putm2sleep
New member
Sweet shot of the rifle and plastic bag.
-kidding-
Great horns - nice score!
-kidding-
Great horns - nice score!
Alaska bighorn hunt
- Thread starter Bambistew
- Start date
Bambistew
Well-known member
I'm abotu 3/4 through the embelishments and lies. Tanya's sizing up her ram the morning before we killed them. They were way at the top of this cliff about 6-700 yards off. We ended up killing them just below the flat/rectangular cliff in the right center of the picture.
Also a group of hungry honey badgers waiting to pounce.
Also a group of hungry honey badgers waiting to pounce.
Attachments
Brandenbowhunter
Well-known member
That is an awesome sight! I am green!
T Bone
Well-known member
Congrats Bambi. Those are some dandy rams. I can't really imagine sheep hunting with my spouse.
shoots-straight
Well-known member
Really nice couple of Rams!
ashersdad
Well-known member
That's an awesome photo! Congrats on your success!
Nut
New member
Double Awesome!!!
FishN4Eyes
Well-known member
More pics required!!!!!!!!
NICE rams!
Jealousy abounds....
NICE rams!
Jealousy abounds....
BuzzH
Well-known member
Very nice...congrats on those two rams.
Looks like some great country as well.
Looks like some great country as well.
Bambistew
Well-known member
Where to start… This trip was likely the hardest physically, most eventful hunt that I’ve been on, and for sure the most for Tanya. To start the trip, we left home two days before sheep season opened. The plan was to fly in early to beat the “locals” and spend a day scouting the area looking for legal rams.
We were once again hunting the Western Alaska Range, parts of which are some of the most rugged and glacial in the state. The area we planned to hunt was both. We would be flown into sheep country in a small 2-seater Super Cub, one at a time with essential gear. The round trip between town and the bush strip was about 2.5-3 hours. The flight in was pleasant with many moose spotted from the air along the way and countless caribou sheds. Our destination would be a large glacial delta fan smooth enough for the tundra tires to touch down safely. I flew in first, and set up base camp and awaited my bride to show some time later. After a couple hours, no plane had shown, I was starting to wonder, but wasn’t worried. The weather was overcast with low clouds, I assumed that maybe fog or low clouds had rolled in on the other side of the ridge which I couldn’t see, and they were grounded for a while, and possibly until the following day. I was prepared, and had all the gear I needed to stay.
Roughly 4 hours later, I heard a plane in the distance, as it approached I realized it was a different plane, but recognized it. Turns out the first plane had minor mechanical problems, and they returned to home base after getting about half way to camp.
During the time I was waiting, I prepared camp, and surveyed the area, comparing maps to my surroundings. I made a quick stalk on an unsuspecting caribou bull, got to within about 30 yards, all while wearing “loud” rain gear. I probably could have saddled him up and rode him into sheep country if I was wearing Sitka gear…
I set up camp on an old gravel bar; taking care to make sure it wasn’t an active channel. Later we realized that it must have been cool for the last week or so before we were there, and the glaciers were not active and melting, upon return to the strip, water was running all across the delta, luckily camp was still dry. The area we would be hunting was a large glacial drainage, with more drainages than we could hunt in a week of walking. We planned to hunt close to the strip and work our way out from there until we found rams.
The day before the season opened, we hiked up the small drainage where we had landed, hopefully to find a legal ram or two. I'd never been to this drainage, and had only looked at it on maps. Maps are great, but it’s hard to see exactly what the terrain (crags/cliffs) and vegetation looks like without ground-truthing it. To make matters worse, the clouds and fog were low, obscuring most of the mountain where the sheep would hang. We made our way up as far as we dare without walking into what we figured was their bedroom. We spotted a few rams and ewes on our side and another possible shooter across the canyon, but he was in the clouds and difficult to judge. We spent most of the day in the rain and fog, formulating a plan for opening day. No full curl rams were found that day, but we were hopeful, given the amount of sheep we'd seen that we’d turn one up.
Opening day we made our way up the same drainage. The clouds and fog had lifted and revealed most of the mountain. The view was breathtaking, the mountains absolutely towered overhead, with the valley floor at 5000, and peaks reaching 10,000+’ in some instances at a sheer cliffs 1000’s of feet high! We got to the sheep haunt early that morning, and stayed all day. We were able to maneuver around and see pretty much every nook and cranny a ram could hide. All we could turn up was a dozen sub-legal rams and a band of ewes and lambs.
