Fair Chase in North America Read online

  We rode up into the high country and tied the horses, separating to head up to different overlooks. My spot looked easy enough to reach, but it was a nightmare. I clawed my way up through snowy timber, then scared hell out of myself scrambling across a frozen chute. Finally I broke out of the timber, then plowed through crusted drifts toward the saddle we’d marked as my vantage point. I was almost to the top when, faintly, I heard Ron Dube’s shrill whistle. He’d spotted something!

  It took me forever to glass him up on the opposite slope, but when I finally got the binoculars on him he was gesturing wildly toward the horses. I bailed off the ridge and headed for the bottom, through the timber, across that scary chute, and down through more timber. Ron already had the horses when I spilled out on the trail, and he met me with a grin. The name of his outfit is “Ron Dube’s Wilderness Adventures.” He said, “The hunting phase of this Ron Dube wilderness adventure is now concluded. The harvesting phase has just begun.”

  He had spotted the unlikely combination of two mature rams and one ewe in a little sagebrush patch far below. We had maybe three hours of daylight left and a long distance to ride. It was possible, but we needed a bit of luck. We didn’t get it, not that night. We got into the general area ahead of sunset, but up close the ground looked a lot different. As dark fell we concluded the sheep had to be on one of three or four finger ridges, but by then we were out of time. We pulled well back into the timber, got a fire going, and spent a long, cold night huddled in damp horse blankets.

  In the morning things went just like clockwork. We started down one ridge and found the sheep bedded on the next ridge, across a little cut. One ram and the ewe were mostly hidden by vegetation, but the second ram was in the clear, lying facing away on a little uphill slope. The distance was a bit less than 275 yards; I had the shot, and a steady position to make it from. But bedded animals are tricky, and the light breeze was in our favor. I decided to wait, and Ron agreed. It was endless and it was agonizing, but eventually the ram stood and I shot him. He was exactly what I’d wanted, a mature, grown-up bighorn. He was hard-won prize, and I value him every bit as much as the much larger Montana ram!

  Ovis canadensis, the bighorn sheep, is not really a creature of the high mountains. In the days of pre-European man he certainly existed in the high country, but perhaps much like the mule deer he was equally, and perhaps more so, a creature of the breaks and foothills. Custer hunted him on his Black Hills expedition a year before his fateful hunting trip along the Little Big Horn—and there’s a reason for the name of that river. Theodore Roosevelt hunted him in the Black Hills as well. Unfortunately wild sheep, especially in the foothills and badlands regions, were extremely vulnerable to the excessive hunting of the last century. Worse, all wild sheep are extremely vulnerable to domestic animal diseases. By the early years of this century the Audubon or Badlands bighorn was extinct, and in the United States only isolated populations in the highest mountains remained.

  Southern British Columbia and especially southwestern Alberta, with relatively untouched sheep range, became the place to hunt bighorns. In fact, for the fella just wanting to hunt sheep, Alberta was still the place—much more accessible than Stone’s and Dall’s sheep country farther north. The golden era was probably the ‘30s and ‘40s, when transportation was relatively simple, permits were unlimited, and great old sheep outfitters were leading long packstrings into the Alberta Rockies. These were the days when sheep hunting greats like John Batten and Jack O’Connor took their bighorns. But those days didn’t last, not even in the Canadian wilderness. Disease crept in, and although Alberta never closed, permits became limited and the hunting always difficult but not always successful.

  Below Canada total closures were the norm and permits by drawing the exception. Montana closed a number of areas, but has never, ever closed sheep hunting since 1953—and to this day jealously maintains her Unlimited Permit areas. Don’t be misled; Montana’s Unlimited zones aren’t unlimited because they’re wall-to-wall sheep. They’re unlimited because they’re rough, rugged, and remote. Hunting sheep in them is like searching for a needle in a very big haystack. But there are sheep in these areas. Quite a lot of sheep, actually—and some decent rams. In general the Unlimited zones are original herds on original range; these were the remnant populations before reintroduction began. Their gene pools have been unmolested and are probably a bit stagnant; record book rams have been taken from Unlimited areas, but they’re rare.

