Sheep scouting photos - how I spent the weekend

[Yellowknife]

I'm planning on hunting a new valley for sheep (Dall) this year. I had a pretty good idea that there would be some rams in the area, but wanted to check it out ahead of time. Planning on going with my dad, so we flew in this weekend to check it out.

The first hurdle was finding a spot to land. Luckily I know the right guy for the job. The pilot went in light and landed on a gravel bar he thought looked good. Then he spent a couple hours moving boulders and trimming willows so he could take off again! After his improvement efforts he declared his runway "a good long one" and came back for us. I paced it off at 140 paces, so "long" is relative.

Even with the Supercub drop, we were still about 5 miles and a dozen creek crossing from sheep country. We hit the ground at 4:00 pm on Friday and headed straight for the hills.

We made it to our first camp that night and started seeing rams right away. By the time we crawled into the Hilleburg that night, we had counted 21. Talk about an awesome start to a scouting trip!

 

[fillthefreezer]

looks like some killer country id hope to put my boots on some day

 

[Yellowknife]

Saturday, we hiked higher and scouted an number of old glacial cirques. Continued to see sheep all day, mostly rams. Some awesome country out there.

Located lots of sub legals as well as several full curls and some possibles and got a good idea of their general haunts and movements.

I'm pretty sure this is the ram I want. Hard to tell on the shaky spotter pic, but there was no question on the legality of this guy:

Made it back to camp at that evening, and grabbed a MH dinner. Sure are worse places to spend a Saturday.

Headed back to the strip that night, arriving at about 10:00 pm. After waiting out a pretty good blow the next morning, we managed to catch our ride out that afternoon just in front of a storm. Finally tally was 30+ rams spotted for the trip. I think I'll call that that a successful scouting trip and be carrying a rifle back there in a few weeks!

Yk

 

[Jager]

Unreal mate, awesome looking terrain, and well, the ram says it all, look fwd to part 2.

 

[Beastmode]

Looks like a blast!!

 

[Matt Cashell]

Jealous!!!!!

 

[BuckSnort]

That's awesome!... Cool pics too!

 

[Kevin Root]

Looks and sounds like a fun way to spend the weekend Yellowknife. Hope you will have a fun and successful hunt in a few weeks with the rifle.

 

[CtP]

Nice pics YK! Beautiful country. You timed the weather quite well and found yourself a little honey hole. Best of luck this year! Look forward to the picture heavy write up!!

 

[Travis Bertrand]

Looks like heaven.....

 

[Ziggy]

Looks amazing!

 

[Yellowknife]

..... You timed the weather quite well and found yourself a little honey hole. .....

Well, sorta timed the weather. Saturday was great, but I skipped the part in the story where we spent 8 hrs on Sunday walking up and down the gravel bar listening to the wind howl and hoping it would die off enough for the cub to land. On the other hand, there was a pretty narrow window between the wind stopping and the rain/fog arriving, so we were lucky to get out at all. I always bring extra food on a fly out, and it seems like I usually still end up looking at my ever diminishing pile and wishing for more. Ptarmigan hunting goes to a whole new level when you are doing it with a hungry belly and a 30-06...

Yk

 

[ohhiitznik]

Amazing pics man, I love alaska I hope to get to hunt up there one day.

 

[luke moffat]

YK, looks like a great way to spend the weekend. Thanks for sharing the awesome photos.

Look forward to the report of tipping over that guy you took a pic of.

Nice backpack btw.

 

[amy hanneman]

Awesome! Good luck and keep us posted on your hunt!

 

[coloradoultramag]

Wow amazing country!good luck!

 

[Yellowknife]

Thank guys,

If I get something, I'll post pictures. If I don't, I'm going to pretend I never saw those rams and the hunting was lousy!

Yk

 

[Rick Seymour]

Lots -0- rubber on them boots observed in glassing photo. Wiggy's for crossing the creek?? Oh yeah in case nobody mentioned it....great pic's

 

[Yellowknife]

Ha! very observant Rick. Those are Wiggy's in the creek crossing. The worked good for the lower reaches, and then once we got high enough it was just gaiters. And yeah, my Dad REALLY needs some new boots. He is trying to milk another year out of his Lowa Sheephunters, and it's getting marginal. Schees quit carrying that model, and he's not thrilled with having to find a new pair.

Yk

 

[Maxhunter]

Great pictures! I wish I was going this year.