Valley of Sub Legal Dalls

[Ray]

Preface:
In March 1973 a school teacher in Anchorage left his classroom and headed to the Fish and Game Commission annual meeting. He was going there to submit a proposal and give an oral presentation to the Commission that he and his friend had worked on over the winter. The proposal was accepted, and in 1974 the Tok Management Area sheep hunting program was to see its first year of existence. You can read about the school teacher’s 1972 sheep hunt at this link.
Not long after this his friend was nominated by Jay Hammond to the Board of Game after the upheaval that split the Fish and Game Commission in two. You can listen to a short clip of his hunting stories at this link. A big thank you to Al Hansen and Darrell Farmen for getting the ball rolling all those decades ago.

WOW means Waiting on Warbelow
Al Hansen's ram on the banks of the Dry Tok, August 1972​

 

[Ray]

The meteor’s trail was bright orange flame as it created a green halo of ionized atmosphere on its path to Earth. The orange flash faded quickly leaving aurora like curling fingers of wispy green light to linger for several seconds. A few more meteors fell from the not quite “black as night” sky above me. To the East the weak green light of the aurora fought against the rising sun.

Laying there on the pooltable sized rock slab looking up at the night sky I recalled the summer nights in Nevada from my childhood. Missing was the bellowing of bullfrogs, the yipping of coyotes, and the heat. It had been a pretty hot day here in the Eastern Alaska Range. It was not July in Nevada hot, but brutally hot for an Alaska sheep hunt. At 3AM it was just cool enough to put on my puffy coat to ward off what little chill the down slope winds created as the night air continued to cool. My legs were still burning from the morning’s hike back to base camp.

Will this work?
Am I crazy?

Both questions were circling my mind as I lay there in the dark behind the car sized boulder. The boulder shielded me from view of the cliff above me, and its proximity to the toe of the scree slope allowed me get within 350 yards of where the ram had bedded down out of sight at sunset hours earlier. There is no water or food up there so he has to come down in the morning. He has mowed the vegetation on the rock ledges below his perch down to stubble. As dry as it’s been this summer he needs water and there is no sign on those rocks of any water. He has to come down in the morning. Most of the sheep we have seen since we arrived five days ago have been up and moving very early in the morning. All this ram has to do is step out from his perch and get a few steps down to the left and he will be broadside at 342 yards. This is going to work.

Morning came and went. My knees took a beating as I crouched behind the boulder and waited. Frequently peeking over the edge, using the rocks I had stacked during the night to hide the outline of my head and face, I checked for any movement up on the perch. A super cub flew overhead on its way into the next drainage to the west. The morning moved into midday, then into afternoon, then into evening. By 7PM my wait was over. Not because the ram finally showed. I gave up. Twenty hours spent sitting on a big ram takes a toll on the body and the emotions. The ram must have moved on during the night to the other side of the mountain. I stand up to release the tension in my legs and back, and head back to base camp to meet up with my friend -really a brother from another mother - for dinner. As I made my way back down the basin I kept stopping and looking back to the cliff and hoping that the ram might still show. Nothing ever came into view. He was gone.

View from 8000 feet on the way into the TMA from Tok.​

 

[Ray]

Several days prior my friend and I had flown in the day before opening day. That did not give us a lot of time to hike into sheep country. Good thing this landing strip was in the bottom of an alpine basin right in the heart of sheep country. No multiple mile death march was required just to get in sight of sheep. Perfect for a middle aged man who only 15 months prior was morbidly obese and out of breath by the time he reached the third floor landing at work.

The day we flew in we noted several small bands of sheep in drainages and basins to the east of ours. We even flew next to a ram on a knife edged ridge several miles before our basin came into view. Due to the nature of the cub back seat and the very tight circling descent into the basin floor, I did not get a chance to scout the surrounding hillsides from above. The plane carrying my friend came in from a different route just to the south of mine. He noted a few additional sheep on the approach. Sounds like this spot will work.

[video]http://s50.photobucket.com/user/raymorel/media/Tok%20Sheep/P8090134_zpsa3db31e5.mp4.html[/video]

[video]http://s50.photobucket.com/user/raymorel/media/Tok%20Sheep/P8090133_zpsf079592b.mp4.html[/video]

And we are alone in the wilderness.

We established a campsite near a rock outcropping, and began a scouting hike to check out the basin. We scouted the valley and found marmots, pikas, and caribou, but no sheep. Not even a ewe. Everyone that I talked to that knew this drainage told me that I’ll see sheep from the strip, put on a stalk, take a ram, and be headed home by the end of the weekend. Everyone appeared to be wrong on that account. No sheep anywhere. Was it the harsh winter and harsher spring? Was it the hot dry summer? The grizzly scat along the creek was really old, but you never know as they roam far in this country. Something had created a dearth of sheep in this basin, but there were sheep next door. If things did not improve by the end of opening day we decided that we will head over there.

GoLite Shangri la 5 in the rocks.​

Opening day showed us that the basin had an active marmot and pika population along with a lone caribou cow. It did not have an active sheep population. We spent opening day morning glassing likely sheep terrain and waiting for something to move. Nothing showed. By midday we decided we needed to head for the upper basin.

Who put a caribou in the sheep country? Two caribou actually.​

We decided to hike to a bench on the end of the ridge that separated our basin from the upper basin. The map made it look like we could get half way up the ridge and be able to glass the majority of the upper basin or head for the top and see down into the basin. The rest of the day was spent hiking around the ridge and up to the bench. On the way out of the base camp basin we kept turning around and scouting back to the cliffs hoping to see a ram peak out to check on us. Nothing changed on those rugged lifeless slopes. At our old man pace we slowly made the few miles around and then up to the bench by the end of the day. We had not found much water on the lower portion of the hillside and were relieved to find a steady trickle near a flat spot for the tarp tent. From here the plan was to head up to the top of the ridge in the morning after scouting the far north end of the bench to see what we could see of the upper basin.