  On the other hand, these zones offer the opportunity for you, me, or anyone else with the moxie to buy a sheep license and go hunting. By Montana law no guide is required. Each area has a quota, and the season is closed by area when the quota is reached. That means you can’t stay in the Unlimited areas for 21 days; after the season has been open a few days you must hike out and make sure your area hasn’t closed around your ears. That makes things a bit tricky, and almost certainly prevents these areas from reaching their hunting potential. I’ve been in there, and I reckon if you could spend three weeks at it, the hunting would be every bit as good as some of the famed Canadian bighorn grounds. However, good or bad, I love the concept that anybody can still go sheep hunting if he or she is tough enough. I hope Montana sticks with the program!

  My uncle, Art Popham, whose work has also graced Fair Chase magazine, was one of the early “grand slammers.” In the 1930s desert sheep hunting in Mexico was not a big problem. Bighorns were no problem in the ‘30s and ‘40s. Like most sheep hunters of that day, his northern sheep were the most difficult to get to and came last.

  In my time the bighorn became the most difficult of our wild sheep to obtain. It still is, although I’d rate it almost a tossup as to whether the Rocky Mountain or desert varieties are more difficult. Desert permits are more difficult to obtain, but on average the hunting is more successful given a permit. Technically there are six bighorn subspecies today; the Rocky Mountain, the California bighorn, and four desert subspecies. The California subspecies actually grows smaller horns than the largest desert variety, but my purpose isn’t to split taxonomic hairs. These days all of our bighorn permits are hard to get, all are worth having, and any tag you can get for any ram offers a great experience!

  Never again will sheep hunting be as simple as picking up the phone, but things are starting to look up. Beginning around the 1950s the introduction and reintroduction programs began, and very slowly sheep started to reappear in their former ranges. This job will almost certainly never be finished; there remains vast habitat throughout the West—habitat that used to support wild sheep, or that certainly could.

  The progress, however, has been astounding. Although permit numbers are limited, there are sheep and sheep hunting in every state west of the Great Plains today. There are even a few tags in the Dakotas. After a century of total protection (and continued decline), I never thought I’d see a sheep season in California, but there is one. There are sheep seasons literally within sight of Denver. And, for that matter, Tucson and Albuquerque.

  North of the border outfitters in both Alberta and the Rocky Mountain bighorn zones of southeastern B.C. are on a very tight quota, with outfitters receiving from one to four permits annually. Outfitters with track records charge accordingly, as is their right, and permits tend to be spoken for years in advance. Farther west, some of the California bighorn country in the Chilcotin-Cariboo region is not on quota yet. It’s a bit like Montana’s Unlimited hunting in that it’s tough and success is uncertain—but there are plenty of sheep, and hunts can generally be booked a year or less ahead.

  South of the border the sheep hunting has been on-again, off-again, with Northern Baja currently closed, and permits available in Sonora and Southern Baja. The permits have been privatized and the hunts are frightfully expensive—but they’re doing a very good job of managing their sheep. Success is high, and while neither Sonora nor Southern Baja produce the biggest trophies (historically Northern Baja has produced the biggest desert sheep), most hunters go home with v
ery fine mature rams.

  In the United States virtually all the sheep tags are very difficult to draw. Most difficult is probably Arizona, followed by Nevada and the better areas in Montana. I drew one of these, so it can happen—but it takes patience and persistence. If you don’t apply, you surely won’t draw. Wyoming has lots of applicants, but also gives out quite a lot of permits. Most states now have some system of bonus points or preference points. Odds are so tough in both Arizona and Nevada that, statistically, it isn’t ever gonna be easy—but every little bit helps. I was in on the ground floor when Wyoming instituted her preference point system, which is largely why I drew. This is an important point; as the tags become statistically discouraging to draw the preference point systems will change, and you have to be there when it happens.

  Bighorn management is difficult, and has not been without its problems. The chief problem is generally disease, and it can be devastating. Some years ago disease swept the Kootenay bighorns in B.C.—and they’re just now recovering. Disease ruined some of New Mexico’s reintroduced herds just when they were going good. It struck in Texas even before their desert bighorn program had taken off. Arizona’s famed Aravaipa Canyon herd had a problem a few years ago and is still rebuilding. The very herd I hunted in Montana developed lungworm that winter and crashed badly.

