Finally found a bit of time to put up a few pictures of my buddy and my sheep hunt from last fall.
A bit of adventure in this trip, long walks, glaciers, bears, sheep, and hunters...
We ended up chasing ghost sheep through the smoke for 3 days only to find ourselves about 15 miles from our landing strip and out of food. We originally planned to hunt the complete opposite direction we ended up. This is pretty typical of my hunts, nothing ever goes as planned. Looking back, I think I'm seeing a pattern of success.
The brutal long winter was tough on the sheep. We didn't see a single lamb in 9 days. This was the closest we saw to a lamb...
One of the ghost sheep. 6-7yo double broomed. We both tried to talk the other into shooting him, to no avail. We let him live, not sure if how long he lasted though.
We spotted a couple rams across the main drainage, but we had a dilemma... to get over and kill one we'd need at least 2 or more days worth of rations... we had less than a days worth. We weren't 100% sure how big the rams were as the smoke was so thick. We decided to return to the strip, to get food and go the opposite direction (the original plan) and not think about the rams we'd seen. There was a sizable river/glacier between us and them and we had untouched drainage's to hunt the opposite direction, or so we though... Once we got back to the strip, we ran into a couple guys that had just come out of the area we were planning on hunting. That made the decision easy for us.... turn and burn. We burned an entire day making a food run, but we at least had a few sheep to chase, big or small.
We spotted a really nice ram on day 4, made a trek across an ice field for a better look. My partner was still a sheep virgin and I told him he had first shot. After looking the ram over he couldn't bring himself to taking the best sheep on the mountain as a gift, so a game of rock/paper/scissors ensued. He won of course, and ended up with a sheep of a "lifetime." Pretty neat stalk which ended in a kill shot at about 35 yards. Not only did he lose his virginity, he took the virginity on my new Kimber Montana. I could think of worst things in life.
In the bag!
We had seen a couple other rams on the same mountain a couple days before, but when we spotted them it was too far to tell how big they were. We weren't sure if the ram we'd just shot was one of the ones seen or not. We took care of the first sheep with the intention of going to look for the second up and over into the next drainage. The plan was foiled by a group of ewes and we didn't want to spook them out for fear that we'd blow the group of rams out just over the next ridge.
We returned to camp and made a plan for the following day. Go look for the second group of rams, kill one, and then go back and pick up the meat/cape from the first sheep and pack both out. You know... the perfect scenario. Well it almost worked out, all except for the part where we pack both off the hill at the same time.
We made our way back up to the small pass about 2200' above camp. We spotted the small band of rams we'd seen 3 days prior, and this time the smoke, rain and fog had cleared enough to give us a clear picture. There was a no-doubter ram in the group, one glance and we knew what had to be done. The problem was we had to cross a wide open drainage, drop nearly a 1000' vertical and climb nearly twice that to get above them. Odds were good that they'd see us drop down. We gambled and went for it. Two hours later we were above them, sorting out the legal ram from the rest. The clouds and rain were moving in and out. visibility was 1000 yards then 20. Finally we sorted him out, I lined up the shot and made it count. Ram two was down. The shot was a bit over 200 yards quartering toward. No sooner had the ram hit the ground did a fog bank roll in and completely obscure the ram and area he'd just been. Leaving the youngster a few days prior was the best thing we could have done.
We cleaned him up and got packed and headed back to camp. We returned about 4 hours later, mostly in the dark completely soaked from the rain and alders. The next day we retrieved my partners ram and took the rest of the day off. We couldn't cross the river anyway as it was completely blown out. We were lucky to get a break in the rain, if it hadn't stopped we'd have been stuck in there for a long time...
Can't wait to get after them again this fall. The Wrangells are a special place.
A bit of adventure in this trip, long walks, glaciers, bears, sheep, and hunters...
We ended up chasing ghost sheep through the smoke for 3 days only to find ourselves about 15 miles from our landing strip and out of food. We originally planned to hunt the complete opposite direction we ended up. This is pretty typical of my hunts, nothing ever goes as planned. Looking back, I think I'm seeing a pattern of success.
The brutal long winter was tough on the sheep. We didn't see a single lamb in 9 days. This was the closest we saw to a lamb...
One of the ghost sheep. 6-7yo double broomed. We both tried to talk the other into shooting him, to no avail. We let him live, not sure if how long he lasted though.
We spotted a couple rams across the main drainage, but we had a dilemma... to get over and kill one we'd need at least 2 or more days worth of rations... we had less than a days worth. We weren't 100% sure how big the rams were as the smoke was so thick. We decided to return to the strip, to get food and go the opposite direction (the original plan) and not think about the rams we'd seen. There was a sizable river/glacier between us and them and we had untouched drainage's to hunt the opposite direction, or so we though... Once we got back to the strip, we ran into a couple guys that had just come out of the area we were planning on hunting. That made the decision easy for us.... turn and burn. We burned an entire day making a food run, but we at least had a few sheep to chase, big or small.
We spotted a really nice ram on day 4, made a trek across an ice field for a better look. My partner was still a sheep virgin and I told him he had first shot. After looking the ram over he couldn't bring himself to taking the best sheep on the mountain as a gift, so a game of rock/paper/scissors ensued. He won of course, and ended up with a sheep of a "lifetime." Pretty neat stalk which ended in a kill shot at about 35 yards. Not only did he lose his virginity, he took the virginity on my new Kimber Montana. I could think of worst things in life.
In the bag!
We had seen a couple other rams on the same mountain a couple days before, but when we spotted them it was too far to tell how big they were. We weren't sure if the ram we'd just shot was one of the ones seen or not. We took care of the first sheep with the intention of going to look for the second up and over into the next drainage. The plan was foiled by a group of ewes and we didn't want to spook them out for fear that we'd blow the group of rams out just over the next ridge.
We returned to camp and made a plan for the following day. Go look for the second group of rams, kill one, and then go back and pick up the meat/cape from the first sheep and pack both out. You know... the perfect scenario. Well it almost worked out, all except for the part where we pack both off the hill at the same time.
We made our way back up to the small pass about 2200' above camp. We spotted the small band of rams we'd seen 3 days prior, and this time the smoke, rain and fog had cleared enough to give us a clear picture. There was a no-doubter ram in the group, one glance and we knew what had to be done. The problem was we had to cross a wide open drainage, drop nearly a 1000' vertical and climb nearly twice that to get above them. Odds were good that they'd see us drop down. We gambled and went for it. Two hours later we were above them, sorting out the legal ram from the rest. The clouds and rain were moving in and out. visibility was 1000 yards then 20. Finally we sorted him out, I lined up the shot and made it count. Ram two was down. The shot was a bit over 200 yards quartering toward. No sooner had the ram hit the ground did a fog bank roll in and completely obscure the ram and area he'd just been. Leaving the youngster a few days prior was the best thing we could have done.
We cleaned him up and got packed and headed back to camp. We returned about 4 hours later, mostly in the dark completely soaked from the rain and alders. The next day we retrieved my partners ram and took the rest of the day off. We couldn't cross the river anyway as it was completely blown out. We were lucky to get a break in the rain, if it hadn't stopped we'd have been stuck in there for a long time...
Can't wait to get after them again this fall. The Wrangells are a special place.