Where are we? Which way is north? Why is my compass pointed that way and not this way?​

 

[Ray]

Nope I am not climbing up that gully. Little did I know that I would be having lunch up there the next day.​

On the way up to the bench earlier in the day we scouted the ridge that separated our west fork from the east fork of the drainage. We noted that there was nothing sheep like on that entire ridge. On one of the rest breaks we saw a grizzly slowly coming down from the top of that far dividing ridge and hoped that it stayed headed down slope as we went up. Around 4pm we heard the first shots of the trip come from the far side of the dividing ridge. That would be from someone that walked in to the east fork drainage from the Tok Cut-off highway. Those were also some of the sheep we flew over on Friday. Whoever was over there had walked in a minimum of 14 miles from the road to get into the east fork drainage. There is a drainage further to the east that is well known for walk-in hunting. I knew that I might experience pressure from walk-in hunters in adjacent drainages and hoped to use that to my advantage. I might catch a mature ram moving further back into safer country and finding himself in my lap instead.

The ridge that divides the east and west forks of the drainage. Covered in sheep trails, but not covered in sheep.

Rock Glacier in the back basin. Turned out to be a great place in which to shoot sheep.​

The next morning found us on the far north end of the bench glassing the far wall of the upper basin and the north end of the dividing ridge. No sheep in the dawn shadows, but there were ewes out on a ridge farther west. It was time to climb to the top of the ridge above us. On the way up we flushed ptarmigan, marmots, and a stunning yellow and black wolverine.

Can you spot the ptarmigan? No really. Its right there.​

From up top our first look into the basin was a disappointment. However, three ewes way over there on the north side was a big improvement over yesterday. Due to the geology structure we could not see anything below us on the cliffs. My acrophobia is acting up. Go figure. Each little gust of wind from behind causes me to flinch and grab onto the Earth. Makes it hard to glass. My friend decides to head down the ridge line to see if he can find an elevation to see under the cliffs. I wait up top and look for any tell tale clues that there were rams below us. I also glass back over to the lower basin to see if anything is coming out. Nothing. Time marches on during the heat of the day. I watch the ewes to see if they are paying attention to anything that I can’t see.

What are those white spots?

They are sheep. First sheep of the hunt, but not on the menu so to speak.​

Not long after he left, my friend comes back up the ridge all excited. He has found a small ram way down low below us. I pick up the spotter and the rifle and head down the ridge to the spot he had found. Sure enough there is a half curl ram hanging out in the shade. He appeared to be completely alone. From here we scout the lower cliffs looking for any sign that there was another ram besides the little fella. Nothing. We decide that we should w

 

[Ray]

The full view of the lower basin. Where is the SL5? Or the landing strip for that matter? Why are there no sheep in this basin?​

Around 4:30pm the ewes across the basin trot down the hillside and start drinking and eating in the bottom of the basin. An hour later the slope below us explodes with rams running down the scree. It worked. Well, not exactly since the rams are now 800 yards away in the bottom of the upper basin and getting farther away. But there are rams, a lot rams.

I start scanning the crowd that is gathering at the creek on the basin floor. There are eight rams, no there are ten. One appears to be obviously legal based on his tips pointing up and about the last inch or two of the tips flaring out. The rest are all less than full curl. Or are they? I just can’t tell. The next three hours we glass to see if anything is legal. There is one lone ram that had a couple smaller rams follow him around. He bedded down in the west end of the basin, and his little buddies wandered off to keep eating. The bedded ram appeared to have a full curl on his left horn and might be broken on his right, or rubbed down to below his nose ridge. Too hard to tell at this distance. Then one ram slowly comes out of the cliffs an hour after all the others. He appears to be legal as well, but not by much. Tips point up and flare just a bit on the last inch. From way up here none of these rams are obvious “just shoot him” rams. They all require a long detailed look to determine if they are legal. This is the hardest thing I found so far with sheep hunting: judging rams is not as easy as one thinks it would be. Soon there are sixteen rams down there eating and drinking in a basin that just a few hours ago had one small ram and three ewes. And we were sure that two or maybe even three are legal rams.

The muddy ram with his short, might be broomed right horn

One of the group of rams down on the bottom of the basin. The ram turned back facing me appears to be legal from way up here.​

There was no way we could get to any of these rams from above as they bedded just above the basin floor under overhanging rocks. While discussing our options I noted that the basin floor was bisected by a large rock pile. Most of the sheep were up slope of the rock pile which would allow us to crawl up the creek bed, and once they came down to eat and drink we can run up behind the rock pile and get to a ram out in the open floor of the basin. In the fading light we headed back down the mountain confident in our plan for the next day.

Knowing that we have all day to get into position to get on the rams in the evening we take our time getting out of bed and gearing up for the days siege of the upper basin. As we finish packing what we will need we hear two shots and then two more shots. Not at all sure about how close those shots were or if they were even in this drainage, we hustle up the hill to the bench to see what is going on. Four quick shots like that implied to me that someone had missed.

