"NOT" The best sheep hunt ever.

[Stid2677]

The Sheep population is in decline in Alaska currently, many factors at play, but mostly weather related. Having taken several Dall Rams, I'm becoming more interested in the conservation side, I had decided not to hunt OTC this past fall. Then my Son ask my to take him to try to get hist first Ram with a bow. I knew this was going to be a tall order, but since he ask me to I wanted to try to give it my best effort.

Age, injuries, excuses maybe a tad of "Man-o-pause, all left me overweight and out of shape. This winter I was tipping the scale at 194 lbs, that is a all time high for me, had to buy larger pants after all my size 34 pants "shrunk" I had to concede and buy some 36s.

This spring I attended the Rokslide pack raft get together and that hike was an eye opener. I was the "fat guy" in the group. Never been that guy before and the load and hike kicked my ass. I bought some sticky buns and soda on my drive home,,,I never ate it. I threw it out and completely went sugar free, no sugar, sodas, etc...

Lost of water, high protein, low carb, no sugar. Kept caloric intake to under 1500 a day and around 1k some days. Walked everyday, only supplements are a multivitamin and fish oil. I lost over 40 pounds from May to Aug 1st, I was 151 pounds the day we flew. My feet were ready and my body and mind were ready as well.

Zach and I practiced all summer and I was sure he could make the shot if we could get within 50 yards. As life does, it would drive our timeline. Zach could only get 2 weeks off and with coworkers out sick, they could not extend his time off. Another factor was my wife was also coming home on leave from the Army, so our time window was pretty much fixed.

As we got near Happy Valley we ran into the first snow of the year, heavy wet and 4 to 6 inches met us at the airstrip. The plane was covered in snow. The owner of the air taxi sat down and told me straight weather, maintenance and work load all left him backed up. He told me that he would only be able to try once to get us to our drainage, if the LZ was clouded in, we would have to go to another place. He did not have time to fly us there more than once. The cost is almost 5K, so that is a large gamble, but I agreed to the onetime try and Mike said we would have the best weather in the morning.

Snow covered plane.

Snow has melted, go time.

 

[KHNC]

Good luck! didn't realize right away that you are just now starting the hunt.

 

[Trial153]

Good luck and be safe!!

 

[Stid2677]

We flew from Happy Valley and headed east, we flew over tundra for over 1oo miles only seeing a few caribou. We normally see hundreds, the clouds were forming a sea of white that covered everything with a white blanket, only a few high peaks sticking out. As we got close to our drainage my heart was heavy as it was not looking good that we could even see the LZ.

The snow as heavier in the hills,, winter might come early this fall.

Maybe, maybe we can sneak under and get in!!

Then it happened, the cloud parted and the skies cleared.

Game time!!!

 

[Stid2677]

Since we flew in before the opener and the water was running high because of the snow melt, we set up the sawtooth and made some grub and enjoyed the sun and a drink.

Some jerk chicken tacos, served hot off the Kifaru stove.

Cheers

 

[snowcamoman]

Great photos and story...can't wait to hear and see the rest.

 

[Stid2677]

The first sign of trouble came about 3am, I woke with a feeling in my gut, that I can only describe as what it must be like to have one of those aliens trying to get out of my stomach. I barely made it out of the sawtooth before I about crapped my guts out. I cleaned myself up and crawled back into my bag. The next 36 hours were wretch, sweat repeat. I started getting sea sick like symptoms, while serving in Iraq, the Doctors say it is Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome, CVS, I don't know but it sucks. Never know when it will hit, but all I can do when it does is ride it out and hydrate.

Zach was a trooper and took care of me. As luck would have it the weather allowed him to dry my down bag out. After he got it dry I used my TI Goat bivy as a body condom and stripped down to my drawers and got into the bivy and then into my down bag, I used my quilt over the bag and all went into a Bora cuben fiber bivy. This worked great, when I would sweat all the moisture was kept in the bivy and did not soak my down bag.

