Alaska Game Board just this year instituted a new youth sheep hunt that runs from Aug. 1st until Aug. 5th.
The great thing about this hunt is it's before the regular season opens, so if you're taking advantage of it you most likely will not only have the mountains to yourself, but the sheep won't be pushed at all yet.
I'm setting here at my desk green with envy as my 14 year old grandson just left for this hunt that I had planned with him. A recent back surgery that hasn't healed as fast as I hoped has caused me to drop out, but a great friend stepped in my place. There has been some preseason scouting and we have pictures of the ram he'll go for. This early we're betting he'll be right around the same location he was photo at earlier this week. The picture was taken within 200 yards, so the approach looks good.
He's a great ram and the guy's he's going with are all big time sheep hunters so I'm not worried, but after being on over 30 sheep hunts, I sure wish I was there.

One of the most backwards regulations I've ever seen the board of game make. But a handful of kids and dads are gonna love it!

Smiles all around.
42 1/2"
172 5/8" gross 3/8" deduct for 172 2/8" net.

I do feel a little dirty typing this though as this ram was taken because of a backwards regulation.

How do they define "youth" and is it a one and done or can the "youth" go early every year?

Youth is a hunter that doesn't need his own license because he's too young. He hunts under parent or adults license and the adult has to be with the hunter. Adults sheep tag also had to be punched.
This particular hunt was approved this spring by the Game Board to try and answer the call to get more kids involved with the sport of hunting. They opened the sheep season from the 1st to the 5th for youth's only, before the normal season opens Aug. 10th.
The biggest complaint is that this is not just for residence hunters. A non-resident youth can hire a guide or even a resident second degree kinder can take them, again as long as they hunt under an adults license and tag.
All of this is just my understanding of how it works, I'm sure there are others that can give a more detailed description.

Now if you want to discuss Alaska's mis-management of sheep as a resource that is something volumes could be written on.

Volumes I think have been written! Lol all
The proposals for limiting sheep harvest and hunting opportunities and the state decides to implement a special season (because the other one didn't work I guess) to get MORE hunters into sheep hunting.
Ahhhhh what?! I was stunned when they did this.

quote:

Originally posted by Alaska Hunter:
Smiles all around.
42 1/2"
172 5/8" gross 3/8" deduct for 172 2/8" net.

I do feel a little dirty typing this though as this ram was taken because of a backwards regulation.

Pictures??????

Brett

quote:

Originally posted by BrettAKSCI:

quote:

Originally posted by Alaska Hunter:
Smiles all around.
42 1/2"
172 5/8" gross 3/8" deduct for 172 2/8" net.

I do feel a little dirty typing this though as this ram was taken because of a backwards regulation.

Pictures??????

Brett

Brett,

Might as well go for drainage and GPS coordinates as well.

Cheers
Jim

No need for coordinates, the big sheep is gone. Need to hunt where no one has killed a big one.

quote:

Originally posted by Fourtyonesix:
No need for coordinates, the big sheep is gone. Need to hunt where no one has killed a big one.

Not an inches guy Jake. When the measurement and score were volunteered I didn't say it but I suppose the "youth" hunt was less about the youth and more about a big sheep.

Glad for the "youth" though and I hope he ends up a lifetime hunter conservationist and not a SCI medal seeker.

Cheers
Jim

Posting for Alaska Hunter:

Wow! What a ram! Congratulations to the young man on his first sheep!

Brett

PS> My only complaint is that he needs to smile more in his pictures next time!

Awesome Sheep. Well done.

I hear ya frostbit. I'm not a inches guy either, actually not even a sheep guy. I find them way over rated, much rather be working a brownie on kodiak.

Nice sheep though. Pictures a bit messy. Lol

Very nice sheep. Looks like he took a bit of a tumble.

He went down the side of the mountain between 500 and 600 yards. It took quite a while to catch up to he in is final resting place.
At least it was closer to the bottom.
Cut it up and carried it down to the trees, built a fire, ate a back strap and slept next to the fire. Walked out the next day. Weather was perfect, no rain, even though it seemed like it was raining everywhere else in the State.

Did he have a guide for this hunt?

Yes he did have a guide, Jeff Burwell.

Damn Jake, you're a little rough on this whole youth hunt thing.

Lol I love youth hunts. But when sheep are declining and there are so many restrictions being talked about, opening a special season with no spotting from the air restrictions seems backwards to me.

http://www.newsminer.com/featu...9e-638353f6882f.html



Young hunter bags 42-inch ram
Sam Friedman sfriedman@newsminer.com Updated 18 hrs ago



FAIRBANKS — During his first sheep hunt this month, Mason Young didn’t get to spend as many days in the mountains as most sheep hunters do. Although it was a short hunt, he was by no means cheated by the size of his ram.

Young, 14, shot this 42 ½-inch ram Aug. 1, the first day of his hunt.

Young is an incoming freshman at Hutchison High School. He completed the Alaska Department of Fish and Game hunter education program at age 10 and has hunted in Alaska and British Columbia for moose and elk.

Young set out from his base camp Aug. 1 with family friend John Kreig and hunting guide Jeff Burwell. Their target was a promising group of rams in the Wrangell Mountains that Burwell had been scouting before the season.

Young was hunting under a new youth hunt permit created by the Board of Game this year to encourage teenage hunters by giving them an opportunity to bag a sheep before the school year and before the regular sheep season.

The party climbed to a 5,000-foot ridge overlooking a group of four sheep. They waited four hours for the sheep to stand up so Young could get a good shot. Finally, the biggest ram stood up and Young got off a couple of 300-yard shots with his 7mm-08 rifle. It wasn’t clear whether he’d hit the big ram, which ran away from him. The ram moved to a lower ridge and stopped, giving Young a chance to get within 200 yards. He took two more shots.

“That’s when he fell down,” Young said. “About two seconds he lay there. Then he started to roll down the hill, about 500 yards down.”

They hiked down to the ram’s resting place. Despite its long tumble, the ram didn’t break its horns or its nose. The fall did bruise some of the meat and chipped one of the horns, which will affect its score when it’s measured for the Boone and Crockett record book.

It was about 9 p.m. by the time they had field-dressed the sheep and was too late to hike back to their base camp. They bivouacked under a tree and made a dinner of the only food they had available, their fresh sheep meat.

Now that he’s back in Fairbanks, Young said he’s hooked on sheep hunting even more than hunting moose or elk.

“You can see all the country. With moose, you’re down in the swamps and stuff,” he said.

Young’s grandfather, Mike Samson, is a longtime sheep hunter who’s working on his second Grand Slam of North American Wild Sheep. Samson wasn’t able to go on the hunt because of work, but he got a SPOT satellite message shortly after the kill with the text “42.5 inches .”

Samson is clearly proud of his grandson but feels the young hunter didn’t get the full experience because the hunt went so well.

“Don’t get me wrong, you’ve got to take advantage. I would love a one-day sheep hunt, but so many times you’re up there for a week. Everybody deserves the pleasure of being stuck in a little nylon tent they can’t get out of for three, four, five, six days because of the rain and the fog,” he said.

Contact Outdoors Editor Sam Friedman at 459-7545. Follow him on Twitter: @FDNMoutdoors

Ram of a lifetime!