Up on the bench I can see four sheep on the far side of the basin with my eyes, and my glasses tell me two of the sheep up high on the scree slope are “funny looking.” The spotter clearly shows the hunters gathered around their two dead rams. The two smaller rams down low in the brightening dawn light are still laying down, seemingly not bothered by the deaths of their older cousins. Soon they get up and slowly walk away into the upper basin and out of sight. Now what? We knew that there were more than two rams in the basin that might be legal. Were they still there? Only one way to find out. We stick to our plan and headed into the stream valley to attempt the ambush later in the evening. Hoping that by then things would calm down and the rams would again come off the hillside for dinner.

While shuffling up the stream bed we could hear the hunters talking. They are about a mile away and their voices are carrying above the noise from the small stream. Makes me really nervous about what we will find once we can see into the basin. At least the wind is in our favor. Finally we reached a point in the creek bottom that opened up and would expose us. We stopped and peaked at the cliffs over the lip of the stream bank. Rams!

 

[Ray]

There were two small banana horns at the base of a cliff not too far away. Then there was a group of five to 6 rams further up the basin. These rams were all 3/4 curls and were laying down in a dog pile sleeping in the sun. So we are missing some of the rams from the day before, but the ones that are visible are not apparently bothered by what had happened to their cousins earlier in the morning. I was also right about the rock pile that divided the bottom of the basin. It was much larger than it appeared from above and would hide us from any sheep that was on the other side of it. The rocks at the peak of the pile will hide us from the entire back wall of the basin. There was a nice grassy slope up to the crest of the pile which will allow us to quietly move up the slope and eventually be between the sheep on the basin floor and the cliffs they came off of. The ambush plan was going to work. We just had to wait for the dinner bell to ring and then run up there and see what we see.

We scout for horns and shadows across the cliffs as the day progresses. We did find another couple of smaller rams, and one ram that may be legal. He was way up top, and would have been easy to get to yesterday when we were up there. Once in a while he would turn his head and we could see more than a piece of a horn, but his tips did not point up, just out front with little up curl. Looked promising, but needs a look from a better angle.

He just might be legal but it appears that his horn tips do not turn up much at all. One of the biggest rams we saw while waiting for dinner.​

About dinner time and nothing is happening. Maybe the rams are more spooked about their dead cousins than they appear. Slowly the far ¾ curl rams come down from their rocks and head into the floor of the upper basin. They are not running down the scree like yesterday so something must be up. One of the two half curls that are near us is moving very slowly towards the other rams, and the other one is walking right towards us down the slope. Before he gets to us he vanishes in a draw and then appears well down the creek from us and lays down. We are surrounded. Screw it we need to get up to the crest of the rock pile and see what else is back there.

I move as fast as I dare up the slope to the top of the rockpile. I don’t want to be sucking wind and not able to shoot when I get there. We get to a point where every forward step exposes more and more of the back wall of the basin. We crouch lower until we are crawling from boulder to boulder. There are sheep everywhere. This entire day there have been thirty or more sheep milling about in the back of the basin out of view due to the rock pile. The majority of them are rams. They are slowly making their way up and out of the basin on its back wall, well out of range, with their heads down munching. We start the process of eliminating rams. Most are small rams, but there is one with a huge body. He looks like a beef cow with a broad swollen belly. When he lifts his head his huge belly blocks the view of his horns. Eventually he turns broadside and lifts his head out of the grass long enough to see that he is no where near legal. His horn tips are spread wide and swing low below his jaw but the thin tips point straight ahead. He is between a ½ and ¾ curl ram. I was thinking that he must be old and heavily broomed since his body was significantly larger than all the other rams. However, several decent looks at him showed that his lamb tips were still there. In a couple years that ram will be a classic TMA monster with wide flaring “texas” horns. Today he is just something to distract me from finding an actual legal ram.

A marmot whistles and all the sheep start to eat and walk instead of just standing around and eating. Up out of the basin they slowly march. The ewes go first and then the rams follow them out of sight behind a prominent rock ridge. There is no way I can make it over there and up a couple thousand feet before dark. We turn our attention to the few small sheep watching us from the cliffs above.

The one possible ram has moved down to the lower cliffs and is stamping his feet at us. He has a lot of mass, but his horns taper quickly to fine points sticking nearly straight ahead. There is no upward turn or outward flare. He is not a mature legal ram. In a year or two his ¾ to ⅞ curl horns will mature.

A north breeze picks up and fills the basin with forest fire smoke making glassing in the setting sun impossible. With a mix of joy and defeat we head back down the rock pile to gather our packs at the creek and decide what to do. We keep looking back and up to see if things change. They do. Rather than heading over the back of the ridge, the ewes come out onto the hillside above us. They are walking really fast and soon the rams start coming out in small groups and slowly make their way across the mountainside. Its getting darker and the sun is no longer lighting up the smoke haze.

Rams in the smoke...I think...could be ewes...or marmots...I have no idea.​

I sit down to glass the rams hoping to find a ram that is legal. My eyes are tired and straining to capture any clues about a full curl ram among the sheep. The beef cow ram is giving me really good looks at his horns. I really wish he was older. Probably an easy hundred pounds of boneless meat. Minute after minute leads to another hour of glassing and still not a single ram in the now huge herd of sheep is obviously legal. We were tempted to run up a draw on the hillside and make something happen, but we didn’t want to freak all these sheep out and make them leave the area. They might draw something larger in and I’ll get a chance to fill my tag. We head back to the spike camp planning on going back to base camp the next morning. We will resupply and might head back into the upper basin to keep an eye out for a legal sheep. The hillside back up to spike camp was much steeper than I recall from the way down and sucked the life out of my body. It was the hardest climb of the trip. Tundra covered rock stair stepper of doom. Really glad I was not packing half a sheep up that. But I wish I was....