We were once again hunting the Western Alaska Range, parts of which are some of the most rugged and glacial in the state. The area we planned to hunt was both. We would be flown into sheep country in a small 2-seater Super Cub, one at a time with essential gear. The round trip between town and the bush strip was about 2.5-3 hours. The flight in was pleasant with many moose spotted from the air along the way and countless caribou sheds. Our destination would be a large glacial delta fan smooth enough for the tundra tires to touch down safely. I flew in first, and set up base camp and awaited my bride to show some time later. After a couple hours, no plane had shown, I was starting to wonder, but wasn’t worried. The weather was overcast with low clouds, I assumed that maybe fog or low clouds had rolled in on the other side of the ridge which I couldn’t see, and they were grounded for a while, and possibly until the following day. I was prepared, and had all the gear I needed to stay.
Roughly 4 hours later, I heard a plane in the distance, as it approached I realized it was a different plane, but recognized it. Turns out the first plane had minor mechanical problems, and they returned to home base after getting about half way to camp.
During the time I was waiting, I prepared camp, and surveyed the area, comparing maps to my surroundings. I made a quick stalk on an unsuspecting caribou bull, got to within about 30 yards, all while wearing “loud” rain gear. I probably could have saddled him up and rode him into sheep country if I was wearing Sitka gear…
I set up camp on an old gravel bar; taking care to make sure it wasn’t an active channel. Later we realized that it must have been cool for the last week or so before we were there, and the glaciers were not active and melting, upon return to the strip, water was running all across the delta, luckily camp was still dry. The area we would be hunting was a large glacial drainage, with more drainages than we could hunt in a week of walking. We planned to hunt close to the strip and work our way out from there until we found rams.
The day before the season opened, we hiked up the small drainage where we had landed, hopefully to find a legal ram or two. I'd never been to this drainage, and had only looked at it on maps. Maps are great, but it’s hard to see exactly what the terrain (crags/cliffs) and vegetation looks like without ground-truthing it. To make matters worse, the clouds and fog were low, obscuring most of the mountain where the sheep would hang. We made our way up as far as we dare without walking into what we figured was their bedroom. We spotted a few rams and ewes on our side and another possible shooter across the canyon, but he was in the clouds and difficult to judge. We spent most of the day in the rain and fog, formulating a plan for opening day. No full curl rams were found that day, but we were hopeful, given the amount of sheep we'd seen that we’d turn one up.
Opening day we made our way up the same drainage. The clouds and fog had lifted and revealed most of the mountain. The view was breathtaking, the mountains absolutely towered overhead, with the valley floor at 5000, and peaks reaching 10,000+’ in some instances at a sheer cliffs 1000’s of feet high! We got to the sheep haunt early that morning, and stayed all day. We were able to maneuver around and see pretty much every nook and cranny a ram could hide. All we could turn up was a dozen sub-legal rams and a band of ewes and lambs.
indian larry
Member
Great rams! Those are 2 good looking sheep congrats to you and Tanya both. Amazing country up there for sure
Wyodeerhunter
Banned
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2002
- Messages
- 2,150
Wyodeerhunter
Banned
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2002
- Messages
- 2,150
Those are legal sheep to some people...
Bambistew
Well-known member
We weighed our options, and decided that we’d probably seen about everything there was to see in this valley. We decided to head back to camp, pack up supplies for about 6-7 days and head up the main drainage. I figured we could hunt the main drainage in 5-6 days, and if we didn’t turn up a ram or two up there, we’d come back to the strip and head down the canyon and hunt out the rest of our trip there.
We marched up the main canyon about 4 miles to the next major drainage. Setup camp, and took in our surroundings. Again the clouds were low, but most of the sheepy looking country was visible. We climbed a small knoll and started glassing up sheep in all directions. The drainage where we were camped held a small band of sheep, but no big rams. A mountain about 3 miles away held a lot of sheep, and upon closer inspection… held a lot of RAMS! Two lone rams were spotted in separate locations, but they were too far away to verify if they were legal or not. Generally lone sheep are an indication of an older sheep, but not necessarily a legal ram.
Now we have a dilemma… To get to the rams, we’d have to cross a couple glaciers. Neither one of us had crossed a glacier, and had no idea what to expect. We didn’t have crampons, and were unsure how the footing would be on the ice in all the folds and crevices. It turned out the rocky moraine surrounding the ice was 10 times harder to navigate than the ice itself. The mounds of boulders, loose rock, and sand/gravel covered ice, were like a maze from hell. The mounds were 20-50’ high, and what would be found on the other side was anyone’s guess until you saw it. Solid ground was impossible to find, every step resulted in a slip, slide, or rolled cankle. Those 3 miles across would take us approximately 6 hours to navigate.
