It's better to be lucky and good
Sep. 8—Luck is rewarded by preparation.
Gumption is not a bad partner either.
Gordon Lyons has all three.
Blessed
Let's start with luck. Some people try all their lives to draw trophy big game hunting tags in Western states. For example, to hunt wild sheep in Idaho and Oregon, you have two choices: Purchase the tag at auction or win an annual drawing. If you go the auction route, expect to spend six figures and compete against hunters with pockets as deep as Hells Canyon.
The other option is to enter the states' annual controlled hunt drawings where you shell out a few bucks to purchase a single chance at winning. The tags are few, the demand is high and the odds are not in your favor. Anyone who is successful can rightfully be described as lucky.
Lyons, of Flowood, Miss., drew a tag to hunt Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep on the Oregon side of Hells Canyon in 2009. But his luck didn't end there. Lyons drew Idaho's Unit 11 tag in 2018, one of the most coveted bighorn hunts on the planet.
"I've got an adult son who is in med school and his friends have told him, 'Your dad is paying someone off. We know it.'"
With that kind of luck, some folks might say something like, "You should be buying lottery tickets."
Not much for gambling, Lyons instead entered the controlled hunt drawing for a 2023 California bighorn sheep in Idaho's Unit 40. Of course, his name was drawn. Even he can't believe it.
"I have drawn these honestly, ridiculously, through the random draw," he said. "It's like how did that happen? With sheep hunters, you mention drawing tags and their eyes roll back in their heads, they have slight tremors and they are about to go into grand mal seizures."
Preparation
Lyons grew up on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi where he hunted scraggly whitetail deer. The habitat isn't great for growing trophy bucks — acidic soil, swamps, brambles and little if any agriculture to augment their diets.
"A big whitetail deer in southern Mississippi was 157 pounds and that was huge," he said. "An average buck weighs 129, 130 pounds."
Boone and Crockett whitetails or not, he loved it.
"Hunting is not about killing," he said. "It's about seeing a red cockaded woodpecker, seeing wild turkeys, having a bobcat walk past you that doesn't know you are there, hearing the water in those little creeks, the wind blowing through pine trees — it's kind of like being in a medieval cathedral surrounded by artwork."
Lyons is drawn to outdoor writers — people like Aldo Leopold, Jack O'Connor, Jack Curtis, Russell Chatham, Lefty Kreh, Charles Sheldon and Thomas McGuane. Their work frequently extols the virtue of doing difficult things in difficult environments whether with a fly rod or rifle. It inspired Lyons.
"I was thinking, while I'm still young enough, how do I really push my physical and mental limits?"
He landed on sheep hunting and put in for that 2009 hunt in the stark, steep and stunning Imnaha River country.
The river flows out of the Eagle Cap Mountains and cuts an impressive gorge layered with impossibly steep ridges before joining the Snake River in Hells Canyon. It's a nearly vertical world inhabited by tough and wily sheep, both of which granted him the challenge he sought.
"It pretty much whipped my ass every single day," he said. "Every day it rained or sleeted."
A novice, he knew he wanted the help of an outfitter and meticulously screened candidates before landing on Jon Barker, of Gifford. He pored over maps, practiced shooting and followed a strenuous workout regime prior to the hunt.
The work
They didn't see anything on the first day. Lyons missed a ram at 530 yards on windy day 2.
They saw rams the next two days but couldn't get a shot at the ones Lyons liked and passed up shots on others. On day five, it poured rain and the wind blew hard. They spotted a ram group and made a three-hour traverse to get in position for a 225-yard shot. He was soaked and cold enough to require a change of clothes before attempting a shot.
Lyons, Barker and his guides studied the four rams with binoculars and spotting scopes to pick out the largest. Finally one of the guides said, "Shoot the one in the middle."
"I turned and said which one in the middle?"
Second from the right he was told.
"Can you make the shot?" Barker asked.
"Yeah, I can make the shot," Lyons answered and then squeezed the trigger.
"He collapsed like a sack of potatoes."
Lyons, a dedicated journal writer, still has notes from the hunt.
"I was elated and exhausted," he said reading the entry. "It was the hardest physical and mental challenge I have ever attempted. I now know what it means to have sheep fever."
Unit 11
By the time Lyons drew his Unit 11 tag, he devoted himself to pursuing wild sheep and had completed successful hunts for dall and stone sheep in the Yukon Territories of Canada. He teamed up with Barker again and they sought a monster ram with an estimated Boone and Crockett score of 194 at the north end of Unit 11 south of Lewiston.
"The ram went into Red Bird Canyon and would not come out," he said.
The canyon, state land managed by Idaho Fish and Game, was off limits to outfitted hunting. So after a week, Lyons went home with a plan to return later in the fall.
When he did, Barker instructed him to prepare to spend six days hiking and camping in Hells Canyon. They would sleep on thin, backpacking air mattresses and use Tyvek construction wrap to keep off the dew and rain.
"I slept like a baby," he said. "The moon was quite bright and it just made the whole nocturnal scenery. It was, for lack of a better word, a sensual experience."
On the third day, the men worked hard to find a group of 10 rams just as the sun was setting. They slipped just over a ridge, out of sight of the sheep, and bivouacked. Up before the sun, they moved into what they figured would be an advantageous position.
"As it got daylight there were rams between us and where we slept, rams to our northeast on our side of the canyon and two rams to our left or southwest on our side," he said. "As it got more light we could see six rams on the opposite side. It took Jon and Ted (one of Barker's guides) a good two hours to figure out which one was the oldest. I'm not kidding, they all looked big to me."
With the biggest identified, Lyons stacked two backpacks on top of each other for a rifle rest on the steep slope. But he was sliding and unsteady. Barker told him to put his feet on Barker's shoulders to steady himself. Lyons wanted to move to a flat rock the size of a tool chest 30 yards away where he would have a more comfortable shot, but Barker feared the rams would see them and run.
So he shot and missed from the awkward position. All of the rams startled at the crack that echoed around the canyon and went on alert while looking for its source. Lyons and Barker scrambled to the rock. He aimed and shot just as the ram was about to run.
"I shot him right through the heart at 265 yards," he said.
They dressed it out and packed the cape, head and meat to a cobble beach at the bottom of the canyon. The next day they were picked up by a jet boat.
The two will be meeting up soon to pursue a California bighorn ram in Owyhee canyonlands of southwestern Idaho.
"When you step back from it, that is lucky," Lyons said of his three tags. "But you need to be prepared if you are lucky."
Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2273. Follow him on Twitter @ezebarker.
