In February of this year I saw an opportunity come up to hunt sheep in Alaska advertised on this forum by Jake Jefferson. I have always loved hunting the high country and have spent every fall chasing deer and elk for the past 35 years. Each time I see pictures of Alaska, or of sheep hunts I tell my wife “I would love to see that country.” I have recognized over the past few years that I am not getting any younger. As I look in the mirror at my bald head that is very evident. The cost involved with one of these hunts has always been difficult to swallow....especially for my wife.....So I first had to convince her that this was a good investment. True to the amazing person she is she said to go for it if it made me happy. Then she started to talk about remodeling the bathroom and upstairs....it ended up being a good trade. I called Jake and talked with him about what to expect and some specifics of the hunt. I sent a deposit the next day and the anticipation began. In March thru July COVID gave me quite a scare thinking that Alaska may not let non-residents in. I tried to be optimistic and continue to plan as though the hunt would be a go, but at times had doubts. In August Jake’s first client arrived and he kept me aware each day through In Reach of how the hunt was going. He was seeing plenty of grizzlies and encouraged me to get a grizz tag because I could tag either a sheep or grizz with it. He and his client got a ram and saw a group of 6 at a distance that he thought were also rams. The plan was once I got there to move in the direction that he saw the rams. Prior to heading to Alaska I watched the weather closely. The forecast was for a 70 percent chance of rain over the next 10 days. I was quite discou raged as I have had many friends talk about how they never were able to fly to base camp for sheep due to the weather, but still forced myself to be cup half full. Jake picked me up in Anchorage in a truck with the license plate “GRZKLR”. We went to his house and got gear sorted and then were off to the float plane. It looked like we had a brief window of good weather to fly in. The country from the plane was inspiring....It just looked like it had to have sheep. After about 45 minutes we approached the lake where we would camp the first night. From the plane as we touched down we could see a sow grizzly with 2 cubs eating berries right by camp. Looking around I had to pinch myself. This is the country I had always wanted to see. We set up the tents and started to glass....20 minutes later the rain came and visibility was gone. We hit the tents to stay dry. I tried to glass intermittently from the vestibule of the tent and saw several caribou.





On Day 2 we woke up to light rain. Camp was quickly packed and with an oatmeal breakfast we were off in the direction where Jake saw the 6 rams. We had quite a journey to get there, but would hopefully be able to glass the mountains on the way there for sheep. Blueberries were everywhere and we saw quite a few holes where the bears had been recently digging squirrels. Visibility got poor and the rain started to come down harder. We set up the tents and tried to glass when we could, then hit the tents when the heavy stuff came down....we spent a lot of time in the tents. We rarely saw the mountains but had decent visibility most of the time below us in a little valley. We saw Caribou and 4 different grizz not far from camp. It rained hard the whole night. Jake was getting weather reports on his in reach and said that it looked like we had one day in the next 8 where visibility might allow us to see where the sheep were, but that may be our only chance to get a flight out. He said that if we wanted to we could hunt grizz because I had a tag. Throughout the hunt Jake was honest about situations and direct with what to expect. I appreciated that. He was pleasant to be around and even though the weather was poor, I was really enjoying the time. From the start of this hunt I had told myself, and believed it, that this was a hunt for the experience and success did not depend on getting an animal. With my occupation I did not have the option to get stuck in the backcountry due to the weather, so we decided to try to find a bear.

Day 3: When visibility allowed we started to glass. Two good boars were found within the first 30 minutes. Jake chose which one was the better of the two and we were off. It was a dark boar with blond highlights on his hump. He was moving quickly out of the valley as we attempted to close the distance. It looked like he might outpace us, however luck was with us in the form of a tempting ground squirrel. The boar stopped and proceeded to tear up the ground for the next 20 minutes. We crossed below the top of the ridge in the direction the bear appeared to be heading before being distracted by the squirrel. We watched as he finished his efforts and started to head our way. I got on the sticks and saw the bear briefly at about 70 yards as he dropped out of sight below the ridge. We knew that from our vantage no matter which direction the bear went we would eventually see it, we just didn’t know where that would be. The minutes passed with no bear sighted. Jake backed up about a hundred yards to see if he could pick the bear up. I stayed on the sticks and would look back at Jake regularly to see if he could see the bear. After a short time I looked back to see Jake pointing in front of me. I looked where he was pointing and up the ridge about 25-30 yards the bear was coming right at me. He stopped when he saw me and I knew that I was committed one way or another now. I shot once and he dropped back out of sight the way he had come. Jake could see him and told me to go over the top and put another in him. He was walking away slowly and dropped at the second shot. Grizzly was not an animal I think I would have ever decided to hunt prior to this trip...but if I would have known what the hunt would be like prior to this, I would have gone in a heartbeat. The low clouds were coming in quickly so Jake skinned the bear out and we headed back to camp. The rain was fairly constant but in the brief breaks in the weather we glassed up more bears and caribou and attempted to dry the hide. We still very rarely saw the mountains above us. That night while glassing an unfortunate coyote came walking near camp and gave us another opportunity to shoot. After a nice evening in the rain we packed up camp and hiked to a different lake to wait until a plane could make it there. We were rained on the whole hike and made it to the lake cold and wet. Jake rigged up a tarp to keep us dry and had hot water going in a few minutes for hot chocolate. We watched the lake as pods of fish surfaced. The weather broke briefly and the pilot was able to get in to the lake and fly us out. This was exactly what I was hoping for (minus the sheep) in a hunt. The chance to backpack into beautiful country and not be around any other people. As with any hunt you can’t control the weather. For me it added a variable that made it more of an adventure. There are several nice bears still up there and I hope to someday be able to go back after a sheep, however if not I am still very satisfied. Jake was a wonderful guide and a pleasure to be with. I appreciated his honesty and effort.

Very nice grizzly bear, way to my lemonade out of lemons. What rifle and caliber did you use?

Nice bear! Jake is a great guy! Alaska is so beautiful!

Nice!

Good job

Beautiful bear, beautiful country!

Well done. Thanks for the report.

That's a beautiful bear! I have hunted with Jake many times and he's top notch. You'll get your sheep next time.

Well done!

Congratulations!
Jake is top notch.

Ski+3
Whitefish, MT

Congrats, nice grizz.

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Great story. Great grizzly. Great first photograph. Congratulations on your "sheep hunt" and thanks for posting!

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That sheep morphed into a grizzly.

Dave