We stashed some gear, and food at the second camp, and packed enough food and provisions to make it for 3-4 days. We went in as light as possible, with hopes of coming back heavily loaded with meat and horns! The area where the rams were was a small mountain surrounded by glaciers, and sheer cliffs. We could hunt most of it in a day, so taking extra provisions was useless. If we couldn’t get it done in a few days, or find legal sheep, we’d come back and head elsewhere.
We established camp in a small ravine, which gave us the ability to move in and out of camp undetected if sheep happened to show up close by.
The first evening we hiked around to the far side of the mountain. We got to within about 100 yards of about 18 small rams and one of the single rams. None of them were legal age/length, but still fun to get that close to so many animals. Unfortunately, we dropped our packs to make the last leg of the stalk, so I didn’t get any pictures. Satisfied that we’d seen all the sheep in this group, we headed back to camp. On the way back we ran into a few groups of ptarmigan. We have 3 different types of ptarmigan here, some are dumber than others, but none are much smarter than a rock… Using their stupidity to our advantage, we managed to kill a couple with rocks, like cavemen, at fairly close range! Ptarmigan... it’s what’s for dinner.
The following morning, we hunted the opposite direction as the night before. I’d spotted a group of 4 rams a couple days before just at the edge of the moraine, but didn’t get a good look at them before they moved out of sight and up a side canyon. I was unsure if we could get around this section of mountain, due to the glacier/permafrost melting away below the cliffs.
We left camp moving up a small cut in the hill, this cut was strewn with large boulders, and short vegetation around it, looking similar to a manicured lawn. The marmots, and ground squirrels were keeping a tidy ship. Moving a long I caught movement ahead of me about 50 yards, it was much larger than the marmots, but maybe 3x as big. It dawned on me that it was a wolverine! He was moving away from me, but I thought I could catch up for a picture. I dropped my pack, and wrestled for my camera. While doing so, I noticed another one about 25 yards away peaking at me from behind a rock. I’ve seen a handful of wolverines in the last couple years, and they were always hauling ass to get away. I wasn’t worried that this one would attack… for some reason. I motioned Tanya to come a bit closer so she could see the little dude looking back at me. About that time a third one popped up about 10 yards away and was coming right for us. Oh shit! I grab the rifle, and my pack and scamper up a small ridge a few yards away to get the “high ground”. The little devil dove under a rock right next to where we were just sitting! I look down and all my gear that was in the same pocket as my camera had fallen out in the fray. We needed this to continue on our hunt… We sat on the ridge about 15 yards away pondering our situation. We didn’t think they were aggressive, but we were outnumbered. Was one of them mama? Was this their home, or did we just interrupt their morning hunt? Either way, the gps, extra ammo, cameras, knives, etc, where strewn about the lawn and we needed to retrieve them.
I told Tanya to take point and cover me as I went in to retrieve the gear, however she felt it would better if I was doing the shooting in case things got hairy. We managed to scrape up most of the gear using a trekking pole, however the camera had fallen down between some rocks, about 5 yards from their lair. Tanya pulled out her combat knife (a 4” folding Bench Made) and grabbed a pole to fish out the camera. It was tense, but she managed to pull the camera free while under my cover. Looking back neither of us was really that scared of the little guys, we think they lived in those rocks, and were young pups just trying to hide out.
The majority of the hike around the mountain was easy, with a little scree and rocks to navigate; the last part was pretty hairy. We had to climb about 200’ of shale rockslide to skirt around a section of slope that was sloughing into the glacier moraine. We carefully made our way to the top, and started back down.
