Eastmans.com - Eastmans' Hunting Journals

Making the Good Days Count

April/May 2012 EHJ (Issue 130) - Get some good raingear.” That bit of advice was a reoccurring theme from numerous sources I heard while preparing for my 2011 Stone sheep hunt with Gundahoo River Outfitters. Thankfully, I paid attention. I was hunting in northern British Columbia and all of the predictions about wet, windy weather in the northlands were certainly coming true on my 14-day hunt.

Day nine found me and my tireless guide, Trusty Rusty, spending another cold, wet day in the saddle trudging through another wind-scoured rocky pass to head for a new valley searching for the ram of my dreams. The nearly constant barrage of storms for the previous week and a half had driven the sheep off the ridges and into the timber making them all but impossible to spot. We had spotted only one band of rams with a potential shooter in the previous eight days. While I was trying to remain upbeat, despair and doubt were slowly setting in amidst the swirling snow and ice that afternoon.