Zach hiked around while I recovered and we waited for the water to recede.

I enjoyed seeing my favorite place through the lens of his camera once we got home.

 

[PNWGATOR]

Always love your trip reports Steve!

 

[Stid2677]

When I woke up the 3rd day I was feeling much better. The water flow and level had came down a lot and other than the wind shifting and smoke moving in the day looked good to move to spike camp. We broke down our camp and loaded our packs, Zach was using a 5500 Exo and I was running the new Kifaru Hunter Duplex with comp stays and my EMRII bag. I know small bags are popular but anything smaller than 7K makes it hard to get it all to fit for a 10 day mountain hunt.

Maybe we never got the EXO setup right, but no matter what we tried we could not stop the pack from swaying, the movement seemed to originate where the G hooks attach the shoulder straps. The sway in the pack made the hike in a challenge for Zach, packing the bow over rough terrain did not help.

My pack and especially the new hunter duplex performed great and improved shoulder pads and foam are worth the upgrade.

Wiggy's waders help in place with gators, keeps the waders from flapping in the current causing drag.

Zach went with Sitka, and I have to say his Gators are much better than the Kuiu ones I have.

We enjoyed our hike to spike camp.

All went well until we got to the last water crossing, this is only about 400 yards from spike camp and the last obstacle. I misjudged the flow and almost lost my footing, Zach did loose his and took a roll. Since the water was shallow I failed to have him stow his phone and it got wet and quit working. We quickly moved to spike camp and set up the sawtooth and got him into dry clothes.

 

[Stid2677]

I made a hide using my Paratarp and get my Swaro ATX 95MM set up and start glassing. We soon see a few rams and one looks like he may be legal. Still have a day before the season opens.

We kept hid and watched....

Future Ram

Then it started raining and rained, and rained and rained. I prayed for it to stop,,, and it did,,,, when it turned to snow and it snowed for another day.

This is were ole Dad screwed the pouch,, last year we packed in the stove and never needed it, so when the smoke blew in I made a command decision not to pack it to spike camp. We paid for that, I know better than to pack based on the "last" trip.

 

[Stid2677]

I often hear folks mention "The Sheep Gods"or "Elk Gods" well, for me there is only one God and I do believe he knows what we can do and what we need even if that may not be what we want. I believe the Lord gave Zach and I a perfect sheep hunt our first trip together and even though this trip is turning out to be very different from that trip, it was still perfect too.

We spent about 2 1/2 days weathered in, we ate and chatted. The MH Biscuits and Gravy are the BOMB, thought we might fight over the last one. Couple of the Hawk Vittles Zach brought were good too. He used the packs in the food to dry out his phone and was able to get it working. We listened to some pod cast. Zach used his phone to connect wifi to my TG4 and we could remote view the rams from the sawtooth. While it sucked being stuck in a tent, I got to really talk to my Son. That was worth the trip for me, hard to get anyone to unplug and really just talk anymore. We talked about it all, past, future, wants, desires. Yes,, thank the Lord.

I admit that I was getting more than concerned that we were going to be in a survival situation instead of a hunt. Zach informed me he did NOT need any more Fing CNN weather alerts at 4am. We were both getting chilled as the snow started so I decided to make a fire,, the warmth felt soooo good.

 

[Stid2677]

I have hunted this area for years at the exact same time of year so I'm somewhat familiar with the weather patterns, there is no forecasting in this part of the world and you have to go see to check weather. Normally after a low moves through you get a couple days of high pressure, clear skies. This year has been low after low pressure front with rain followed by snow.

We did get to look over a few rams and the one 7 maybe full curl was all we had seen. The next morning was bright and clear, the cold night had the water level down. We decided to try to have a look behind the mountain and see if we could find our ram.

We slipped along the creek and found a place to cross, all the while we are being sneaky trying to stay out of sight. As soon as we cross I have an angle to look behind us and the 3 rams have crossed the creek and are on the ridge behind us and the older ram has us cold.

