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 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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

I quickly broke out the spotting scope to try and size them up and sure enough it was the same group of rams from the night before, plus two smaller rams.

Here's a picture I took through my spotting scope from the better part of a mile away. "My ram" is the one standing broadside.

We worked our way back down to the valley floor to see if we could do a better job of getting onto them than the night before. After hours of crawling through the rocks and working the small stream drainages we ended up at the exact same rock that we had watched the rams from the night before at just under 600 yards. I pulled out my rangefinder and ranged them at 494 yards. Closer yes, but still not close. I decided if I could just shave 100 yards off I could make it happen so my Dad stayed behind and I started to belly crawl up the side of the little drainage we were in. After about 75 yards I pulled out the rangefinder again and damn if those sheep weren't 502 yards out. They were feeding away faster than I could crawl, but I realized at that point that the creek bank steepend enough that I could get on my feet and crawl up the rocks so I opted to try and gain more ground. After about half an hour of boulder crawling I got to a point where the drainage turned away and I couldn't gain any more ground. I crawled up to the rim of the embankment and pulled out the rangefinder again. It gave me the angle at 24 degrees and then the battery died. Talk about bad timing. At this point it was either get something done or pack up and call it quits so I propped up the bipod on the rifle. I wanted to take as much operator error out of the equation as possible so I grabbed an angled rock and used it as a shim under the butt of the rifle which allowed me to perfectly level the rifle without holding it at all. I guessed the distance to still be 450-475 yards and I bracketed the ram using the distance compensators on the VX-III. I dry fired the rifle twice to test if my point of aim moved and both times it stayed steady. I loaded up, waited for one of the other rams to clear away, and let the 300 sing. The ram instantly dropped like a ton of bricks, but my excitement was short lived when almost as soon as he hit the ground he jumped back to his feet. Right away I saw him kick his back leg and I thought I was going to be sick when I realized I had just wounded this beautiful ram. Two of the other rams ran up beside him which prevented me from shooting again and all three of them stood there for what seemed like an enternity. As I watched my ram I couldn't see a drop of blood on him, but it was obvious that he wasn't feeling so great. He finally cleared away from the other two rams and naturally I thought I needed to correct high right, so I did just that and let another one fly. Clean miss, and off he went toward the head of the canyon with two of the rams in tow while the other three went straight up into the cliffs. I was not feeling good about things at this point and realized that I had to run up to where they had disappeared behind what appeared to be an old glacial morraine near the head of the canyon. It took me about 15 minutes to run up there, but Usain Bolt couldn't have done it any faster. Here's the crap that I had to scramble up through...

When I crested the end of the morraine I couldn't hardly believe it when not only did I see the rams, but I had gained some ground. The next hundred or so yards was relatively flat so I ran around the little boulder mounds as fast as I could. I rounded the last one and hit the deck. My ram was in the lead and at about 300 yards quartered away it seemed like a chip shot by comparison. I let a round loose and the ram spun, fell, and died. It was only then that I realized how late it had gotten, but I had to get up there and see that ram. Even though it wasn't far it took me about 15 minutes to get up to the ram so I could bask in the moment. What I would have given for my camera, but I had left it back with my Dad. All I could do was get down country before it went completely black and left me boulder hopping in the dark.

We came back first thing the next morning and to our disappointment the ravens had risen early and beat us to the ram. As soon as I saw them I knew his eyes would be gone so the pictures wouldn't be the best, but thankfully they didn't wreck his cape. Here he is. 36 and change on his right horn, and 33 and change on the broomed left side. ADF&G aged him at 9 years old.

Remember that first shot that knocked him down? Does that look like about a 30 caliber hole? No wonder my second shot was a clean miss. I corrected high right when I should have just aimed slightly lower.

My bad. Thankfully all you can see from the front or side is that little character hole. Actually, had I not hit him in the horn he may well have gone straight up through the cliffs and I never would have bagged him. Could well be a blessing in disguise.

Bagging a dandy Dall sheep was great, but hands down the best part of the trip was getting to spend some quality time with my Dad.

As we packed up the meat and head to begin backpacking the ram out of the mountains it started to rain slightly which made this rainbow back down the valley.

Go in light, and come out heavy...

One more random scenery shot...

Excellent story and hunt there Jeff. Way to go

When you refer to a broomed horn -what do you mean??
Congrats on the ram

Broomed horns are naturally broken off at the tips. It used to be thought that the rams would rub them down so that they wouldn't interfere with their vision. They've since found that to not be true. The concusive force that occurs when they butt heads transfers energy to the ends of the horn tips which can eventually cause them to break off, and creates a "broomed" horn.

Got ya. Thanks for the answer

Great recap Jeff, thanks for sharing. My top 2 goals are dal sheep and moose. Any of the sheep species would be great though. My cousin, Tom Duncan, lives in Fairbanks. Another funny little tidbit, my 96 dodge ram pickup came from fairbanks AL, at least thats what the title had on it. Congratulations. Kevin

Awesome bro! I can't wait to come back to alaska!

Awesome recap of the hunt. Took some time to get all that on here. Thanks for sharing. I also am anxious to get back up to AK. Awesome country for sure.

Awesome story and great photos thanks for sharing all of the info I would love to hunt up there some day

I enjoyed the read, thanks and congrats!

Sounds like an awesome experience! Congratualtions and thanks for sharing the story and pics.

Thanks for sharing your beautiful sheep hunt with us, and congrats on a great ram.

Awesome pics and story!!!

Absolutely awesome story and pics!!! Sounds like you had one incredible experience.

Great story and photos. Thanks for sharing!:party0005:

Yes Thanks for your time sharing the pics and story . Congrats on the sheep !!

Very cool. Congrats!!