Gary Bilyeu's California bighorn ram from the Deschutes canyon scored 167 points. Photo by Glenn Summers

Lying on a shelf and peering through 8-power binoculars, I had a close-up view of two small rams as they lay in the shade of an overhang chewing their cud mere inches from a 2,500-foot drop to the Deschutes River. On the next ridge closer to the river, a dozen ewes and eight lambs grazed or lay bedded next to the nearly vertical slope.

Day after day I watched rams, eventually employing a 30-power spotting scope. I was scouting the Deschutes River canyon for a friend and client who had drawn a coveted sheep tag for the area. That the sheep were even there is a testament to modern game management.

When the Europeans arrived in Oregon, California bighorn sheep lived in most of eastern Oregon, and Rocky Mountain bighorns populated the state's northeast corner. Wild sheep disappeared from the Deschutes canyon shortly after the pioneers appeared and were gone from the state by 1945, victims of diseases from domestic livestock and uncontrolled hunting.

Today's Deschutes canyon sheep story -- the fact bighorns even live there now -- provides us a snapshot of how modern wildlife conservation works. In 1993, 35 California bighorns were transplanted from the upper Owyhee River in Idaho to the east side of the canyon 17 miles from the mouth of the Deschutes River. A second release of 18 sheep from Oregon's Steens Mountain was made in 1995 on the west side of the river across from the first release point. And in 1999, 12 more animals were released at the west-side site.

The sheep flourished and the first controlled hunting season was held in 1998. Available tags have numbered from two to five per year since then. Since 1999, 71 sheep have been captured in the Deschutes canyon and transported to sites in Oregon and North Dakota. The current population is estimated at about 300 animals.

To get an idea of how popular and prestigious bighorn sheep hunting is, witness the winning auction bid of $130,000 for an Oregon sheep tag at the annual convention of the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep. Note too, that 90 percent of that money is returned directly to the state's wild sheep management program, where it is joined by money generated by state hunting licenses and tags, auction and lottery tags and private hunter conservation groups to pay for restoration work.

ONE TAG-HOLDER'S STORY
Retired high school German teacher Norm Tonn called me one day to say he had drawn a Deschutes canyon sheep tag. Drawing a sheep tag in Oregon is an once-in-a-lifetime event. He knew I kept track of the canyon's bighorns while guiding for steelhead and running my jet boat through the rapids on the Deschutes River and asked me to guide him.

Locating rams wasn't difficult, but they moved around a lot, and as with all sheep hunting, locating a ram is only half the problem. Finding one and getting within good shooting range is the kicker, and one hogback that drops into Harris Canyon offered the best opportunity for us.

When the season opened we motored downriver from my camp to debark at the mouth of Harris Canyon. It was just coming daylight when we left my sled and trailed up the canyon. We took our time hiking a couple of miles up the canyon, angling around ridges and finally up to the plateaus on top.

I had been seeing a pair of good rams at the head of one canyon, some ewes and lambs over on the wide-open reaches of another ridge and a pair of smaller rams that ranged down the ridge by a small cave. We spotted the two younger rams lying in the open but across a deep ravine between us, and then I saw the group of ewes and lambs feeding up the slope of a far ridge.

Two young rams were looking back up the ravine that lay between us. At first they seemed to be staring at Norm and me, then I figured it out. "Norm, I believe there are some sheep down below in the gut of this canyon right in front of us," I offered. "Those two little rams are watching something right below us. Let's just lay here and see what develops."