EP 91: Giant Dall Sheep in Alaska with Adam Bronson and the Crew

Which, when you're in Alaska, it's light at 4.30, 5 o'clock. You end up getting weather, you get stuff out of your control. It started crushing us with rain that night. We backed out, crossed the river, got back to camp. Anything to do with Western big game. Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Epic Outdoors crew. We got Adam, Jeff, and John here. Yep, that's right, Adam. He's back from Alaska. We Jeffrey, he's back from Alaska, so kind of excited to tease these guys a little bit, see what happened up there. We know Jeff basically drove from Utah, or at least him and his family drove from Utah, took all their gear and everything they owned, including the kitchen sink probably, and went up there and hit the haul road, clear up there in Alaska. And I flew up with two bags under 50 pounds.

That's right. Dude, we are loading the trailer, and my dad's kind of like me, like we're pack rats. If it's possible to take it, we're going to take it. We are loading it, and I'm like, I don't know how people do it with a backpack. Like most people are going to... Dude, we filled the trailer. I'll talk about coming home, because it was interesting, because you had to put a sheep cape, horns, everything cylindrical in there. It's long. We'll talk about what the QU pack is capable of. All right, that's cool. Speaking of which, is your QU pack in one piece right now? It is. Well, it was when I got home, but thanks to Delta Airlines, they don't handle stuff like I usually do. So, we've got a few so jobs to do, and it's being done as we speak. It's at the shoe cobblers right now.

That's right. All right. So, anyway, before we get started, we want to thank Under Armour for sponsoring this podcast. They do a lot of great things. Got some great gear out there on their website. We've been ordering it left and right and getting geared up as we're hunting, because a lot of their stuff's coming out right now. So, anyway, go to UnderArmor.com, type in Baron, hunting, boys, girls, whatever you want in the search engine on UA.com, and that stuff will come up. So, be careful when you type in boys and girls back to back. Yeah, just use discretion. Okay? All right? So, anyway, that's enough of that. And, anyway, just do appreciate them. But let's jump right into this. We've been in the field a little bit. I've been in Nevada hunting small deer. We want to hear about that, because we haven't. It's brutal. Yeah. We can talk about the general impact of...

General Utah. I've spent some time with my kids out there. The general impact of drought. Is that what you're getting out there? Yeah. It's pretty hard. Southern Utah and Northern Arizona, it's all... It's a rough year. People are turning back tags in 23 South Archery Elk. I mean, they'll never get them again. Unit 10, Archery Oak, Poncagon, Henry's. Guys selling Poncagon tags for $10,000 less than they paid, which gives you a very affordable $25,000 tag. It's a very expensive 190-inch deer, really. And so, anyway, just a lot of...it's just a different year. It's kind of fun. But having said that, guys are doing very well on sheep up in Alaska. Adam killed a freaking giant. 170-inchers. It was pretty awesome. I mean, I would have been way happy with a whole lot less than that. It had been quite a few years since I'd went up and killed my last one, so it was just getting old, man. Yeah.

I mean, like I told my wife, I've got a great wife, as do we all, because they put up with what we love to do. We need to have that podcast with the wives. We do. It's just scary. It's going to empower women across the earth. Yeah, well, I have a great wife, and she knows what I love to do, and she's behind me 110%, and Jason's too. But we've hatched this idea a year ago, and Jason and I have been too scared to go through with it. My wife's like, are you sure? Are you sure you want to do it? I'm happy to visit about the room. Yes, they say stuff like that, and they're like, okay, we're just going to go back to work. Basically, we're going to have Jason and I. We're going to have male guests of our choosing. Yes. That believe in the same things we do. Yes. The same hopes and dreams that we have. That's right. But we don't want to see the other side.

