11 September 2013, 23:43
Wildlife Gallery2013 Alaska Dall Sheep Hunt
Location - Wrangle MountainsDates - August 19th to August 27th
Outfitter - Majestic Mountain Outfitters, Jeff, Cindy, Josh & Caleb Chadd
Rifle - Weatherby Vanguard lightweight .300 Weatherby Magnum
Scope - Trijicon 5-20X50
Camo gear - Kryptek Outdoor Group
Boots - Lowa
Back pack - Kafaru
Camera crew - Safari Classic's (Filmed for Trijicon's World of Sports Afield)
We killed this Ram on the afternoon of day 8 of 9. One of the biggest obstacles was American Airlines loosing my back pack with all of my gear. I really think someone took it... It has still not been located to date. I was fortunate enough to get my "Tuff Case" with rifle enclosed, optics, GPS, one change of Kryptek clothing, and Lowa hunting boots enclosed. I actually wore the same shirt, pants and coat the entire time in the field. Other than the smell, they performed flawlessly with no rips or tears. I ended up going to the Sportsman's Warehouse in Fairbanks to get additional gear, sleeping bag, rain gear, and so on to at least get me by. That shopping trip along with Kryptek pro-staffers living in the Fairbanks area to lend me a Kafaru pack and other misc gear made my trip a success...
This was a 100% fly in back pack hunt with no horses... In total we hiked just over 71 miles confirmed by me GPS tracks... We saw several sheep but finding a legal ram was the challenge. When we finally found one we actually found three. This was on day 6 from a far. On day 7 we hiked in but were pined down with bad wind and sheep everywhere. we backed out and waited for day 8...
On day 8 we hiked in at 5:30am, were locked down by 5 younger rams above us so we hid out for 9 hours hoping they would feed out of sight. At 3:30pm it was go for broke time, and when we made our move further in the canyon where the legal ram was located the 5 rams didn't blow out the big guys direction, and only went up higher to watch us move up the drainage and bowl we were in...
As we rounded a ridge in the canyon we saw the legal ram feeding his way down the bowl to a position we could move in for a shot. After all the long range shooting I practiced, the ram fed his way down to a position we were only 147 yards away for the shot. One shot from the 300 Weatherby planted the ram in his tracks. The emotions, and excitement overwhelmed me and tears of joy filled my eyes uncontrollably. I would never have imagined I'd hunt the Dall Sheep, but to actually connect on one seemed like a long shot after 8 days of hiking too. A culmination of lots of preparation, and battling through adversity ended in sweet victory. Definitely the most challenging and rewarding hunt I have EVER been on...