spike camp in the twilight​

The next morning we head up to the bench and scout to see if anything has changed. Sheep are moving out of the upper basin in all directions that we can see. We keep to the plan to go back to the base camp and wait things out. Its really hot and the hike back is shockingly brutal on me. Three liters of water drunk by noon. We clean up in the icy stream and spend the afternoon glassing the surrounding hillsides. We noted a small ram above us, but nothing else. Soon I was distracted by a group of small rams that had appeared on the north ridge of the base camp basin. They appeared out of nowhere. The spotter showed that there was one ram in the group that was a maybe. His behavior also said he was a maybe as the other five rams all appeared to defer to him for where to go and how fast to get there as they fed across the slope. He laid down they all stopped and looked at him and waited. I was starting to look ahead of them to see where I could cut them off when my partner came over and said that there was a nice ram at the head of the basin and he needed the spotter.

Sure enough the ram was nice but he was not showing us his horns, just his hind end. We could look back and see the group across the basin and keep an eye on them as well. Then a thunder storm formed over them and that group of rams sprinted for cover behind the mountain making my choice easier. We watched the solitary ram for the next hour and then he finally turned to the side and his horn made that perfect circle and the tips obviously pointed up and might even go more than a half inch past full curl.

Dude! He's Legal!​

However, he is 1000 yards away and now near the top of a cliff that we have no way to get up without climbing gear or a two day hike around the back side. His cliff has some of the steepest scree slopes in the basin on each side. If we could make it to the top and took him we would need gear to down climb to him. Then have to kick him off his cliff and hope for the best as he tumbled down to the bottom. We are going to have to approach him from below when he comes out to feed tomorrow. We watched him climb up and up testing out each little ledge in the cliff to see how comfortable it was. Eventually he made it to the top of a cliff and all we could see was a sliver of his left horn, then he laid his head down and was gone from view. It was as if he had never been there. I waited till darkness at 11pm and headed up to spend the night under his cliff in the hope that he moved around at dawn. That’s where this story started.

Tired old man who just spent over twenty hours sitting behind a rock, now waiting for dinner to boil.​

After dinner we decided to spend the last two days on the north bench to see if we could catch any of the small groups of rams coming and going. There might be a legal ram in any one of those groups.

Two little rams just hanging out watching us approach from below.​

On the way up to the bench we knew that there was a group already up there at daybreak. We snuck up a creek bed and once we peaked over the top where it cliffed out we found the area free of sheep. Time to take off for the bench and hide for the next couple of days. As we headed across the lower slope we kept an eye out for any sheep coming back over the bench. We were right at the base of the approach to the bench where a seep became a stream and created a meadow on the rocks when my friend said “Hey Ray!” in a panicked whisper. Its that kind of whisper that conveys an entire paragraph of information. We were busted! I let go of the trekking poles, dropped down to my butt and at the same time ripping my rifle out of the gun bearer, flipping up the scope caps and checking the safety. There not 50 yards away was a small group of rams milling about looking at us. Where did they come from? How did they just appear out of thin air?

Where did they come from? They weren’t there a few minutes ago.​

It only took a second to regain my composure and focus on the rams to see if there was a legal one in the group. One might be, but his right horn pointed straight out towards his nose. We could not see his left horn. We sat there and took photos and then the larger ram turned and we could see that his left horn pointed up kind of and he might be full curl on the left side. I set up the spotter when the rams were about 80 to 90 yards away and spent the next thirty minutes practicing my ram judging by counting age rings and looking for that perfect “look” up the axis of the spiral of the horn twist. The age rings were trouble. His left horn looked to be at least 7 years old not including his lamp tips, but his right horn looked to be only 6 years old without counting the lamp tips. This ram was either eight years old or he was seven, or less. He was at least two years older than all the other rams in the group and was the leader as they all waited for him to do anything. He spent a lot of time scratching his rump on rock outcroppings to the great consternation of his younger peers that wanted to get out of there.

Why don’t you hand me the spotter and lets play with these guys a while.​

The next hour of the hunt is a hard lesson about what not to do when performing a significant amount of over thinking, thinking that you are really doing critical thinking. Actually you are not thinking at all. I was lucky in that it did not cost me anything other than a dent in my pride.

 

[Ray]

Twin number one is really interested in my friend. Twin number two is out of site over the edge as is my friend at this point.​

The remainder of the day found us up on the bench watching for sheep coming and going from the area. Nothing but small rams. Our first rain of the trip showed up with thunderstorms and winds which may have pushed the sheep out of the basin. The next morning was more watching and waiting. As we glassed the far side of the basin we noted a mysterious white spot on a cliff. The spotter showed us that it was the ram I had sat under for a night and day. He was spread out on a rock face below his perch and doing something strange with his nose or mouth. At this distance we could not make it out, but he was in a spot where he would appear and disappear by moving only a few feet up or down the cliff face. It looked like he was going in and out of a cave or deep crack in the rocks.

With just this day left before the planes come get us we decide we might as well take off and head over there to see if I can get near him. There is a low ridge that we can get behind and it will hide most of our approach once we are halfway across the basin. I might still be well out of range though. As we cross the basin we notice the ram comes and goes from sight, and then appears on those rock ledges that I had hoped he would appear on a few days prior for a morning meal. Here he was out eating a mid day meal. My plan would have worked if he had come out. That’s cool. By the time we make it to the top of the low ridge across from his perch he is gone back into hiding. Since he appears to be moving around again I decide to head back to my sniper hide below his perch and wait him out. My partner stayed up on the ridge to watch.

Never poke a ptarmigan.