We thought it would be cool, lighthearted to have our wives on a podcast and let them just talk about the hunting widows or whatever. Just see where it goes, but it's a slippery, scary slope, and we never dare go through it. There's no one. I mean, why do it? We could talk about fun stuff, or we could go through with something interesting that could otherwise cause maybe a divorce. So, honey, I love you. Someday down the road, that's still in the queue. For now, we're talking about this. So, for now, we're going to spend college education money on ball sheep. So, go ahead, Adam. So, anyhow, so a couple years ago- What is that stone hunt that we're going to be doing next year? I think we're getting smoked out right there, it sounds like. So, that's another topic. Fire's smoking people out there. Northern BC is terrible. It's on fire. But anyway, long story short,

booked a hunt. It got bumped up, you know, through some circumstances. I got bumped up a year early. Some people needed to switch. Jason Harrison, I'll cue you. Super good guy. I wasn't going to say his name. Well, he's an advertiser of ours. He's supported us from the get-go. He's killed a ton of sheep. He's killing everything that walks. Super good hunter. And circumstances allowed where Adam had a hunt book for next year, and Jason had one this year. And they're like, well, this is so much. And didn't realize that he already had another trip planned to the Yukon. Something had to give for him. And I was able to just move mine up a year, and Jason would go the next year, and all was well. First hunt.

So, back in Alaska, you know, Rango Mountains, big genetics, and the last few years, this Ultima Thule Outfitter has been producing some stompers. Two of the last, I think, three or four years, they've killed the number one ram in North America. And they're all just the same exact age as the ram you killed. Yeah, seven-day-eight-year-old rams. Like, when they were born, whatever was in the water, the right weather, the right everything.

They're something. You know, I've talked to him about that because, you know, sheep go through that in spurts, even down here in the lower 48. Look at the muddies. Yeah. I mean, there was 10 years ago, they weren't killing a 170. No, but we predicted, and the biologists were like, we have an inordinate amount of young up-and-comers. Young up-and-comers. Three to fives. Retarded amounts. And then in about 2013, we killed a couple, and since then, there's been a few giants. One or two giants every year. Yeah. And a lot of 170s. Yeah. All right, we're digressing.

Back to Alaska. Progressing is what I like to say. We're progressing. So, anyway, it was just time to go back, and went up there with really not a... I mean, I'd killed a doll of sheep, so I didn't... You know, it wasn't just, I just need to kill one. But at the same token, I didn't... Same time. Something white's coming back. Yeah, I wanted to kill a sheep, of course, you want to. But I didn't have, like, a score in mind, or a 40 inches in mind, or anything. I told my guide, Jay Stanford, I said, hey, I can get a score in mind. I'd get there a whole lot of ways. A big, heavy double broomer, that would be cool. You find it, and I'll justify it. Yeah, well, and he just said, I like that. Let's just, when we both see it and we know it, we'll know it. And I said, that's exactly right. It could be a wide, flaring, cool thing. A lot of those guides like them big, heavy broom warriors.

Yeah, and if he's old, they have one up there in their guide shed that I would shoot like that. That's probably 34 to 5, but he's like 12 years old and just a stud. I think your dad, Jason, shot one like that. He did with Chris McKenna. You were with him? I was with him on the bottom plane. Like that, I would shoot. Like, he's just an old, he's probably lost six or eight inches on each tip. But anyway, so, Southeast Alaska has had a lot of rain since the first of August. And you know, when you go up there and plan for that, you have all your rain gear. Dude, it rained. Our Brown Bear in May sucked. Yeah. It was non-stop rain. I was surprised when I got there that they said, they said, this is the wettest we can ever remember. And I said, really? And they looked at me and says, no, really the wettest.

We haven't seen this much rain here specifically, because part of the rain goes where these guys are at, are in kind of the rain shadow of the Chugach and the St. Elias that's right out on the coast. They're on the back side of it. They're still in the mountains, but, yeah. And you know, they say, yeah, we get 10 or 12 inches rain. And I'm like, what? About 10 or 12, that's like Cedar City. And we were in the desert. And they, everything's green. We have good antlers growth years and bad antlers growth years. And so, anyway, the rivers are swollen. Bottom line, they couldn't get me out really. I was going to go hunt some of the upper glacier country. They couldn't get me there. They just said, hey, you know, it was fogged in. We tried to get us up there. And I'm like, they're like, well, we're not going to kill you getting in there.

