It's finally here!!!!

[ashersdad]

After 16 months of planning it's finally arrived. I leave tomorrow for my dall sheep/moose hunt in Alaska. I am so excited! Good luck to everyone on their upcoming hunts. I'll be back on the 19th. I hope to see alot of great trophies from everyone when I get back. Later...

 

[Devil Diver Down]

Best of luck. Take time getting some good hero shots and taking notes. That way, the jealous bunch of us back here have something to really drool over.

 

[Big Fin]

Good luck AD. Take lots of pics. It will be a hunt of a lifetime.

 

[Oak]

Good luck and take lots of photos. As DDD mentioned, take notes too. It's amazing how quickly you'll forget the details.

 

[----]

Very jealous.
Good luck up there.
Take tons of pictures and be safe!

 

[Sytes]

Best of success AshD! A hunt of a lifetime! pics! pics, and moe pics!

 

[Ridge Runner]

good luck and travel safe. Looking forward to the story and pics.

 

[Brentster7189]

Sounds like an awesome hunt. Looking forward to your story and pics when you get back! Good luck!

 

[mconway951]

Good Luck AD cant wait to see pics

 

[TBinKodiak]

Good luck AD, have fun and be safe.

 

[indian larry]

Good luck. Alot of hunttalkers have have up here with alot of success this year keep it rolling!

 

[arffdog875]

Good luck Looking forward to photos and story!

 

[ashersdad]

Well I made it back this morning. It turned out to be an incredible trip with many ups and a few downs. I will try to hit the highlights.

We arrived in Anchorage on Sat. the 4th. We were scheduled to fly into camp on the 7th but wanted to give ourselves plenty of time just in case the weather didn't cooperate. Luckily for us it was looking like the 6th was going to be a good weather day. Confirming our thoughts our outfitter called us Sunday and wanted to know if we could go in on the 6th a day early. Of course our answer was, "HELL YES!!"

The next morning we made the 4-5 hour drive to Healy in our 10 passenger rental van. We had high hopes of driving back to Anchorage 11 days later loaded with dall sheep and moose.

We arrived at the airstrip and found our "taxi".

 

[ashersdad]

We got to meet the 3 hunters that were just getting done with there hunt. One guy had shot a sheep and a moose. One guy had hunted hard for 7 days and never could find a legal ram and had then shot a nice moose. The last guy had not gotten anything and told us the hiking had just been too much for him. It sounded like the weather had not been great either.

My biggest concern for this hunt was that the weather wouldn't cooperate. Oh well, you can't control everything and we weren't going to let poor weather get us down. This was a trip that I had dreamed of for years and it was finally here.

Here is all my gear for 11 days minus my rifle.

I probably still could have left some stuff but I didn't end up missing anything either so I guess thats pretty good.

 

[ashersdad]

Any sheep down there?? Gosh, I hope so.

 

[lilbiggun]

Sounding good so far. Is that your rifle strapped to the wing?

 

[ashersdad]

Yep, that's the rifle on the wing.

So we got into base camp and met the guides. Great bunch of guys. We started discussing plans for the hunt. As we talked with the guides they told us that they had spotted 5 rams several miles from camp that needed a closer look. Since my buddy Garrett was sick, he decided to go for moose first and Justin and I would go for sheep first.

We decided that since the 5 rams may have a couple of legal rams, Justin and I would go together the first day with our guides to check them out. We left early the next morning and started hiking. As we left, I could feel my throat getting sore. I was hoping I wouldn't catch what Garrett had but unfortunately, that would not be the case. As the day progressed, I felt worse and worse. The intense hiking in the rain probably didn't help. But hey, I was finally sheep hunting and that's all that mattered.

As we were hiking that morning we stopped at an old cabin and Justin's guide Ryan turned to us and had a handful of sticks and said pick a straw. I really didn't know what we were doing but Justin and I both drew and I drew the long straw. Ryan said that I would have first pick of the 5 rams if there were any legal ones. Little did I know that this one thing would make a tremondous difference in my hunt and Justins. It's funny how little things like this can impact your hunt so much.

 

[Muley Crazy]

come on Keep the post coming!!!

 

[elk_hunter]

Oh man, the narrative is great...this is fix'n to be a good one!

 

[ashersdad]

So we finally made it to our lookout and peeked over the edge and there were the 5 rams bedded at about 600 yards. I was so excited. They were amazing! We quickly determined that there was one ram that was over full curl. There were two others that were close, but we would need to look closer to see if we could count rings. How these guides can do this is amazing to me. So we decided to wait to see if the rams would eventually feed closer to us.

So we waited, and waited, and waited some more. We ended up waiting for 6 hours. The wind was blowing and it was raining and we froze on that mountain side. But honestly, I couldn't have been happier. This was my dream come true.

At one point we could see over 50 ewes and lambs, 2 huge bull moose, one LARGE black bear, and a grizzly sow with 3 full grown cubs. Add to that the 5 rams we had bedded around the ridge from us and it was truly amazing. I think at that moment, I considered my hunt a success. Just to be there to see this amazing country was worth all the work and effort.