Dall Sheep Hunt Report and Photos
09-13-2009, 01:32 PM
#1
Fork Horn
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Fairbanks, Alaska
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Dall Sheep Hunt Report and Photos
Here are some pictures and a recap of a recent Dall Sheep hunt in central Alaska that I just went on.
The hunt area is a permit drawing area, which allows motorized vehicle access, but only after 12:01am on opening day. My Dad came up from Montana to join me on this hunt and we didn't waste any time getting on the trail. This is us loading up gear and getting ready to hit the trail at about 1:00am on opening day.
The hunt area is a permit drawing area, which allows motorized vehicle access, but only after 12:01am on opening day. My Dad came up from Montana to join me on this hunt and we didn't waste any time getting on the trail. This is us loading up gear and getting ready to hit the trail at about 1:00am on opening day.
09-13-2009, 01:36 PM
#2
Fork Horn
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The base of the mountains where we planned to hunt is about 19 miles back in so we had to ride all through the night. Just at daybreak we found ourselves in the broad valley below where we planned to setup base camp.
09-13-2009, 01:39 PM
#3
Fork Horn
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We started to see caribou right away, and this group was right where we planned to pitch our tent. I had a caribou tag in hand, but none of the bulls were big enough to distract us from sheep hunting.
09-13-2009, 01:42 PM
#4
Fork Horn
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Here's that same group of caribou as they headed down and out of the valley. It's tough to see in this resized picture, but there are several sheep in the middle of the mountain just below where the snow is dusted on the rocks. There's also several more in the rocks in the upper right.
09-13-2009, 01:46 PM
#5
Fork Horn
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All of the sheep toward the mouth of the canyon were ewes and lambs. Further up we could see several sublegal (less than full curl) rams, but no legal (full curl or double broomed) were to be seen. We opted to hike up the west ridge so we could see further up the valley as well as down the other side to see if any big rams were around. Here are some of the ewes and lambs that we could see as we hiked up...
09-13-2009, 01:51 PM
#6
Fork Horn
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From the top we could see into the adjacent drainage. Through the intermittent fog we could see a handful of sheep a couple miles up at the very head of the canyon, but we couldn't make out exactly what they were. We also saw a dandy bull caribou resting in the valley below. He was a shooter, but it would have required us to hold off on sheep hunting for at least two days while we packed him out, so he got a pass.
09-13-2009, 01:57 PM
#7
Fork Horn
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We weren't able to work our way along the ridge like we had hoped because it turned into a series of solid rock faces that were far to slick thanks to the light dust of snow. Our only option was to drop back down into the more broken rock midway up the mountain and work our way along and then back up so we could try and get a better look at the sheep further up. Unfortunately the fog set in like soup and after a couple of hours we realized it probably wasn't going anywhere. We dropped down the far side to avoid some more rock shelves and then followed a heavily used sheep trail back into the head of the first valley. As we dropped down into that valley the fog started to lift and we started seeing rams feeding along the head of the valley just below the snowline in this picture.
09-13-2009, 02:11 PM
#8
Fork Horn
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Most of the rams were close to legal at probably 7/8 curl, but we just weren't seeing any that made the mark. Then as the fog lifted further we saw a group of four rams, one of which had a longer right horn. After more than an hour of glassing I was confident that he was full curl on his right horn so he was legal and it was time to go after him. We quickly found out that those rams had the perfect vantage point in the valley as they could see every approach angle. We spent a couple hours working our way through the banks of the creek bottom below, but we could only close the distance to about 575 yards. We eventually tried a flanking maneuver with the cover of a quickly rolling fog bank, but that only got us to within 500 yards and then we got busted by one of the smaller rams. They started walking out of the valley and I took off after them once they went out of sight. Unfortunately when I got to where I could see them again they were heading over the far ridge. Day officially over, time to go back to camp and get some well needed rest.
The view to the north...
The view to the north...
09-13-2009, 02:14 PM
#9
Fork Horn
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After a completely sleepless night followed by a day of almost non-stop hiking and stalking we were pooped and slept for 13 hours. We got rolling up the trail about the crack of noon, and opted to hike to the west ridge again to see if the bluebird skies would let us see into the head of the adjacent valley. On the way up we saw a few ewes and lambs, but no rams and we presumed that we'd blown them out of the valley the night before.
09-13-2009, 02:20 PM
#10
Fork Horn
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We had a great view from the top, but we couldn't see a single sheep in the adjacent valley. I was really thinking it was going to be time to break camp and head to a different area to hunt. I happend to look back down into the valley we had just hiked out of and low and behold there was a small group of sheep tucked into the rocks on the far side. If you look closely at the small dark rock face just to the right of the long gray rockslide you can fainly make out 6 rams.