I'm like, please don't. They said, we can take you back to the lodge, or we can put you on one of these lower ranges. We'll just say, dump us out. So, we hunted that first day on a range. The first sheep I saw was a double broomer. After I'd said, hey, I can maybe shoot. He's like, there's your double broomer. And I'm like, no. It's like the first one. I'm like, yeah, he looks good, he's heavy, but I'm like, I want to hunt. The stock appears impossible.

He was in a precarious spot. No, he was a really cool ram. He was, but just the first ram we saw. So, we saw 14 rams the first day. He was the only one that would have been legal by definition. But we ended up getting moved. That day was a beautiful day. The only day we lived out of our rain gear. And we got moved up to the higher country. And it looks like you're on the face of Mars. You're like, what can these sheep eat? And every once in a while, you see a pocket of green in a little basin. And you're like, alright, there's some sheep. And the second day, after we got moved there, we saw a group of five rams, two of which were legal. And we cat-moused them for a while, just, I guess for lack of a better word, trying to make sure we weren't walking away from something we shouldn't. And we got close, you know, killing range of these 250 to 350 yards, and took pictures of them.

Two of them. One was a long kind of a flare and steer horn almost looking ram, but he was like nine and probably 39 or so long ram, a little longer on one side. The other one looked almost like a carbon copy of the ram that I had already shot, but probably an inch or two shorter. And that was kind of where I left it. I said, you know, if I end up taking one of these rams like this home on day seven, eight, or nine, or something, I'll probably be happy. He says, this is day two, and we walked. So, there's like three legal rams now. So, for guys who don't know, tell us what a legal ram is. Okay. So, yeah, to go to Alaska and other places, well, it has to be, you can meet three criteria to be legal. It's got to be eight years or older, and to judge that, you'd usually be within killing range. You know, let's say 500 yards and in with a really good, no heat waves, and count the rings.

You know, count the lamb tips up, and you've got to have eight visible rings or greater to be legal. Or, be full curl, which, you know, have the curl the horn, go back and reach in the tip, bisect the base of the horn when viewed in a perfect circle. So, you've got to, which is hard on a live animal. A lot of times, you get the oblong angle, and you get one angle, and it looks like he's curling a quarter, but it's not a full circle. So, the guides are very trained to not get ahead of themselves unless you see a no-doubter. And then the third criteria is if they're double-broomed or broken, which means the full lamb tip is gone. You know, which is, let's say, two to three inches, two to four inches. Every ram grows a little bit more that first year, but if that's gone past the lamb tip, it's all gone, it's also legal. So, it has to meet that criteria, so, to be legal in Alaska.

And there are some unique differences. That archery areas and stuff, I think, is less than that. Most guys will kill a legal ram by definition, so you're passing up three legal rams already. The thing is, like you indicated earlier, you end up getting weather, you get stuff out of your control, and generally you're talking about a 10-day hunt and go home. And we knew that. And they're expensive ones. We knew that, too, as we're watching these rams. These two were pretty. Could be fog down for the next rest of your hunt. Yeah, and we knew there was bad weather. I mean, we're getting spit on the whole day, and it's not about, you know, if you're going If you're trying to get moved to a different part, they got to come get you. You know, and if they can't come get you either, so you're burning days just sitting in a huge valley that you've hunted out for two, three days.

And, you know, some of that glacier stuff, glacier country, it's up and over stuff is significant because you're going up and over, and you're walking ice fields for miles, and you got to have crampons and all that. It gets semi-technical. You can't just, it's not sunny Northwest Territories in a lot of this parts where you just keep walking valleys, We're walking up and over the next. Part of it is, alright, we've hunted this out, and you get up in the fog, you know, at 6,500 or something like that, going over to the next, and you're in a fog bank on an ice field, you have no bearing where you're at. You don't even know what direction you're walking. You can follow GPS, but it's just, it's easier said than done to just hike to the next basin and hunt it out. So, anyway, we got wind through guides. A couple of the other hunters with the outfitter had killed opening day.