Do not step on the ptarmigan.​

I hustle over to below his perch and find a better spot than the pool table rock slab to spend the rest of the day and evening. An airplane flies over the basin. Its 40 Mile Air checking on us on their way to pick up other hunters. As I hunker down and watch the cliff above me I hear rocks falling from the hillside well behind me on the north side of the basin. I turn to look and see three small rams coming down towards me. Maybe their movement will cause the ram above me to peek out to see that is going on. I turn and keep my focus on the perch above me. This seems all too familiar.

Three small rams meander down towards me.

This one is getting too close. He might attack me.​

The hours go by and the evening light fades and I turn to see one of the small rams just 80 yards below me eating calmly. I watch him and the other two rams mess about doing sheep stuff. The two rams get spooked and run up the slope were my partner and I had been a few hours earlier. The ram below me is not sure what is going on and heads away from them into the rocks below me. I turn again and note that the cliffs above me are as lifeless as the surface of Mars. Just like three days ago. Just like the last time an airplane flew over. Hmmm, this ram knows what an airplane means. Each time one has flown into this basin he has hid for two days or more up in his perch. While sitting there I was able to figure out why the ram had been spread eagled on the cliff below his perch. He was licking up water seeping from cracks in the rock face. Those seeps were not there a few days ago, so they must have been caused by the hours of rain the previous night. That ram does not need to come down for days at a time. If it rains he has water, and there are enough plants for him to not starve for a few days. Or at least wait for a few days for the airplanes to stop flying over. He has been up there this entire time in his penthouse.

When I made those connections I knew that my hunt was over and I stood up, stretched, donned the pack and headed down for one last dinner in the mountains. After 31 years in Alaska, my first sheep hunt was over. It wasn’t too bad. I think I’ll do this again before I get old.

Two small rams saying goodbye.​

Aftermath
At the end of caribou and moose seasons I spent some time reviewing the State Trooper dispatches checking out the hunting violations. One of them was for a sublegal ram turned into Tok on 8/14. The drainage listed was the same one we were in but did not differentiate between East or West fork. Being turned in on 8/14 means that it was probably the shots from opening day. The two shot on the 12th would not have had time to get out and back to Tok by the 14th.

 

[Ray]

Woulda Shoulda Coulda

Why was I not successful in taking a ram? The answer to that has several facets.

The drainage I chose to hunt in, even though within a trophy management area, was not known for large sheep. It was more of a ram factory than a ram sanctuary. I knew this going in, but I had failed to consider the whole picture. There were too many young rams that made judging difficult. The few legal rams were so close to being not legal I spent too much time trying to be 100% sure.

Not being comfortable with all the fine points of ram judging. There are many good threads around the various forums on how to judge a ram. The problem is that most photos are of dead rams certified by F&G as being full curl and age legal. The majority of the rams shown are obviously large enough and did not require much thought as to their legality. There are only a few photos of rams that appear to be far from legal, but yet were determined by a biologist to meet age or full curl despite what the internet thinks. These threads usually become “how to age a ram” discussions which leave out a lot of the “what is full curl” discussion. Still I picked up great guidance for determining full curl rams. The tips of the horn have to point up and hopefully start turning back into the center of the curl. This shows that the horn has made the full 360 degree rotation even if the horn has not grown long enough for the tip to meet the base. This condition is viewed best from the side of the ram and the curl of the horn has to show a perfect circle. If the curl is an ellipse it most likely has not grown through the 360 turn. However, even a legal full curl horn can be seen as an ellipse if the angle of the view is off by a few degrees. In order for the circle shape to appear you and the ram each have to be in an exact perfect position from each other. This position occurs during about a half second or less as the ram moves its head. If you are under the ram or above the ram this position may never appear. Then what are you going to judge by? Then you will look for the flare of the horn tips. If the tips flare out enough to be parallel to the spiral angle starting at the bases it probably is full curl or old enough by age. You can see the flare from above and below, but can only see if the base spiral angle is parallel to the tip flare angle when the ram is facing you. From above and below at steep angles it is really hard to make these judgements. I learned that rams spend a lot of time with their face down in the grass eating and their hind end pointed out from the hillside. You can’t see their horn tips most of the time. Hours can pass before you get even a hint of what their horns may look like. Don’t blink or you may miss that half second when the full circle appears as they whip their head to the side to scratch their butt. All that said, I think I probably missed out on several rams on that smoke shrouded hillside that met at least one legal determination. There was just no way to tell in the conditions we were faced with.


You can read lots of books and stories about sheep hunting, but it will not prepare you enough to understand what the statements “sheep are easy to kill” or “sheep are stupid” actually means. These statements are made mostly by former guides and older hunters, and are based on their years of experience taking dozens of rams. What they are actually saying is that sheep are complacent in their safety. They live in rough terrain in groups. That makes them hard to hunt since they use the safety of the terrain and their numbers to their advantage. Their complacency gives them the appearance of being stupid. If I had fully understood the magnitude of an average sheep's complacency the hunt might have turned out different. However, there are sheep that are not nearly as complacent as others. The hidden ram in the back of our base camp basin is an example of a sheep that had reduced his complacency to such an extent that he was extremely paranoid during plane flying season. If I had had another three days to spend on him - and called 40 mile to tell them to stop flying overhead - I might have been able to get on him for a shot.

I was not prepared well enough physically. I applied for this tag just to get started with the process. Which is silly since we do not have a point system in Alaska. My luck to draw will be the same any year I apply. I really needed another year of hard work to lose more weight and repair the damage that a decade of obesity had caused. I was in the best shape as I could get. I might have been able to drop another 10 pounds, but too many small injury issues cropped up and slowed down my fitness progress. The cool thing was that the types of exercises that did not hurt the damaged parts prepared me really well for mountain hiking. I have never spent so much time stretching to prevent injury during easy workouts. It was - and still is - like I am a crippled middle aged man or something.

