TBinKodiak
Member
A few lessons learned:
Never go sheep hunting in September
Never use a transporter that is also a guide in that area
It is possible to spot white sheep one white mt, but it is far more likely they will spot you first
Just cut your losses if you get delayed and only have 5 days to hunt
Last but not least - Maybe you should shoot the first full curl you see
Well no one wants a long drawn out hunt if it isn't successful so here goes. Got delayed in ANC for 2.5 days (got bumped by the guides clients on day 2). Hit the ground and found out our original plan wasn't going to work since the guides don't know the boundary lines to the "no-guide" area. Ended up hiking to one pass and turning back due to only 3 ewes spotted in a huge valley. Figured we would stay high, which meant back tracking to another lower pass (4900 feet). Camped low before going over that pass and woke up to these three idiots walking through camp. Saw them the night before so we knew they were there and without a legal.
At 38 yards.
Head up the canyon to the pass and have to do some fancy footwork around/over/hand over hand nuts to rock to climb through waterfalls. Get near the top and spot a 8 foot griz coming our way on the mt side. Well this is going to end badly for him because we are basically pinned in a 10 foot wide canyon with 20 foot walls. He decides to go above us about 200 yards. We go over the pass in knee high snow and spot some rams down in the valley. We drop into another canyon and make our way toward them but get busted by two rams on the other side of the mt. A banana horn and 7/8 curl with a wide flare. We get to where we need to be and no rams so we wait them out. It starts to snow, and continues to snow, my buddy is wrapped up under his backpack rain cover and I pull out my tent fly. Two hours later there's 4 inches of snow on the ground and its 5 o'clock. We move toward where we last saw them and get busted coming over a knob. Only 6 in the group though and the full isn't there we move down to where they were and spot the full out on a flat feeding at 312 yards.
We watch him for 45 minutes or so and its difficult to judge since the horn closest to us is broomed and the opposite horn is covered in snow most of the time as he feeds. Occasionally it falls off and I'm about 95% sure he's full, and about 90% sure he is 8.5 years old. We are looking down on him and he does have his winter hair which covers more of the bases so in hindsight I'm about 99.9% sure he was full. He is also smaller than the other two rams I've taken, figure 31-33" and we still have 3 days to hunt. Not to mention we have some pretty nasty canyons to cross with high water due to the snow melting and more snow coming. So we pass.
Next morning, calling our transporter to tell him we aren't going to be able to make it back up over the pass and to pick us up at a lake 9 miles away.
Hike through snow storms that morning and snow for the rest of the day. Make it to the lake that evening, wet, tired and cold. Threw together a little leanto with some left over plywood, made a nice place to cook dinner.
The lake gets skim ice that night (low 20s) so we are figuring we will need to hike out to another river drainage 10 miles away if she freezes that night. The afternoon warms up and after taking a 2 mile hike and spotting some rams. We wait them out most of the afternoon, but no legals once they start to feed.
Wind came up so no skim ice in the morning, doesn't help the windchill though. Pick up comes at noon, a beaver on floats that's $2k back to ANC.
Hammering your boots with rocks to be able to put them on is something I don't ever need to do again, if it ain't an August sheep hunt I aint going.
I consider myself lucky to have taken two nice rams and knew the odds were stacked against doing a 3 for 3, but it was still a tough pill to swallow. Time to start planning the next one...
Never go sheep hunting in September
Never use a transporter that is also a guide in that area
It is possible to spot white sheep one white mt, but it is far more likely they will spot you first
Just cut your losses if you get delayed and only have 5 days to hunt
Last but not least - Maybe you should shoot the first full curl you see
Well no one wants a long drawn out hunt if it isn't successful so here goes. Got delayed in ANC for 2.5 days (got bumped by the guides clients on day 2). Hit the ground and found out our original plan wasn't going to work since the guides don't know the boundary lines to the "no-guide" area. Ended up hiking to one pass and turning back due to only 3 ewes spotted in a huge valley. Figured we would stay high, which meant back tracking to another lower pass (4900 feet). Camped low before going over that pass and woke up to these three idiots walking through camp. Saw them the night before so we knew they were there and without a legal.
At 38 yards.
Head up the canyon to the pass and have to do some fancy footwork around/over/hand over hand nuts to rock to climb through waterfalls. Get near the top and spot a 8 foot griz coming our way on the mt side. Well this is going to end badly for him because we are basically pinned in a 10 foot wide canyon with 20 foot walls. He decides to go above us about 200 yards. We go over the pass in knee high snow and spot some rams down in the valley. We drop into another canyon and make our way toward them but get busted by two rams on the other side of the mt. A banana horn and 7/8 curl with a wide flare. We get to where we need to be and no rams so we wait them out. It starts to snow, and continues to snow, my buddy is wrapped up under his backpack rain cover and I pull out my tent fly. Two hours later there's 4 inches of snow on the ground and its 5 o'clock. We move toward where we last saw them and get busted coming over a knob. Only 6 in the group though and the full isn't there we move down to where they were and spot the full out on a flat feeding at 312 yards.
We watch him for 45 minutes or so and its difficult to judge since the horn closest to us is broomed and the opposite horn is covered in snow most of the time as he feeds. Occasionally it falls off and I'm about 95% sure he's full, and about 90% sure he is 8.5 years old. We are looking down on him and he does have his winter hair which covers more of the bases so in hindsight I'm about 99.9% sure he was full. He is also smaller than the other two rams I've taken, figure 31-33" and we still have 3 days to hunt. Not to mention we have some pretty nasty canyons to cross with high water due to the snow melting and more snow coming. So we pass.
Next morning, calling our transporter to tell him we aren't going to be able to make it back up over the pass and to pick us up at a lake 9 miles away.
Hike through snow storms that morning and snow for the rest of the day. Make it to the lake that evening, wet, tired and cold. Threw together a little leanto with some left over plywood, made a nice place to cook dinner.
The lake gets skim ice that night (low 20s) so we are figuring we will need to hike out to another river drainage 10 miles away if she freezes that night. The afternoon warms up and after taking a 2 mile hike and spotting some rams. We wait them out most of the afternoon, but no legals once they start to feed.
Wind came up so no skim ice in the morning, doesn't help the windchill though. Pick up comes at noon, a beaver on floats that's $2k back to ANC.
Hammering your boots with rocks to be able to put them on is something I don't ever need to do again, if it ain't an August sheep hunt I aint going.
I consider myself lucky to have taken two nice rams and knew the odds were stacked against doing a 3 for 3, but it was still a tough pill to swallow. Time to start planning the next one...