Couldn't get to where they saw a big ram. Yeah, they killed opening day. The ram you're going to feed your family. But I actually didn't even know that yet. But they'd killed, and they said, hey, we got to go up near you where you guys are to pick some people up. Maybe we'll move you to that drainage because such and such killed a ram, you know, within a mile of where we let them go. They didn't even touch the whole rest of the drainage, and I'd been to that drainage before, and it's a, you can hunt it for four days. It's giant. I mean, it's 10 or 12 miles long, sheep on both sides. So, we knew it was basically barely touched, and we're like, alright, if you can get us, do that. Otherwise, we'll hike down there, spend all day if we can navigate the ice fields and all that. Turns out they could get into us. They moved us down there, which means in Alaska, you're done hunting that day.

They moved us in the morning because they had a window. You can't hunt until 3 a.m. the next day, which isn't a bad thing. It ended up being a terrible rain day. Luckily, they moved us when they did, because if they didn't, we would have been socked up on the ice. But anyway, when we got down there, yeah, they had a beautiful 40, 40 and a half inch ram, a hunter from California killed. Just a beautiful, it's a mid to upper 160s. Just, I saw that, I'm like, yeah, I would shoot that like that. And they killed it, but they had seen a ram opening day that was big. But it was on the other side of the valley across the Ragin' River. They couldn't go after it, but so they're like, oh, I put that in the back pocket. They kept going hunting one ram in the next basin, killed their sheep, and now we're getting flown out. And he had a picture. And it took me about .2468 seconds to say, that's a ram.

That's a ram. That's a shooter. And my guide, too, like, all in. So, anyway, they got flown out, we got dropped off in there, and we pretty much had tunnel vision that night. You know, we, it was, most of the day was in the tent. Tunnel vision meaning you only had about a four-inch view through the tent window. That's right. A couple meanings. Yes, A, literal, you could not see, but then B, that's the only ram we need to find before we even start hunting. And, uh... So, with the commotion, the ram ends up being really high. Yeah, he was dropping us off, and, you know, they'd kill the ram. He put the ram in there and shot a couple times, I don't remember, but the ram was way high in the... He's like, I don't need to deal with all that. Yeah, he had a little ram, well, probably a three-quarter curl with him, way high on the mountain.

So, when he dropped you off, was it... did you have to cross the river that they didn't, or he dropped you off on the other side? No, we were on the wrong side still, and we're just banking that the water would come down at some point. But, you know, we had six or seven days, and, you know, a big valley to hunt. If we couldn't go that way... And a Red Rock rifle, just let her rip. Huh? Yeah, it was like a mile and a half across the river, but yeah. I mean, yeah, you couldn't have done that. But overall, that night, just before dark, it kind of lit up and we glassed. We didn't, still didn't know 100% it was the ram, but it was right where Don, the other guy that was with the first hunter, had said, that's the mountain he's on. And, but they were 400 yards up in the nasty steep, we just call it the goat cliffs,

We're notorious for just climbing where, come get me if you can, because I know you can, basically. And nothing you're going to do that night. So, the next morning, we got up, we saw him, and spent all day working our way up there, got to the river. It was pretty high, but we were mainly just watching the sheep, making sure it's him, and we realized this is him. Got a lot of live video of him across the river that night. It was sketchy, but boulders coming down through next to you and things like that. Got in close enough to realize just what we suspected. This ram is pretty special. He looked big. Still had a really unique look that he comes out and comes forward out towards his nose before he starts coming up. So, it's interesting. Once he's dead and in your hands, you're like, how do we not just... Yeah, he's legal.

But when they carry themselves a different way, these rams, they're not old enough to just push it up and start twisting back. They're right about when they're, you know, seven, eight, being legal, but they're magnums. And so, you know... And the shape of the horn too, so then you can't tell if he's full curl for fact. Yes. And you're looking up. Yeah, you're looking steep up, and so it's just, you never get it right. And he's like, just make sure. If we ever get close, I need to make sure, and I'm just like, if this thing is not legal... A, he's eight. B, he's full curve. Yeah, that says, and we couldn't tell that until the next day. If you've got a 170-incher that's not legal, there's problems with the legal. That's right. Trust me, me at night, I would talk to him, I'm like, would they take a Boone and Crockett ram from you?