I was not aggressive enough. This is tied into not being as physically prepared as I should have been, combined with this being my very first sheep hunt. My acrophobia also played a small part in keeping me out of nasty terrain that my partner was comfortable with to some extent. However, there were still things I thought about in the field that could have changed the outcome.

1-The first day we saw rams down in the basin from a couple thousand of feet above them we should have hauled butt down to spike camp, packed it up and headed into the basin from below that very evening. We knew they were not going to be within reach from above, so why wait? We might have cut off the walk in hunters or cut off the two legal rams from going across the basin had we been down there at dawn. Even at 1030pm it was light enough to see to shoot, but not by 11pm. I might even have found the one ram that looked broomed on one side and full curl on the other.

2-Based on what we did do, I should have turned my Marmot Precip rain gear inside out and used that as dirty whites to sneak up the creek bed and around the rock pile to get a peek into the back of the upper basin. That is specifically why I bought this brand of rain gear. Then I would have seen all those sheep milling about and had lots of time to judge rams from a closer distance.

3-The evening that we saw the hidden ram in the lower basin and watched him bed down for the night I should have put on the whites and made my way up under him to get a better look. Instead we spent nearly three hours that evening watching him from a long ways away before we finally saw that he was a legal ram. It was an hour long stalk up there in the dark. I could have easily made that distance in whites and probably gotten an opportunity before darkness came on.

4-Recently I was reviewing the photo I took of the lower base camp basin from the top of the opposite ridge, and I noted that there was a scree chute well down the ridge from the hidden ram that I probably could have crawled up and then made a stalk on him from behind and above. It might have taken an entire day to get up there hand over fist, but that chute was not scary steep like the rest. Since we did not see sheep there those first few days I never dug into the details of the terrain like I should have. If I had known that the ram was still hiding up there I would have gone that route. I just did not see a way to get the ram off his perch safely without climbing gear. Fifty feet of 550 cord was not going to be enough.

5-Always be prepared to spend the night by not having a static spike camp. Its easier if you keep it with you even if you don’t think so at the time you are packing up for the day. A two mile day hike might not seem like a potential hunt breaker, but it can become one after some random change in events.

Buy a freaking camera adapter for the spotting scope. One of the stupidest ideas to save money ever. I saved a butt load of money on this hunt by shopping around for gear upgrades, and hitting several sales in town and on line. Another few hundred for a decent digiscoping system would not have killed the budget. Even a phone skope for the iphone with a backup battery system would have worked better than doing it all by hand. And get a TG 2 to replace my old 790. The 790 has served me well, and works great for documenting work projects. Time to upgrade for personal use in the outdoors.

 

[Ray]

Geardo stuff

There might be someone on here that likes gear information so I put together a short list of stuff that I used.

Cascade Mountain Tech Carbon Trekking Poles - cheap made in China twist lock poles bought from Costco. Tougher than I thought they would be. I lost my balance a few times crossing boulder fields and they bent like a vault pole, but did not get damaged. They do have a shock absorbing spring system that can be locked out but no matter what, they make a “bonging” sound. Even with duct tape on the spring they make some noise. Helpful note about trekking poles: don’t leave your rubber tips in another pack at home. Metal tips on rocks make a lot of noise, but I am not sure if the rubber tips would improve traction. Small diameter baskets keep the tips from sinking too deep into crevices. These poles also have a foam lower piece on the cork handle that allow for a sure grip when steep sidehilling is being done. You can easily choke up and still have a comfortable secure grip. Over the previous years I have been using a set of REI fliploc metal trekking poles, but they are several ounces heavier than the carbon ones and I was counting ounces and considered the risk. The carbon poles had seen 20 miles of test hiking and presented no issues. After 10 days of hard mountain hiking I would recommend them with the caveat that they are made in China and cheap. They may break taking the packaging off, or they could last a decade. At $28 a pair they will meet many peoples disposable price point.

Mountain Hardware Lamina 35 sleeping bag - this little sub 2 pound gem packs up into the size of a volleyball (72” version). It did not get very cold on us and even this bag was pretty hot for this trip. I don’t know if I would believe the comfort rating to 16 degrees for a man. I am 68” tall and a 72” bag is just big enough that I don’t feel like I am in a sausage casing. This Lamina is marketed towards women and has a larger diameter upper section to allow for anything that may protrude from a person’s body, like shoulders or a beer belly, or something.

Big Agnes Q-core SL air pad was a welcomed relief for my back each night, but it was a pain to ready for a camp move. That only happened a few nights, but when you are beat by the heat and the hike the last thing you want to do is huff and puff.

Bora Bivy - the first time I have ever used any bivy bag. The M90 top material did get soaked through from condensation on the tarp tent during the one night it rained. The foot of my bag was in contact with the tarp tent due to the terrain and how often I kept slipping against the tent in the night. Both the bivy and the bag dried out quickly the next day in the sun and wind. Did not need the bug netting at any point. The silnylon bottom of the bivy made just about any surface an ordeal if not level. Damp tundra equals a sleigh ride down the hill. I had to find some divots in the tundra to curl up in to keep from slipping down slope.