I get out the big eye and glass him up and can see he is short, 7 and just to close to shoot. He steps over the ridge and is gone, the other 2 shorties stand up there a while and mean mug us and then they step over.

Having played this game before this ole sheep hunter knew the jig was up, that ram made us and was long gone. I also knew he was not legal, but I also knew Jr was not up for sitting around and was wanting to climb, so climb we did.....

Saw the girls,, only one lamb.

When we topped out and found the rams bed, they were no where to be seen. I glassed them up and there was the 7yo, watching his back trail, he was watching me watching him and he made sure both those young rams saw us. A young ram and ram hunter learned a few things this day.

 

[Stid2677]

We enjoyed our afternoon and spent it glassing hoping to see something to go after. Quite suddenly the weather shifted and I could see another line of clouds coming. There comes a time when you know you better get while the getting is good. We did not want to spend another 3 days in a cold wet shelter. By the time we dropped down the ceilings were already almost down to river level.

We had to push hard to get back to the base camp, but that stove never felt so good on a rainy night.

 

[Jdog]

Awesome stuff Steve.

While it's aways fun to kill the game you are after, time spent with family in the wild w/o interruption is priceless and irreplaceable.

My time with Matt in the mountains has taught me that.

God bless brother--Plan B/alternate COA?

 

[Ryan R]

Thanks for sharing your hunt and beauty pics as usual!! You and your son had some tough conditions to handle. Getting so sick right off the bat is a bitch. Going on an adventure like that together is something most father and sons never experience.

My Dad and I just came back from 8 days chasing sheep here in Alberta. Although, we only found banana heads, Dad pushed himself like I have never seen him do before. I only hope, at 63 years old, I am in the same condition he is.

 

[Jason Snyder]

As usual, great photos and storytelling. Great trip, and thank you for sharing it.

 

[charvey9]

Good stuff either way. Any time spent in that country is amazing.

 

[snowcamoman]

Absolutely great story and photos Steve. Sorry you got so sick at the beginning, that sounded horrible. I'm happy you and your son got to spend some quality time together.

 

[Trial153]

Great post and pictures, time well spent!

This reminds me that I need to pack Imodium AD ....

 

[Stid2677]

OMG,, hard to put into words how good it felt to sit there and soak in the warmth of that little stove. Zach brought some Apple Crown, and we enjoyed a sip while we just relaxed and enjoyed being warm and dry. For those that have never used a stove for heat, you are missing out!!! What a game changer.

The next couple days were more of the same, rain and low clouds ruled out any sheep hunting and the high water pretty much had shut us down anyway. We called to get into the rotation to get out the next time the weather allowed. Nothing to do until then but hunker down and wait it out. We were running low of ISO fuel because of the unexpected cold snap, so we used the Kifaru Stove to boil water on. This allowed us to save our ISO fuel for when we had no fire.

We called to check in when we woke and was told he was on his way. We broke down camp and got ready, we passed the time ranging rocks and practicing shooting with Mrs Kimber. Zach was amazed that I could range, adjust me dial and time after time place rounds on target. We busted rocks from 475 to 650 yards.

Our time in the mountains was over, time to get back to the women in our lives. Zach is buying a new home and needed to get busy on that. I was a little disappointed that we did not get him a ram, but we have an excuse to try again. Zach needed a hunt like this and maybe me too, these hunts make us as hunters appreciate it more.

We had challenges and did not kill anything, but I still would do it all over again.

As fate would have it, the weather would deal us one last blow. Mr Bob, made it in to get us, but the weather came in on our way back and we were forced to divert to Dead Horse. This left us stuck 80 miles from my truck or my wallet. 70 North sent a driver for us and after a hot meal in DH, we were on our way back to Fairbanks.

The weather on the slope this fall has been rough. Lots of folks dealing with weather, saw a lot of folks with snow covered cubs sitting on the ground trying to figure out how to get home with frozen wings.

Thanks for coming along with us.

Steve and Zach