Fillmore oak creek

[wysongdog]

Evening everyone, has anyone hunted the Fillmore oak creek area for bighorn sheep? Starting to do my research. thanks

 

[JBHwild]

My father just drew Fillmore Oak Creek sheep tag. Has anyone hunting this Unit that might give us a point to start looking for sheep?

 

[LFC911]

Welcome to RS, might want to read the forum rules before you ask for info like this.

 

[Timjohnson11]

My perception from spending time on that unit is most the sheep are concentrated up the main accessible canyons on the west side of the unit. Utah fish and game does helicopter counts on the unit every couple years and posts details online (locations, sex of sheep, etc). They also post locations and dates of each years' harvests. I'd leverage that data and you should be able to zero in very quickly on where the vast majority of the sheep are.. See below for that info:

Harvest & survey data

The Utah Division of Wildlife collected the information in the following PDF files from hunter harvest reports and surveys.

wildlife.utah.gov

If you want to go guided, the two primary guides on the Oak Creek are Alpha Outfitters (Garrett Smith) and Utah Premier Outfitters (Russ Nielson). As you probably know, Oak Creek is arguably one of the top 3 or 4 mule deer units in the west. These two groups basically live in the unit and guide most the deer stuff in there. Because of their pulse on the unit from a deer perspective, they also know where most the older age class rams are and guide a hunt or two a year in there for them. Outside of them, Bronson Outfitting is the premier, more dedicated sheep outfitter in the state and while they don't spend as much time in the unit as the deer guys noted above, they are sheep experts and will make sure you guys kill great rams.

Utah's cali's don't have super genetics and the state also manages these populations more for opportunity than quality. I wouldn't expect a class 4 ram but there are plenty of rams in the unit that will make for a plenty enjoyable hunt if age/score aren't everything.

Also, editing this post to add that there are a number of hunt films from this unit posted on youtube where you can quite easily see ceratin towns and well known landmarks in the background. You can see quite easily where they were finding/killing their rams.

 

[JBHwild]

Thank you this is very helpful information