  Right now sheep management is almost a victim of its own success. Numerous transplanted herds, put into ideal habitat with the genetic vigor of expanding into new range, have done fabulously. Reproduction has often been so rapid that within a very years that herd, too, has a surplus available for live-trapping and restocking elsewhere. But relocation isn’t always that simple. There is often resistance to relocation, usually from stockmen’s groups—and indeed there’s little sense putting sheep in place where they even might be exposed to the domestic diseases they’re so susceptible to.

  Montana did a great job for so long, and picked some of the relocation sites so well that the sheep not only bred like rabbits, but grew horns like Chernobyl sheep. But right now Montana’s relocation program is on hold due to lack of politically available sites (certainly not for lack of suitable habitat). With plenty of money in the bank from auctioned tags, Montana has had to resort to ewe hunts instead!

  So, with regrets, I seriously doubt that bighorn hunting will ever be as available as whitetail hunting. I do expect the numbers of tags to slowly increase across the West—but since I doubt that those who want the tags will decline in numbers, it’s gonna stay tough. But we all have choices. We can get in shape and assault Montana’s Unlimited Permit areas. Or we can save our pennies and go to Canada or Mexico. Or we can apply for every sheep tag in every state that offers them. If you apply long enough, it will happen.

  After waiting 21 years for a permit, I said that my own Montana bighorn hunt was anticlimactic. It was. I had allocated six weeks to sheep hunting, and would have used every day if I’d needed to. But from the first afternoon, when we glassed a herd of more than 40 rams, I knew that success would be a matter of days, not weeks. If the hunt was a bit of a letdown, the shot was not and neither was the ram that shot was fired at.

  We’d seen him three days before, early in the morning just as he and his cronies moved into timber. We saw him again that same night when he sauntered back out of the timber—and then bedded in an open basin until dark, keeping us completely and utterly pinned down at a bit over 400 yards away. I well remembered that unlimited permit ram as I made the decision not to shoot. I could have made the shot. Well, at least eight or nine times out of 10. But there was black timber all around, it was nearly dark, I was shooting a .270 at a 300-pound ram at very long range, and I’d waited 21 years for this permit. He and his half-dozen buddies, every one a record-book ram, weren’t spooked. We would wait and try again in the morning.

  Morning came and those rams were gone—and it was deja vu. I kicked myself for not carrying a .300, and kicked myself even harder for not taking a shot I knew I could make. I kicked myself for the next couple of days—until we found them again. They hadn’t spooked and they hadn’t moved. Well, they’d moved, but just to another patch of timber in a little hidden valley about 1000 yards away. It was almost dark again when we closed in on them. This time the group was larger, all monsters, and when we had them at 125 yards they were all balled up together in fading light.

  I’m pretty cool under fire, but not this time. Twenty-one years of waiting and hoping—and more than a couple of failures—weighed on my shoulders. I was completely unglued, and when the chosen ram stepped clear the crosshairs of my Dakota wobbled across the entire herd, not just my ram. I never got it under control, not completely—but enough to get the shot off. The herd took off across the darkening hillside, my ram trailing, faltering, lying down. The great head was up for just a moment, then sank into the sagebrush. I shook uncontrollably for a long time.

  I took this ram in Montana’s Area 340, one of several particularly good trophy ram units. Such permits are very hard to draw, but well worth applying for! The rifle is a Dakota Model 76 in .270 caliber.

  In 11 days of hard hunting the high country east of Yellowstone Park we turned down a number of barely legal rams, and I was absolutely delighted to take the first genuinely mature ram we found. We located him the night before, spent a cold night on the mountain, and finally took him in the late morning.

  Jack Atcheson, Jr., in Montana’s “unlimited permit” bighorn country. This is unfinished business. I’ve tried a couple of times, but luck hasn’t smiled. It’s high and steep, but sheep are there. I will keep trying.

  COASTAL BEARS — Hunting the Great Coastal Bears

  The Alaska Brown Bear is One of the World’s Greatest Game Animals — And Hunting him is One of the World’s Greatest Thrills.

