Archive for March, 2009

Oregon Hawaiian Black Corsican

Saturday, March 28th, 2009

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 Hawiian Black Corsican taken near Ashwood, OR – Little Trout Creek

I was lacking a Hawaiian Black Sheep in my quest for the Grand Slam of Exotic Sheep.

One needed a Mouflon, Corsican (Pure Breed), Texas Dall (Pure White-Long Hair) and the Hawaiian Black in order to have a Grand Slam.

I had already taken a Corsican early on once I found exotics running loose in Oregon.

The Mouflon came a bit later and I took a Texas Dall in Oregon near Ashwood, Oregon.

 

During my hunt for the Texas Dall, I had the opportunity to harvest a Hawaiian Black and larger a Corsican than I already had, but past them up in quest for the Texas Dall.   I do remember that hunt as there were so many rams, I was overwhelmed.   I had concentrated on getting the Texas Dall.

 

Ok!  Getting to the hunt for the Hawaiian Black, I again was going to hunt outside of Ashwood, Oregon.    The sheep had not been in the area for a while, as their range of roaming freely was probably a 20 mile circuit.

 

I knew that when the sheep were in the area, that they would most definitely be located in the draws above Little Trout Creek, I could get in on them easily from above.   Most of the cover would be Juniper, light sagebrush and rimrock.

 

I believe that I had Chuck Megeske with me on this hunt and we headed up good old White Knuckle Road, leading up on top of the plateau.   It is the same area in which Chief Paulina is buried and terrorized the NW in the 1800’s.

 

I was fortunate to be able to find a nice ram running with a couple of other rams.

I do believe that the Hawaiian Black was the most difficult to find while hunting the canyons around Ashwood, Willowdale, Donnybrook, Madras and Clarno.

 

I was able to make a dandy 450 yard shot on the ram with my 257 Weatherby, loaded with a 120gr. Sierra Grand Slam.  

On this hunt, I was the only person to be able to connect on a ram.

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A winter Hawaiian Black taken by LT.

Posted in Exotics, Oregon Rifle Hunts | 1 Comment »

Coriscan Sheep – Oregon Hunt

Monday, March 9th, 2009

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Dave’s Coriscan Sheep Killed in the Trout Creek area of Ore.

 

Some stories are supposed to be a bit funny at someone else’s expense.

Such is this story about an old hunting buddy Dave Brill from Sandy Oregon.

Dave and I have in the past hunted many days together with success for archery deer in Oregon.

On this hunt Dave wanted to harvest a Corsican sheep in Oregon.   At one time there were a great number of free ranging Corsican, Mouflon and Aoudad sheep running around the hills of Central Oregon.

So many years ago, as I might have stated before they were turned loose on a number of ranches in Oregon by Harry Hegardt.  He had made deals with ranchers for the right to hunt the exotics on their ranches with paying hunters.

 

Enough of the history of how the sheep got here!

 

Dave wanted a sheep pretty bad, so I told him I would take him on a sheep hunt in the rim rocks near Ashwood and Gateway.   I figured it would be pretty easy to get him into a sheep or two on this hunt.

 

To cover a vast amount of ground and get to the high spots and glass for sheep, we decided to use motorcycles to cover the ground and they would work great on rough dirt and heavy rocked roads.

 

After scouting for about 2 hours we spotted some sheep down on a flat near Trout Creek.

The hunt was on and it wasn’t long before Dave stalked the sheep down in the junipers and sage brush.   We had just observed the small group of sheep forging the flooding waters of Trout Creek while putting on the stalk.  Dave stalked within about 100 yards of the sheep and made his one shot kill on the ram.  Dave shot a damn nice ram for a free ranging Corsican.   In all the years of hunting Corsican’s and Aoudad’s, I have yet to see any water or barbwire fence stop them.

  Now this is where the story gets good and a bit funny.   Dave decided that he would cross Trout Creek at a different spot then the usual safe spot even during the high water.  Well the crossing was not the best and even with a big 500 Honda, Dave did not make the crossing.  The bike, rifle, pack-frame and Dave both went down in the fast and deep moving water.  He did make it halfway across before the high water faltered his engine.  I could see Dave and the bike going down the river, I quickly ran down the river bank and managed to throw a rope line onto the bike.  As for Dave, he and his rifle made it to the shore on their own. 

Well it took about two (2) hours to get Dave’s Honda running again with me dragging it all around and after putting fresh oil into the crankcase.

As you can see from the pictures Dave was able to get bike and sheep back to the truck.

Posted in Exotics, Previous Successful Hunters | No Comments »