2016 sheep hunt

[Bambistew]

Had a great season, and am for once glad its over... I've never had a "Premium" draw tag before, and will tell you the pressure was a bit intense. More so on myself, knowing I will probably never draw this tag again, and not wanting to puss out when the going got tough. I went on 3 long weekend sheep hunts with friends and family prior to my hunt to "warm up," but it was more like getting off the couch vs actually getting warmed up. I pulled rabbit out of the hat in the bottom of the 8th. I will leave this little teaser here until I get some time work up the full story. Amazing trip(s), huge rams, and good company.

 

[JCS]

Like

 

[Dave N]

Congrats! Waiting anxiously for the pics. You always seem to find some exceptional animals, this should be a good one! Been crunching the numbers for my retirement and Alaska is getting closer all the time. Maybe someday halfway soon you could show some wide-eyed cheechako the ropes.

 

[6mm Remington]

Now that's just mean spirited right there! Congratulations.

 

[sneakypete]

Dang, that's a teaser!!! Congrats in advance.

 

[antlerradar]

I feel like you set the hook and there won't be any getting off

 

[fulldraw]

Cant wait for the full story with some pics.

 

[MinnesotaHunter]

Subscribed.....looks good so far!

 

[Elkhunter24]

Congrats!!

 

[MT_elk]

Congrats! You have us all on pins and needles with that teaser!

 

[Steve O]

Somehow my post for Oak got inserted here...

Looking forward to the story!

 

[ElkHunter11]

Looking forward to the story, great teaser! Congrats on the sheep!

 

[JohnCushman]

Hunt Talk needs a "that's friggin awesome" button

 

[Southern Elk]

Looking forward to hearing the story.

 

[wolfpup]

Worse than a stripper! But of course I will come back to see again.

 

[noharleyyet]

....let's get to second base darlin' ; )

 

[Bambistew]

I've drawn some fun tags over the years, but didn't expect to pull this one. I was heading into jury duty this spring when i got a text stating that I was a lucky SOB, love it when someone else breaks the good news to me. The trailhead is about 2 miles, as a crow flies, from my house.

I spent a bit of time this summer prepping and talking to a few people about the tag, but didn't do any scouting. I rarely scout, and for sheep it would be pretty much useless as the rams will move a long ways between summer and early fall, coupled with hunting pressure it was going to be an effort of perseverance and persistence. I wasn't too worried about finding sheep, I "hired" the best guide (AKDrifter) in the business.

The unit is divided into a couple major areas, one is pretty accessible by car/road, but still requires a lot of vertical to get to the sheep, the other is buried a couple drainages deep, or a long slog up the bottom. My main point of focus was the core area buried deep, and if we struck-out I would hit some of the fringe areas of the more road accessible areas. The worst part of this trip is the weather in September, its our wet season, so fog/clouds/rain would likely hamper the success potential.

The area is broken into 3 separate seasons with no split between, so going in early may ruin someone else's hunt, and really, I didn't think it would give us any real advantage. I would much rather spend my time "scouting" with a rifle in my hand. There are 18 permits issued for all seasons, and about 4 sheep killed a year, about half of them by non-residents. I felt my odds were pretty good considering that most of the people that draw this tag are usually first time sheep hunters, or really don't know what it takes to put a ram on the ground. Going into the season, the tally was up to 3 for the first 2 seasons, with only one coming from the area we intended to hunt.

The wife dropped us off in the morning, and up the hill we went towards the pass.

I may have gotten a bit greedy with the amount of country I wanted to cover, but more miles = more chance to find a ram. We reach out first base camp the afternoon before the season opened. We set up camp and took off for a back canyon a few miles away to check on sheep. In the mean time a storm was starting to roll in and the clouds were descending, not good. We glassed between clouds but in the end couldn't see anything, so headed back to camp. The next two days were a bust due to low clouds and rain, we hung around camp and burned up all the wood we could find...

The third day the weather broke. We packed up our gear and headed for the next pass.

As we approached, blotchy clouds gave us a glimpse of our first sheep, then more, and more. Seemed like everywhere we looked we spotted sheep. We circled the skyline and looked into another drainage and finally found a good ram. He was about 3 miles away, and required us to drop to the valley floor and climb the opposite wall.

We were losing daylight by the minute, and made camp just at dark. We had a game plan, a sheep to chase and the clouds were behaving, sorta.

 

[mtmander]

nice country

 

[Dave N]

nice country

I'll second that! It's one thing to see the area from the road, it's a whole new ball game to get out and hike! Keep the story coming! Oh yeah, trailhead starts 2 miles from your house? Now that's just not fair!

 

[Oak]

Keep going. I would love to do another sheep hunt in that country. Gonna have to live vicariously through you R's, though.