Personally I don't shoot bears on any hunt unless they are in the right place at the right time. I pass up numerous bears every fall, mostly because I just don't care to shoot one that bad or want to waste half a day or more dealing with one, let alone potentially another day/trip packing one...
October in the Chugach will be wet and snowy. The biggest hurdle you will face will be being able to see the mountain. I would plan on temps in the 20-40 deg range.
Tons of options out there that will work fine, IMO. There is no clothing that will make or break a hunt, they may make it a...
I'm not sure about late July, but I just looked through a bunch of pictures I have from the last 10 years sheep hunting. We always run into a few nice caribou bulls in the mountains. Every mature bull I have a picture/video of (25ish bulls) were fully developed with prominent points by August...
Bad reports keep coming in... South Brooks (near Wiseman) isn't looking to good, deep crusty snow is hard on sheep, what few have survived. There are a number of prominent outfitters (who are mentioned regularly) that hunt this area. Be interesting to hear their spin on it, or if they've even...
F&G said that they've lost ~25% of their collared animals in the Talkeetnas to various reasons, 2x more than normal mortality. I suspect 13D will be in a similar boat. Final nail in the coffin? Will they issue an EO?
Snow depths in the central and western AK Range are 2x+ as much of normal...
How bad do you think the winter kill will be on sheep this year in AK? Snow has piled up deep in many ranges, but generally I think we avoided most of the rain/chinook type weather. I'm sure the predators had a good winter eating sheep. I'm guessing it's going to be a bit more challenging than...
Once the night before, only to pass on the ram we waited out. I've slept out on the mountain a few times after killing one near dark-thirty and not wanting to climb down in the dark.
I weigh most of my meat bags when I get home, they've ranged from 55 to 82 of boned meat. Capes are 4ish, and full skulls (dall) have ranged from 15 to 21, most in the 18-19 range. A skull weighs 7lbs if I remember right, skull capping doesnt save much weight as most of the weight is in the...
I've had a Copper Spur 3 since they came out 10-11 years ago. Dozens and dozens of hunts later still performs flawlessly here in Alaska, including 15ish sheep hunts. It's perfect for 2 guys, tons of room. The weight to floor space is hard to beat.
Tonsina walk in area in the Chugach would be my pick. The Tonsina has similar success rates as the MT Unlimiteds, but the weather sucks more often than not with alders for days.
They are far and few between, because the success rate is very low. The archery hunts here by Anchorage run about 7-10% at best. about 50 hunters kill like 3-4 a year and its any ram...
We have extremely varied terrain to hunt them in most is very conducive to stalking with a bow. IMO the...
Really depends on the terrain. Some areas are thick, some wide open.
I've killed them at 50 yards out to maybe 300, some shot off rests, some off shooting sticks, some off tree's some sitting, some prone. Its not hard to stalk them, there is no definite answer. They are like hunting any other...
I think it depends on what it is. I had a spotting scope I sent in to get fixed. It had some of the flock inside come loose and was floating around inside. I wasn't sure if it was the eyepiece or the body. They had to send it to Germany to get fixed. It took about 4 weeks, but they sent me a new...
I realized you were fishing for caribou after I posted, then the website locked up. haha. There are some really big caribou on the peninsula. The herd is small but sees very little pressure. Some the biggest bulls I see every fall come off the Peninsula.
The 40 Mile country has some nice...
Western Alaska. I'm not sure why people are so enamored with hunting the 40 - mile country. The moose density isn't that high, some of the area is any-bull and really very few big bulls come out of that country. Nice bulls yes, but not giants. There are giants in Western Alaska, mostly because...
According to the statistics I have from 1988 to present... guided hunters in AK on OTC hunts, on "average", tag out in about 3.5 days. About 1 in 5 do not kill a sheep, also keep that in mind. Many of the good outfits run nearly 100% success and there is always circumstances that preclude...
I would for sure do some research. Some areas up north have bears the size of big labradors... Something to consider. They just don't grow that big up north on average.
Some areas don't have a lot of bears in sheep country, some do... adding it on may just be pissing your money away. In one of...
Took my 67yo father in law last year. We almost got a ram 2x. Just bad luck, with wind, and walking out of sight/over cliffs. I've run into a number of guys that were near 70 still sheep hunting. I have hopes that I will still be hunting sheep when I'm 70.... so another 30 years or so. ;)
Where about in AK will you be hunting? Reason I ask, is if there isn't much brush, your superlight stuff may be more than sufficient, unless you don't have any confidence in it? Not a lot of brush encountered in some areas, ask your outfitter. Some of the areas I hunt have basically zero brush...