2021 Arizona Desert Bighorn; Lefty the Miracle Ram

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Steve O

Steve O

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Before I get to the actual hunt, I have another spiritual thing that happened to me during the preparation phase. I’m getting to be a geezer. I don’t sleep all that great anymore. Often I throw some hunting podcast on the sleep timer of my phone and put it under my ear as I go off to sleep. As I wake up during the night, I zip back randomly in the podcast, set a 15 or 30 minute sleep timer and doze back off to some hunting information. I never hear the podcast stop, I’m always asleep by that point.

This night, August 8th, I had restless sleep. I probably had gone back into this particular story 4 or 5 times. The podcast was new to me. I had just found “The Hunter’s Quest” podcast that day. This particular episode featured Scott Luber as the guest. Scott has walked into every major mountain range in Alaska and taken a Dall ram.

That’s impressive.

So for the first time ever, I’m dozing off when my sleep timer stops DEAD in the middle of a sentence and sits me straight up in the bed. The sentence is:

“We’re putting on the pack and the boots, and were walking away from the truck and away from what’s familiar and God’s going to write the story out there and He’s got this story for us and we just have to trust Him.”

At “God’s going to write the story” everything stopped and that will be forever etched in my brain. It wasn’t at the end of a sentence, the next word was immediate and it stopped DEAD right there and believe you me I was wide awake. Enough things that I’m not good at paying attention to from God were happening to me and I was definitely starting to pay attention, this was not a coincidence.


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The next morning I tried to pause the podcast at that point in the sentence. I tried at least a dozen times and even though I knew EXACTLY when I needed to pause the podcast, I could not do it. I grabbed the screen shot above so I would remember after the hunt took place. Too many spiritual things were happening revolving around this sheep hunt and there had to be a reason.
 
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Steve O

Steve O

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I’ve spent enough time in Arizona that I know how rugged those mountains are. They don’t have the soul crushing oxygen depletion of 10,000 plus feet but they are steep, jagged, and every step wants to break or stick some part of your body. Cholla cactus is the devil.


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Steve O

Steve O

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Something else to ponder. Wild sheep, as spectacular as they are and as rough of country as they live in, are very fragile. This cluster of units, a decade ago, was the envy of the land. High populations and great ram/ewe/lamb ratios. Then there was a pneumonia outbreak and it was decimated. Lefty is 9.5 years old and he for certain had pneumonia. He was not going to make 10. You could see him coughing as he went about his daily routines. You could see green and yellow puss dripping from his nose. He deserved better and I was going to do whatever I could to give him a quick painless end rather than some mountain lion eating him alive with him suffering every day more and more.

We found two dead domestic goats in our travels in the units. Selfish landowners make my blood boil. What is so hard about being responsible? Some say domestic goats are not a problem. The biologists checking in my sheep said otherwise. I don’t care. Your animals are your responsibility, keep them where they belong right down to your own cats and dogs. So on that note, if you are the least bit interested in hunting wild sheep, I’d encourage you to join any and all of the state and local organizations devoted to the protection and conservation of wild sheep. The Wild Sheep Foundation and Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep Society are two organizations I am a life member of that absolutely contributed to there being a Desert bighorn for me to hunt.

Couple more live shots:

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I'd have smoked those domestic goats..

Great story..

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk
 
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Steve O

Steve O

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Finally it was opening day. We did not actually see Lefty bed down for the evening Tuesday but had a good idea where he would be and headed there in the morning. After a couple hours of searching we found them and moved into position to intercept him and the ewes. They were walking on the very bottom of a wash. Strange, but there was moisture and some green feed down there I guess. Well, sheep don’t really like being down low and at 550 yards one of the ewes went berserk and they high tailed it out of there. We spent the rest of the day searching for them with no success.

I tell you, I was feeling pretty low. How could this happen? We did everything right. It was a long and miserable night. Morning came and I checked my phone as usual. Every day I get an email with a bible verse from “The Sportsman’s Devotional”. What I saw was unbelievable:


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Truly amazing. There is no way that was a coincidence and it could not have come at a better time. I passed it on to my wife and kids and got more encouragement. My attitude changed from dismay to determination. I knew at that moment somehow someway we were going to find Lefty and bring him home. I was going to give my best, that was all I could do and control. The rest was in God’s hands. Whatever challenge that lay ahead I was going to overcome it.
 
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Thursday we search and searched. Craig had me watch one side of the range and he probed the other. It was unseasonably warm for December. I had yet to see a cloud for a week now…and no sign of Lefty and the girls. My BTX was working overtime. By mid afternoon I knew I needed to really keep an eye on the parts of the mountain shrouded in shade. Keep looking.
 
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Steve O

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For the next couple hours I was treated to a great show. These videos are taken thru my 65mm ATX and they are 3-3.5 miles away. Modern optics are absolutely amazing.

Lefty was still looking for love but the ladies were not cooperating. He was getting a little fed up.




Late in the afternoon he bedded down and at that point I felt great and we would be able to be in the right position before light on Friday.




And then those pesky ewes came back over, made him get up and they walked Over the top of the mountain and things got complicated again.
 
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