About half way down, I lost footing and flipped on my back. In doing so, I dislocated my shoulder in the fall… The pain was about a 7 out of 10, I wasn’t pissing my pants, but was close. I managed to relax my muscles, and pop it back in place. The pain instantly subsided to soreness. I moved my shoulder around a bit, and it popped back out! I thought this isn’t good. We’re hella of a long ways from help, but at least I can still walk… Again I relaxed and got it back into socket. I laid there for a moment deciding what we should do. It’s not a life threatening injury, but if I can’t pack weight, we might as well go home. I rolled my shoulder around and everything seemed like it was ok, time to buck up buttercup…
We continued around the mountain until we reached yet another glacier basin. We’d seen a really nice sheep from our latest camp across this glacier, we called him Big Bill. He was nearly full curl with a lot of horn missing on both sides. The problem with Bill, is he was WAY high on a cliffy ridge, and needed to come down lower to give us a shot. Turns out the glacier would be pretty easy to cross, but getting up the opposite side moraine would be challenging. The ram had moved up into the rocks about 2000’ above the valley floor. He’d need to come down at least 1/3 of the way for us to have a chance at him, due to the benches and steep terrain We watched him for a bit, and dreamt of the possibility of taking the old broomed warrior. I asked Tanya how we would decide who got to shoot him, a game of rock/paper/scissors perhaps? No… she said he was hers because I could go hunting again in the next few weeks if I wanted. Fair enough, I was hoping she’s say that.
By now it was closing in on lunch time, we continued up the small glacier basin another ½ mile or so, and spotted a ram feeding on a knife ridge cliff. We pulled out the spotter, and verified that it was a nice ram, broomed on both sides, and legal. We continued watching for a bit, and another ram materialized, this one was maybe 7, but not quite full curl, he was just too close to call, and not worth risking a fine if sub-legal. They were maybe 300 yards away straight uphill within shooting distance, the problem was the cliffs they were feeding amongst. If we were to take the shot, the ram would surely get hung up, and no way to retrieve him without risking life and limb.
In our haste to make him legal, we were spotted by the bigger ram. He got a bit nervous and moved up the hill about 2-300 yards and lay down. We thought it best to slowly back out, take a nap and come back that evening with hopes they’d move down the hill a ways.
We marched up the main canyon about 4 miles to the next major drainage. Setup camp, and took in our surroundings. Again the clouds were low, but most of the sheepy looking country was visible. We climbed a small knoll and started glassing up sheep in all directions. The drainage where we were camped held a small band of sheep, but no big rams. A mountain about 3 miles away held a lot of sheep, and upon closer inspection… held a lot of RAMS! Two lone rams were spotted in separate locations, but they were too far away to verify if they were legal or not. Generally lone sheep are an indication of an older sheep, but not necessarily a legal ram.
Now we have a dilemma… To get to the rams, we’d have to cross a couple glaciers. Neither one of us had crossed a glacier, and had no idea what to expect. We didn’t have crampons, and were unsure how the footing would be on the ice in all the folds and crevices. It turned out the rocky moraine surrounding the ice was 10 times harder to navigate than the ice itself. The mounds of boulders, loose rock, and sand/gravel covered ice, were like a maze from hell. The mounds were 20-50’ high, and what would be found on the other side was anyone’s guess until you saw it. Solid ground was impossible to find, every step resulted in a slip, slide, or rolled cankle. Those 3 miles across would take us approximately 6 hours to navigate.
We stashed some gear, and food at the second camp, and packed enough food and provisions to make it for 3-4 days. We went in as light as possible, with hopes of coming back heavily loaded with meat and horns! The area where the rams were was a small mountain surrounded by glaciers, and sheer cliffs. We could hunt most of it in a day, so taking extra provisions was useless. If we couldn’t get it done in a few days, or find legal sheep, we’d come back and head elsewhere.
We established camp in a small ravine, which gave us the ability to move in and out of camp undetected if sheep happened to show up close by.
The first evening we hiked around to the far side of the mountain. We got to within about 100 yards of about 18 small rams and one of the single rams. None of them were legal age/length, but still fun to get that close to so many animals. Unfortunately, we dropped our packs to make the last leg of the stalk, so I didn’t get any pictures. Satisfied that we’d seen all the sheep in this group, we headed back to camp. On the way back we ran into a few groups of ptarmigan. We have 3 different types of ptarmigan here, some are dumber than others, but none are much smarter than a rock… Using their stupidity to our advantage, we managed to kill a couple with rocks, like cavemen, at fairly close range! Ptarmigan... it’s what’s for dinner.
The following morning, we hunted the opposite direction as the night before. I’d spotted a group of 4 rams a couple days before just at the edge of the moraine, but didn’t get a good look at them before they moved out of sight and up a side canyon. I was unsure if we could get around this section of mountain, due to the glacier/permafrost melting away below the cliffs.