MSR Whisperlite International - Due to hazardous materials regulations we could not bring Jet Boils on the 40 Mile Air super cubs. I used a new to me MSR stove with white gas. I used an MSR kettle for boiling water for drinks and meals twice a day. For emergency back up I picked up a Vargo Outdoors Decagon titanium alcohol stove. A fantastic change from beer can DIY alcohol stoves. The Chinese have issues with welding and each unit needs to be inspected prior to use/purchase for slag blow outs and clogged pin holes, but this little stove is really cool. And you don’t have to worry about crushing it in your pack. Speaking of Jet Boils, did you know that you can take a sierra cup, cut the bottom out of it to the diameter of the bottom of a Jetboil pot, turn the cup upside down and use it to support a Jetboil pot on an MSR stove or alcohol stove? Might singe or melt the cover if its not slid up, but it works in a pinch.

Big Zip bladder with a platypus in line filter with a spare 2L bottle bag. Going into this hunt there were few options on the shelf in the spring so I opted for what was there. Now that hunting season is over for me there is a Sawyer mini in line filter. Platypus in lines are not rated for more than a couple thousand gallons, whereas Sawyers are rated to treat 100,000 gallons. The mini Sawyer appears to be a better tool with its multiple uses for threaded bottles.

Cabela’s Microtex clothing in Outfitter camo - totally awesome stuff. Lightweight and fast drying. does not let in too much wind but breaths OK when climbing. The Outfitter camo matches the alpine rocky tundra well enough that my partner could not see me at a distance. Even at 200 yards, as long as I did not move, he could not find me in the rocks. I spent hours upon hours on my knees in the rocks and they show no obvious wear. Kind of wish they had these in a non camo material like a flat grey.

Northface zipped fleece hoody - weimaraner brown. Another discontinued style on deep discount sale at REI. Light-weight and warm. Vanishes in the alpine since it is kind of a dark greyish tan.

Minus 33 merino wool base layers. It was a real pain trying to find something that was in stock in my size this spring. Minus 33 from an alpine gear site was the only thing that fit my schedule and needs. A ¼-zip short sleeve T-shirt, boxers, and long johns were pretty darn nice for this hunt and not too costly since they were on sale from the alpine gear website.

First Light merino Llano top - my only long sleeve base layer. Really liked the thumb holes in the mornings. Think this one came from Cabela’s with a Russel APX long sleeve shirt. Turns out APX gear is made for men with teeny tiny waists. It was well beyond a normal “fitted” or “athletic” cut. Even if I dropped another 30 pounds I doubt if the APX would fit my wide hips.

Wild Things hooded puffy - Wild Things Gear was cleaning out old ski merch in the late fall of 2012 and had an assortment of reversible primaloft hoodies on their website. They were out of the multicam ones so I picked up a green eruo style “urban camo”. The image on the site did not match what was shipped. Good thing since what was in the box was better with a grey liner rather than brown. They do not carry this old style of jacket now, but have a similar Insulight model. They do offer a custom made you pick it out jacket system for skiing/climbing/tactical. Look under the “make it wild” menu. Lots of options with a nod towards skiers, but you can build a nice puffy in multicam. They are made in the USA. Their jackets are “fitted” so us less athletic built guys may not like the fit unless we size up. Or lose the belly.

Bearpaw Designs Canopy 2 tarp tent - worked well for spike camping. Coyote tan is easily lost in the twilight so I recommend a bright marker of some kind to not walk right past it when you are dead tired. We used my trekking poles for support and left the tarp staked out each day after pulling the poles for hiking.

GoLite SL5. It was my partner’s first time using a floorless tipi style tent and he was impressed with the utility of it. The pilots from 40 Mile Air never saw it in the rocks and thought we had gone off to parts unknown when they did their flight checks.

Lowa Tibet GTX boots - wonderful footwear with aftermarket power step inserts.

LuekotapeP - this stuff saved our feet and my hip bones. I get blisters on the back of my heels after about 6 hours of mountain hiking and my partner gets them at the base of the heel on his foot sole. The first application staid on our heels for five days. It is breathable and dried out each night while sleeping. The washing in the creek with some soap caused the edges to peel up. I get wear spots on my hips depending on pack belt tightness and clothes, so I covered my hip bones with strips of this tape and those stayed on until I got home several days later. I would like to find a source that is not a huge roll of the stuff. Its glue appears to be air activated and the spare tape I wrapped around a straw did not want to unwrap from itself. The second application of tape stuck to our skin OK, but came off much easier a few days later once home from the hunt. I bought mine off Amazon, but a hospital pharmacy might have some.

Neoprene knee braces - these were off the shelf slip-on braces from Sports Authority (McDavid?). They appear to be thicker material than braces I have used in the past and functioned like knee pads making kneeling in the rocks fairly pleasant. With the hot weather they were soaked through with sweat and did not dry out at night.

Fish-Hunt-Fight bino harness - worked really well. Never bothered me while under the pack system straps. I have the medium set for a pair of 10x42 binoculars and was able to keep my Olympus 790 camera down in the pouch with them. The only issue for me was that its zipper pocket is too small for much of anything. My driver’s license would just squeeze in but not much else. It is a minimalist item. If you want to pack a lot of stuff in a chest pack the FHF item is not going to work. But if all you want to carry are a lighter, pen, lense cleaning pen, and small folding knife or tool this will work very well. I threaded by range finder in its case onto one of the side straps and then never bothered with it again.

Nitrex 10x42 binoculars - Japanese glass from a discontinued line owned by Weaver. Pretty decent over the last three years and are comparable to any $400 non HD set I have looked through so far.

Vortex Viper HD spotter - worked well until the forest fire smoke and sunlight created the thick haze. I bought mine used and noted that it was broken once at home. Rather than call the guy up and complain, I sent it back to Wisconsin and they fixed it no questions asked.