  It’s about nine o’clock on a lovely spring evening in Alaska. The sun is just going down and the white-coated coastal mountains are slightly pink now. I’m at the tail end of my fourth—and I hope not my last—hunt for the coastal variety of Ursus arctos—what hunters call the Alaska brown bear.

  In truth the “brownies” are just well-fed grizzlies, but the protein-rich salmon diet combined with milder, shorter winters along Alaska’s southern coast have allowed the development of “super-bears” once thought to be an entirely different species. Today we know that there is just one long-clawed, dish-faced, hump-backed bear, and he ranges (discontinously today) from the mountains of Spain eastward all across Asia, through Alaska, down through the Rockies, and on east to the barrens of Northwest Territories. But even though biologists have long agreed there’s just one Ursus arctos, hunters continue to separate the bears of Alaska’s southern and southeastern coast and offshore islands from the grizzlies of interior Alaska and Canada.

  Well they should, for the Alaska brown bear is a true giant of a bear, arguably the largest predator on Earth. The argument is caused by the polar bear. The hides of the largest bears of both species are comparable in dimensions, and the largest skulls are similar as well. Live weights of wild bears of either species are rarely obtained, but since the polar bear is more streamlined for better swimming ability, I’d bet on the brown bear being the heavier of the two.

  Regardless of whether the brown bear is truly the largest or merely a tie with his maritime cousin, he’s still an awesome creature, in all ways one of the great game animals of the world.

  Not that the interior grizzly isn’t. He ranks right up there as well. Interior grizzly populations tend to be more scattered, thinly distributed over huge, rugged country. Hunting them is thus generally more difficult, and I would rate a large grizzly a superior trophy to a large brown bear. But not as impressive, oh, my, no! Nor, generally, quite as enjoyable to hunt.

  Most grizzly hunting involves endless glassing in vast country, with the hope of ultimately seeing one suitable and shootable bear. Glassing is also endless for brown bears and country is also vast. But coastal bears are much more concentrated due to better food supplies. Generally you see mo
re bears—and the sight of a great bear is always worth an adrenalin rush.

  Some of the coastal areas are very brushy, some are heavily forested—and a few are both. In such country you won’t see a lot of bears—but you’ll know they’re there.

  They’ll leave their distinctively long-clawed pad marks in the gravel of streambeds and in the soft mud of moose—and bear—trails through the muskeg. You’ll come around the bend of a stream and you’ll see water seeping into deep-cut tracks—but all around the bush is silent.

  You’ll see signs of their feeding as well—in the springtime, fresh rootings where the bears have gone after choice new growth. In the fall you’ll find still-flopping salmon along a brush-lined stream. Sorely lacking in

  imagination is the hunter who fails to catch just the faintest taste of primal fear—and then wonder how a thousand-pound creature can vanish so silently and so swiftly.

  Just the last few days we’ve been sitting on a little hummock overlooking some lovely meadows and swamps and a huge expanse of open gravel bar. There’s been a bear feeding just 100 yards below us, in a thick, wet patch where the skunk cabbage has been growing before our eyes. Also growing were the spots the bear had rooted up. For three days the bear managed to feed while we were in camp—and we never figured out if it was midday, first light, or last light. Finally we saw her—a medium-sized and very pretty blonde sow.

  Blonde “brown” bear? You bet. How about that thousand-pound figure I mentioned? Is that literary license (or just typical writer’s exaggeration?) Not a bit. Both color and size of brown bears are sources of much misconception, if not downright deception in the latter case.

  I’ll deal with color first since it’s the easiest. Brown bears are not necessarily brown. Period. Grizzly bears aren’t necessarily grizzled. Period. Some shade of brown, from clover honey to dark chocolate, is the norm for coastal bears—but they can also be very, very blonde—especially on younger bears—or very, very dark. To my knowledge bears of the Ursus arctos species are never truly black like a black bear, but they can be so dark as to appear black in binoculars or spotting scope. They can also have the white-tipped guard hairs but find the “grizzled” or “silvertip” appearance more classic to mountain grizzlies. Larger, older bears seem unlikely to be light-colored, but that’s also not hard and fast. My hunting partner, Joe Bishop, shot a very big and very blonde male on a hunt we shared a few years ago.