Sheep Harvest

This has been a dream of mine the last few years.  Of all the animals of Alaska, I think the dall sheep is the most beautiful.  The chanllenge and effort of a sheep hunt really put it in a different category for me and many other AK hunters.

Ever since I drew the DS204 tag last February I have been obsessed with it.  It has just about dominated my thoughts for the last 6 months or so.  I have had sheep dreams, day dreams, spent countless hours on the internet planning this trip.  Well on 8/28/12 it all became a reality for me.  I took a dall sheep ram on the third day of my hunt with Jed. 



This was the first ram that we encountered.  We were going through a valley and I spotted him bedded down way low on the mountain.  We could see other rams behind him, but were afraid if we spooked this guy off, they would all jump and the game would be up....

We saw a lot of sheep while we were hunting.  We also saw a couple of grizzly bears on our first day.  but alas, this trip did not come out a double (griz / ram). 

The biggest thing to deal with was the weather. For most of the second and third days of our hunt we were 'weathered' in. We spent hours and hours huddled in our sleeping bags in our little tent. The mountains were almost completely fogged in. The night of the second day Jed and I were so bored we climbed up into sheep country late in the evening, but soon were forced to go back down the mountain because of the heavy fog. It was very steep and visibility was only probably 20 feet. We decided it was pretty unsafe to be on the mountain. Well the next day we woke up to SNOW! There was probably 3-4 inches on the ground. This made spotting sheep extremely difficult. We spent most of that day hunkered down in our bags. As evening started though, it warmed up a little. We decided to climb the mountain again and have a look..... 

 Jed spotted my sheep first.  He was with another ram about the same size.    I took him from 312 yards (horizontal distance).  I got him in the neck. I was shooting my Kimber Montana 300 WSM using 165 grain barnes TSX (this fall's bullet of choice).  He only fell about 20 yards down the mountain.  These pictures don't really do the angle justice.  Capeing and butchering on the side of this mountain was not an easy task.  We eventually got it done though, and headed down the mountain and were back in camp a little after 9PM.

 I'm not sure what the name of the glacier in the background is.  But it was a beautiful valley and home for a couple of days.  I am so happy that I was able to make this dream happen finally this year.  These majestic animals have the best meat!

 This pic was getting back to camp after packing him off the mountain.  Me and jed both had very heavy packs.  The steepness and snow (no crampons) made things 'interesting'.  I"ve spent a good many hours this week taking care of the meat.  A lot got made into Jalapeno and Maple sausage (both excellent) and some into stew meat, and of course BACKSTRAPS baby!

Next week is Moose hunting..... so wish me luck.