The Okhotsk Snow Sheep inhabit in all vegetation zones from 300 to 1200 masl. When at the beginning of September mosquitoes disappear the animals form mixed large herds- about 40 individuals and graze on the on forage-rich tundra. It is the most calm and comfortable period in the show sheep life. In October snow covers their pastures and sheep have to go down to the forest area where they separate into small groups.
The animals moved in the forest while looking for feed but don't come far from the rescure rocks. Later in winter they ascend to the naked rocks where stay till spring. There are places not covered by snow where they pasture.
They wait out in the rocky shelters and caves when the weather rages. There you can often find the bed from the dry manure and wool formed over years.
The rut season starts from the second decade of November/December and lasts for a month. The high season is the end of November. There are about 6 females per 3 males at that time.
The adults, starting from 5 years old, expel the 3 years old males. That youth will join the herd later when the season is over and leave it once again in January. The most active breeding age for males is 7 years. The males demonstrate their force when pushing horns, then they left to different sides and the winner don't follow the opponent.
The Snow Sheep easily rise and run on the unapproachable rocks, they use barely noticeable cracks and protrusions. They jump from 3 meters heights. They run up the slope when feel danger but usually they prefer to walk with stops. When there is no danger to the sheep life, it’s the phlegmatic and slow animal.
In winter they graze during day hours and in mornings and evenings in summer.
It's easy to define the hunting time if you know this info. My old fellow Vitaly Pokormyak - the honored hunter of the Okhotsk ROOR and a resident of the Okhotsk village, says that the best time for hunting is from 12th to 15th of August. This is the peak of mosquitoes season and sheep, trying to escape from them, move fast and prefer to stay on the rocks blew in the wind. I have to notice that thanks to sheep color, it's really difficult to find them there. The only possibility to spot them is to notice how they move.
The hunt I’m going to tell you about, have been organized in such days but there are exceptions to all rules. We detected the sheep but they didn’t run, they slept.
Let me tell you everything in more details. We meet our clients Marty Rubio and Dale McKinnon on the Safari Show and Reno and agreed the hunting terms. The plan was to arrive by plane from Khabarovsk to Okhotsk on August 13 and then we flew to the mountains in the same day.
Dale McKinnon is a really strong guy and it was his second hunting with us. The first time he hunted in August 2008 and got the trophy with the horns 95cm. But he wanted to take the record one.
Very opportunely one of the Moscow agents asked us to organize sheep hunt for their Spanish hunter. We agreed but set a condition to arrive to Khabarovsk not less than August 12. They contacted us in a few days and said that found the third client. It became Antonio Nogueira. The hunter who was awarded by The Safari Club International in 2014 as the Best Outfitter.
Antonio arrived to Khabarovsk from Moscow. The well known guy who specialized in communicating with Russian customs helped us to regulate all weapon questions concerning its transportation.
We calculated the hunt cost, taking into account that there would be three hunters. The major part of the cost was the helicopter expenses. It was our mistake.
Antonio arrived in a day later than Dale. I was meeting him at the airport in Khabarovsk when Marti called. The plane, Ruben had to fly to Los Angeles and then to Seoul, received damage from a lightning strike. They couldn’t change it by the extra one and Marty wasn’t in time. He had to canceled that trip. It broke our plans and we had nothing but take those extra expenses to us. We discussed and solved to make the hunt from the one tent camp and send just one interpreter instead of two as planned before.
The weather was fine and we reloaded the clients form the plane to the helicopter and flew. The aim was to reach the upper river Gusinka. It took us 40 minutes and soon we landed as where it was planned and reloaded the cargo.
The chopper disappeared in the sky and there was an abrupt silence.
We quickly set up the tents for the accommodation and the canteen- tent. We were ready to sit longer but the clients went to bed.
Our cook Galina woke up in the morning. The breakfast was ready.
We all washed by spring water, it help to wake up finally. Everybody was full of energy.
After the breakfast we went to examine surroundings because it was very important to understand were there animals or not.
The plan for the first day was simple. Vitaly and Dale should have to move to the east and to go around the dominant hill ( 980 masl) from the left side. Sergey and Antonio would move to the southeast to go around the same hill from the right.
Vitaly and Dale ascended the hill and began to look through the binoculars the nearest slopes and detected the group of snow sheep. Dale had very good binoculars and he defined seven trophy size males. The part of males laid on the stone scree. Probably they slept. The other part was awake and guarded the sleepers. They all located in 3-4 from each other. That was very significant.
The hunters moved to the opposite side of the slope and began to approach.
The hollow, where they had rest, was at the end of the hill where Sergey and Antonio were. They also noticed the animals and decided to approach. Two groups o hunters were approaching the same sheep group for two hours but from different sides. The piquancy of the situation was that, they reached the shooting distance (about 180 meters) at the same time but didn’t know about the other group plans. Antonio aimed the biggest male and pushed the trigger of his Benelli 300 WinMag. But there was no shot! A misfire? He reloaded the rifle and shot! Dale fired at the same time but from another side. Dale's rifle .300 WeathMag was more powerful and the shooting distance was in 50 meters longer.
Sergey saw how one of the sheep fell after Antonio’s shot and noticed a strange movement on the slope. Vitaly saw two sheep stayed down after Dales’s shot.
In a few minutes all hunters were on the place. They found three nice males and even the preliminary inspection proved the idea about their high trophy quality. The horns were more than 95 cm and were fully curled.
Sergey remembered about the strange movement after Antonio’s shot and went down to the canioun. And he found one more sheep there!
It looked as those bullets were too powerful for shooting for 150-200 meters though it's hard to approach such distance. The bullets hadn't opened in the soft tissue of the first animals and went through them and finally opened in the males which stood behind the first. Although they were the first to inflict fatal injuries.
The hunt was finished in three hours after it had been started. They did two shots and got four males!
I could but guess how Marti Rubeo was upset when knew about it.
