Sam and Leah's Adventures!: Shinanagans in sheep camp

My good friend, Clay, was one of the lucky tag holders for Desert Bighorn Sheep this year in Southern Arizona, and I mean REALLY southern. I was able to sneak away last week, and and I arrived in camp on Thursday. Having had my own sheep tag this year, Leah and Weston's deer hunt, getting married and all the other reasons to take time off work; I was only able to stay down there with Clay for 3 days until Sunday.

After 4 hours of highway driving and a little over an hour of dirt road I made it to camp to meet the motley group of guys who would be hunting to find Clay the Borego Grande of his dreams. And let me tell you, what a group, a group I won't soon forget and a group of guys who I hope to be friends with the rest of my life. Sitting around the campfire in the evenings with these guys will make you go to bed with hurting ribs from laughing so hard.

Clay has been down there for 12 days now and he is in marathon mode. Hunting in a unit that has two open roads, neither of which get you any closer than 2 miles from the edge of any sheep country, he has his work cut out. They have to put on a lot of miles every day and still stop and glass an endless amount of country. He went 5 days before the season with out spotting sheep and was a little down on himself. However, when we all went out in full force on opening day we found sheep and continued to find sheep all three days this weekend. And not just sheep, but RAMS, too! Unfortunately they were lesser rams that hadn't quite reached maturity. It was a huge boost for our confidence, and confirmed our ability to find them if they are there. With the remoteness of the area, cell signal is weak and spotty but Clay has been calling his wife via satellite phone and giving her the updates to pass along to his cheering crew here at home.

James (his dad) Matt (his good friend) and I, all had to leave on Monday so it's just Clay and Jason and then Justin came in just as we were leaving. Clay's friend Pav is going to be coming back down sometime this week to continue the adventures with them. I can't wait to post some pics of what he finds next, but in the mean time here is the last several days documented in pictures. Enjoy!