# Hoping to notch a tag or two this year



## scott_rn (Sep 11, 2007)

Headed out tomorrow bright and early at the crack of noon, with a chance to notch a deer tag. Mostly a fishing trip, but we might get lucky. The state of alaska sure does like printing up a lot of tags, makes for a really big tag soup.
So far I have a chance at three black bears, one brown, four deer, a sheep, a moose, and caribou. I keep tossing around the idea of chasing a goat too, but I don't think my career, my freezer, our my marriage could take it, glad I didn't put I'm for that utah antlerless elk with my brother.
Good luck to all.


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## outdoorser (Jan 14, 2013)

Wow! If your successful on even a couple of your tags, your gonna have a lot of meat in the freezer. Good luck!


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## Springville Shooter (Oct 15, 2010)

Have fun you big show off.-----SS


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## xxxxxxBirdDogger (Mar 7, 2008)

I'd keep a bear tag and .44 on hand if you are fishing a river in Alaska. You'll see bears once you start hauling in their salmon dinner.

We expect a LOAH type story with photos!


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## scott_rn (Sep 11, 2007)

Deer hunting didn't happen, but my wife and kid took turns reeling in a 35 pound halibut.
This last week another former utahan came up from montana to help me chase sheep. Hiked one day, hunted one day, and took two to get out. That ram is little, but delicious. I packed my bow the whole way up and in the end had to use a rifle, 190 yards - 300 win mag.


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## Springville Shooter (Oct 15, 2010)

Nice! ......and many moe to come I suspect.-------SS


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## outdoorser (Jan 14, 2013)

That's awesome scott!


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## scott_rn (Sep 11, 2007)

Now that I'm home, and my hunting season may be cut a bit short due to a complicated pregnancy - here's a bit more of the sheep hunting story.
I scouted from the air a couple of weeks before the season in a husky:



Opening day my buddy flew in and it took us about 24 hours to finish getting everything ready. We actually spotted a black bear behind the range while sighting in a rifle. The next afternoon we traveled about eight miles via rhinoceros.



We crashed at the rhino the first night, made our way up the mountain the next morning. It felt like we gained a ton of elevation but really we only camped around 3500' after leaving the atv around 800' elevation. We glassed a little and saw more legal bull moose than I have ever seen before. These were all decent bulls, probably at least have half of them were legal based on the 50"/brow tine rule. Archery moose season was open, and it was tough to pass on legal moose, but we had the goal of getting into sheep country.



The next morning we hiked 10 hours, tried to stay high as we made an approach on where we had seen some rams. We got up to 6000' and came down a ridge where we had seen them before getting socked in the clouds. I got some great advice from a veteran sheep hunter last year, change your socks every time you stop to glass. 


The weather cleared up but we couldn't see any sheep below us for a while. I grew a little restless and decided to work my way down the ridge, looking down steep chutes as we descended. I found one ram and rigged up my bow/release hoping to get close enough. Right below us we had a band of rams that Justin ranged at 190 yards that were all staring right at us. Two of them were very small, I had a clean shot at the smaller of the two big sheep. Unfortunately, the biggest sheep had another one behind it - but this wasn't really a trophy hunt for me. I mostly went for the experience, and some excellent meat. I fired on the second largest ram and the rock exploded right behind him. Justin was convinced I missed, but the ram took one step and tipped over due to his bilateral pneumothorax. A few quick hero shots of the meat ram and we got to work.



We got it butchered up and the weather socked us in again. We had to bivy for the night using our space blanket bags in the rain. That was an aweful night. Not much sleep, but at least we had bellies full of fresh sheep meat over a fire.



We got moving as soon at it was light after that sleepless night and made our way back to camp. Once we got back to the tent we cooked up a hot mountain house meal and had a short nap in real sleeping bags.



We packed up camp and the ram with packs close to 85 pounds - not too bad. We only had to hike about 2 1/2 miles as a crow flies to get back to the atv. Should have been a piece of cake, but it never goes as a crow flies. Even with gps, the clouds were so thick we couldn't see enough to figure out how to get down the mountain. There were two steep, craggy slopes and we needed to find the ridge between the two. We simply couldn't find a safe route, so we crashed for the night. Ironically, we were soaking wet from the humidity and couldn't find a decent water source. We were sucking the drops of dew from fireweed blossoms, and that night put out our space blankets and contractor bags - collecting nearly a liter of water overnight.



The next morning the clouds cleared just enough to find the ridge we needed, an answer to our prayers. We got down to the atv a little after noon, took a little detour on the way home and were able to the parking lot almost exactly four days later.


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## mikevanwilder (Nov 11, 2008)

That's very cool! I'm way jealous.


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