We left camp moving up a small cut in the hill, this cut was strewn with large boulders, and short vegetation around it, looking similar to a manicured lawn. The marmots, and ground squirrels were keeping a tidy ship. Moving a long I caught movement ahead of me about 50 yards, it was much larger than the marmots, but maybe 3x as big. It dawned on me that it was a wolverine! He was moving away from me, but I thought I could catch up for a picture. I dropped my pack, and wrestled for my camera. While doing so, I noticed another one about 25 yards away peaking at me from behind a rock. I’ve seen a handful of wolverines in the last couple years, and they were always hauling ass to get away. I wasn’t worried that this one would attack… for some reason. I motioned Tanya to come a bit closer so she could see the little dude looking back at me. About that time a third one popped up about 10 yards away and was coming right for us. Oh shit! I grab the rifle, and my pack and scamper up a small ridge a few yards away to get the “high ground”. The little devil dove under a rock right next to where we were just sitting! I look down and all my gear that was in the same pocket as my camera had fallen out in the fray. We needed this to continue on our hunt… We sat on the ridge about 15 yards away pondering our situation. We didn’t think they were aggressive, but we were outnumbered. Was one of them mama? Was this their home, or did we just interrupt their morning hunt? Either way, the gps, extra ammo, cameras, knives, etc, where strewn about the lawn and we needed to retrieve them.
I told Tanya to take point and cover me as I went in to retrieve the gear, however she felt it would better if I was doing the shooting in case things got hairy. We managed to scrape up most of the gear using a trekking pole, however the camera had fallen down between some rocks, about 5 yards from their lair. Tanya pulled out her combat knife (a 4” folding Bench Made) and grabbed a pole to fish out the camera. It was tense, but she managed to pull the camera free while under my cover. Looking back neither of us was really that scared of the little guys, we think they lived in those rocks, and were young pups just trying to hide out.
The majority of the hike around the mountain was easy, with a little scree and rocks to navigate; the last part was pretty hairy. We had to climb about 200’ of shale rockslide to skirt around a section of slope that was sloughing into the glacier moraine. We carefully made our way to the top, and started back down.
About half way down, I lost footing and flipped on my back. In doing so, I dislocated my shoulder in the fall… The pain was about a 7 out of 10, I wasn’t pissing my pants, but was close. I managed to relax my muscles, and pop it back in place. The pain instantly subsided to soreness. I moved my shoulder around a bit, and it popped back out! I thought this isn’t good. We’re hella of a long ways from help, but at least I can still walk… Again I relaxed and got it back into socket. I laid there for a moment deciding what we should do. It’s not a life threatening injury, but if I can’t pack weight, we might as well go home. I rolled my shoulder around and everything seemed like it was ok, time to buck up buttercup…
We continued around the mountain until we reached yet another glacier basin. We’d seen a really nice sheep from our latest camp across this glacier, we called him Big Bill. He was nearly full curl with a lot of horn missing on both sides. The problem with Bill, is he was WAY high on a cliffy ridge, and needed to come down lower to give us a shot. Turns out the glacier would be pretty easy to cross, but getting up the opposite side moraine would be challenging. The ram had moved up into the rocks about 2000’ above the valley floor. He’d need to come down at least 1/3 of the way for us to have a chance at him, due to the benches and steep terrain We watched him for a bit, and dreamt of the possibility of taking the old broomed warrior. I asked Tanya how we would decide who got to shoot him, a game of rock/paper/scissors perhaps? No… she said he was hers because I could go hunting again in the next few weeks if I wanted. Fair enough, I was hoping she’s say that.
By now it was closing in on lunch time, we continued up the small glacier basin another ½ mile or so, and spotted a ram feeding on a knife ridge cliff. We pulled out the spotter, and verified that it was a nice ram, broomed on both sides, and legal. We continued watching for a bit, and another ram materialized, this one was maybe 7, but not quite full curl, he was just too close to call, and not worth risking a fine if sub-legal. They were maybe 300 yards away straight uphill within shooting distance, the problem was the cliffs they were feeding amongst. If we were to take the shot, the ram would surely get hung up, and no way to retrieve him without risking life and limb.
In our haste to make him legal, we were spotted by the bigger ram. He got a bit nervous and moved up the hill about 2-300 yards and lay down. We thought it best to slowly back out, take a nap and come back that evening with hopes they’d move down the hill a ways.
passinthru
Active member
Excellent write up.
Congratulations to you both.
I don't know too many women that are that tough or committed to the hunt. You done good.
This is only a dream for me right now, someday though. Stories like this are what make this site so good.
Congratulations to you both.
I don't know too many women that are that tough or committed to the hunt. You done good.
This is only a dream for me right now, someday though. Stories like this are what make this site so good.
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