Slik Sprint Pro II tripod - worked OK. The QD base that came with it does not have a pin to keep the spotter from spinning around. Will have to be drilled and pinned DIY since I can’t seem to find a factory base that fits. Or I will upgrade to a different ball head. The small ball head that comes with the Sprint is OK, but is kind of a pain to adjust to just the right tension to move the spotter around.

Darn Tough socks - worn with Gobi liner socks. I have the full wool type since the coolmax version are a blend. Darn tough are the only way to go for miles of hard hiking. They did not compress and lose their “loft” after days of use. My smartwool socks will now be worn just around the house or for work since that is the hardest duty they can handle. On all my pre season hikes the smartwool compressed and allowed my foot to start moving around. Darn tough did not compress at all.

Kifaru Longhunter G2 pack - great pack. However, I found that after the trip my lower back was very messed up. It was probably messed up the entire last year and the pack’s lumbar pad system just made it worse. I will keep working on repairing my back and see afterwards if the Kifaru system still causes an issue. If it does then I will have to seek another pack with no lumbar pad system.

Kifaru gun bearer - Its OK. I made a significant mistake prior to the hunt in not actually hiking with a rifle in it. I just walked around the house to make sure the rifle fit. However, while hiking in the mountains I barely made it an hour before I was about ready to toss the gun bearer in the brush. It took nearly three days of frequent stops and adjustments before I had the rifle in a spot where the barrel did not smash me in the face when looking down. I was never able to find a position for the rifle that allowed me to wear a billed cap. If I let the rifle out too far giving the hat bill lots of room the rifle swayed back and forth so much that it was dangerous in the rocks taking me off balance at each step. It would also develop enough inertia that when it swung up and hit my face it really hurt. I can’t stop looking down in the boulder fields and rock slides so I had to stop wearing a billed cap when hiking. By the end of the hunt I had figured out the best fit for me and the rifle to where it no longer hit my face when looking down or swayed around messing up my balance. What I learned is that I am just too short in the torso to effectively use the gun bearer while wearing a billed hat. It made sunny days - every day but one - an ordeal for the eyes and sun burned face. Also the butt pad on the HS stock required lots of effort to wiggle it out of the lower end. Sticky rubber butt pads get stuck in the gun bearer.

Remington Model Seven (SS) in 300 SAUM wearing a HS stock and topped with a 3-9 VX-III Leupold CDS scope held on by a DNZ single piece mount. I use a hand loaded 180g NPT with H4350. They are this rifle’s preferred meal. I love this little rifle. It loves caribou to death. I wish I could have taken a ram with it. Next year maybe.

 

[Mckinnon]

Awesome wrtie up! thanks

 

[luke moffat]

Great pics Ray! Sorry you didn't connect, but looks like you had a great time and great weather (aside from the smoke) regardless. TMA is a cool place hope to go back again at some point!

Thanks for sharing your story and what worked and didn't work for you.

 

[Becca]

Ray, thank you for taking the time to post such a detailed write up, I had been hoping you would post a trip report. I really enjoyed reading about your trip and looking at all your photos. I know how hard you worked to be able to hunt this tag, really wish there would have been a ram with your name on it back there. Sounds to me like the experience alone was worth the trip, and it also sounds like you learned a lot. There is something so special about being close to sheep, and you got to see a bunch of them on this trip. I am betting there will be more sheep hunts in the future, you have the bug now

Thanks again for an excellent read!

 

[Stid2677]

A very well written story and I very much appreciate your sharing it with us. Each trip into the high places teaches lessons that will improve your chances for the next trip and adds to the desire to return to were the Rams roam.

I eagerly look forward to reading about your success next fall.

Steve

 

[Shrek]

Thank you for the really good write up. I can feel you pain of being middle aged and having abused your body. I'm 45 and have lost 58lbs as of this afternoon. You and I can loose the weight but it will have taken its toll. I sure hope you connect on a ram soon. Good hunting !

 

[Ramcam]

Fantastic and honest account of sheephunting Thanks for taking the time to post your story.

 

[pacific-23]

Great well written story. I appreciate the self deprecation and frankness of the account- I can relate to hunting sheep unsuccessfully and second guessing your moves later! Give them hell next year.

 

[realunlucky]

What a great writeup ray. Thanks for the pictures they really were worth a thousand words. Sounds like an epic trip even without harvesting a ram. Next year those white puffs of hair better watch for you now youve dialed it in

 

[Akshphntr]

Congrats on you TMA hunt. I walked in last year and spent a good amount of time in there. I saw sheep,but didn't harvest a ram. You guys had a great hunt and saw a lot of sheep. A successful hunt. What I appreciate is a fair chase hunt great experience and any trophies are a chance after that.

 

[Ray]

Thank you all for the comments. It was a wonderful hunt with my best friend. It motivated both of us to start planning for next year. My friend and his younger brother are going to get together and hunt. They lost their dad a year ago and are comming to the conclusion that they are not getting any younger either. In two hours I'll be sitting down with a buddy and going through a possible Brooks Range hunt over lunch.

One of the things that I did not bring up in my writing, but some may have noticed, is the lack of lambs. We saw three total lambs the whole trip. There also were not as many ewes as I would have expected for the habitat. In about 7 to 8 years there may not be a huntable popluation of legal rams in the TMA until the population recovers from the spring of 2013.

 

[AK Troutbum]

Wow, thanks for posting this. Unbelievable weather you guys had! I sure hope to some day draw this tag, maybe my 18th try will be the charm, fingers crossed.