I started my second weekend of scouting for my brother's desert sheep hunt by joining up with Jay Scott. In addition to being a friend, Jay and I worked together at Western Hunter Magazine. He has committed to helping my brother for the first 10 days of the hunt and will be posting about it on his blog at Jay Scott Outdoors.
Jay has hunted and guided to some of the biggest deer and elk in AZ, CO, and Mexico. A few years ago he caught the sheep bug and he has put the same dedication and focus into sheep hunting as he has to hunting mule deer, coues deer, and elk.
In just one day with Jay, we (I use that term loosely) found 8 rams and 6 ewes. Actually, Jay found them all and had to point them out to me. He was using the Kowa High Lander 30x80 binoculars and all but one group were about three miles away. One of the close rams had a really long left horn, but wasn't terribly massive. None of the others fell in the "shooter" category. Nonetheless, we had an awesome day!
As you can tell from the photos, Jay uses Swarovski for all his other optics needs and wears KUIU clothing. He is very particular about his gear and knows that his success often is based on how well his gear performs.
Spines!
Jay using the Kowas for some longrange glassing.
Digiscoping a band of sheep three miles away.
The desert is a beautiful place if you take the time to look for it!
Saguaro spines!
The Swarovski CL 8x30 binoculars are a perfect compliment to the 15x56s. I hook the CLs to a carabiner on the shoulder strap of my pack via the wrist strap for use while hiking, and then break out the 15s and a tripod for serious glassing.
One of Jay's only vices (besides hunting) - Red Vines!
