunately the goals and objectives/strategies of the plan have been almost completely neglected mostly due to a lack of funding. Ewe harvest strategies are well supported by research and real life examples. We use to follow the plan's ewe harvest strategy and killed 10 times the number of ewes that we do now, and we killed many more rams at the same time. Keeping the herd below carrying capacity and composed of younger ewes has proven to produce more vigorous sheep with higher reproductive rates and larger body size, thus killing ewes does produce more sheep than not killing ewes. Look for the harvest levels back from the 80's... We are no longer following the ewe harvest strategy that was so successful. Why? Well I asked, and was told that since success rates were low in some areas due to low hunter effort it was decided to simply not issue those licences anymore. Hunting opportunity and a management strategy was dropped because hunters were not filling the tags.... How did you conclude that sheep are below carrying capacity? Our sheep meta-population has remained stagnant for nearly thirty years, it is no longer increasing is size. This is evidence of a herd at carrying capacity. If the sheep population was below carrying capacity we should be seeing a rate of increase with a doubling time of four to five years.... this is just not happening.... evidence that suggests that the herd is NOT below carrying capacity.... All other wild sheep jurisdictions recognize and manage the need to keep sheep populations below carrying capacity, be it through hunting or translocations. We currently have very few areas of historical sheep habitat that would benefit from translocations without first doing habitat restoration. Getting any habitat restoration completed is just not happening due to many difficult factors mainly controlled by financial concerns, so we must keep up with herd dynamic/population management through hunting if we are going to keep the sheep healthy. I find it funny how almost everyone has no problem understanding the importance of keeping livestock production at peak return through maintaining stock rates well within food resource availability and to avoid lower reproduction rates due to older average age of the females.... If you want lots big fast growing calves, keep the herd young and vigorous, with more food than they can eat. The same applies to sheep. |
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so maybe 45 (being generous) get harvested inside of wilmore. plus wilmore is actually bad for not maintaining habitat. as with most parks they try very very hard to not have any natural burns come through that creates the habitat that sheep need to escape predators. |
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When you talk to the old timers you get a picture of what could be. Apparently the Indians used to routinely burn the wildhay flats and there were tons of Muleys in there. There are still mulies there but nowhere near as many as back in those days, bog birch has choked out most of the grass. Fire is GOOD, just not when it comes to $$$ unfortunately. |
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we'd all like to see more burns but there's no money unfortunately. |
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