And he's like, probably. Oh, yeah. They'd make an example of you. You wouldn't get to hunt in Hawaii when they get done with you. I couldn't hunt. I'd have to hunt Puerto Rico and Mexico the rest of my life. Chipmunks, maybe. That's right. With something that didn't burn powder. That's right. That's right. Sling shot only. But anyways. He'd be aiding and abetting. It'd be bad. That's right. So, all that day we watched him, we realized he's big. He actually came down about half that distance. It started crushing us with rain that night. We backed out, crossed the river, got back to camp. How far is he at that point? We were probably 900 or 1,000 from the sheep. So, do you think he can see you, but he doesn't care? Oh, no. We were stealthy. We were so overly cautious, because we knew he'd been exposed to these other guys. But they're green. Yeah. So, it doesn't matter.

Far enough away, he's not. And we were very careful. But, yeah, we didn't want him to see us, because if you push him up higher and he goes over, we're like, if we invest time in this and blow him once, we're starting over at day five or six. And who knows what else is up there. Yeah, probably, but we're kind of starting over. So, we were very, you know, we would wait until they would bed, head on the ground before we would go through the open country, stay in the brush and nasty, and you know, you couldn't kill him where he was. So, all that second day still. The third day we wake up, we start going up camp, and he was finally out of the cliffs right where the talus met, and I remember thinking, we're going to kill him today because he's finally, all right, my basin's back to normal, and I'm just feeding. And he fed and

And fed, and fed, and let us close the distance. He fed like he hadn't fed as much. Because he's up in those goat rocks. Yeah. The feed wasn't as good. And that day he fed till 1030. Which, when you're in Alaska, it's light at 430, 5 o'clock. Yeah. And he crushed it till 10, 1030, which is... That's a lot of grass. You're used to hunting deer and stuff. That's a lot of grass. Yeah, that's like five or six hours of hard feeding. And so, when he bedded down, we made our move. We were probably, on that time, that morning, we got great views of him. And we got out of sight, popped up on the ridge that we thought would be straight across, and they had moved in that two, two and a half hours when we did our stock. But we knew that they probably just re-bedded, right? And so, we just banked, keep the gun on the pack, he's gonna step out any moment.

There's a little crease, you could tell, 7,500 yards went back in. He's probably in there. After two hours or so, there's out feeds the little ram. So, we're like, alright, they're in there. But we didn't see a big ram. It was like till 515. Four hours, and we got pelted with rain because you're there. You hiked up there. You're sweating. I just, you know, had my QU Merino 210 top on and just threw the rain jacket over it. Thinking, alright, if it rains, I'm good. Well, then. And I'm warm. This is just keeping me dry. Oh yeah. And after four or something hours, we were visibly just shaking.

It was so cold, because it'd come in and rain, you'd turn your back to it, you know, and all your stuff's in your pack, but like your gun's on your pack, and you kind of need your extra clothes for some kind of a pack to lay on, and your resting heartbeat, you're cold, you're sitting there for three, four hours, not moving. And it's not that cold, but when you're a little bit damp, and then you're just raining. It's the humidity in the air blowing across you. It does. And so, you turn your back to it, and then you turn your other back, because it's coming different ways. Anyway, and my guy, he didn't put his coat on too, and afterwards, we talked about it. I'm like, yeah, I knew my worn Superdown coat's in my pack, but if I get out there, and I start doing that, that's when the ram's going to come out. Then I have to shove it back in,

and I'm thinking of all that, and really, that would take me four minutes to get it out of my pack, but I put it off for four hours. And he tells me, he's like, well, I just didn't get mine out of my I didn't want you to feel bad that I was warm and you were freezing. So, he left his in his pack the whole time, too, and we're just froze. But I'm like, you took one for the team. I says, anyway. So, he finally fed out, and he got the... Well, that morning, he looked, he says, oh yeah, we're killing him. He's full curl, eight-year-old. He's there. He just said, yep, he's there. He's barely legal, 170 inches. Okay? We got it. More or less. And ironically, a couple of the other really big rams, they've looked at for a day or two just like this. Just like this, they just have a, they drop so low and they come out forward towards the nose, they just don't arc up quick.

And it doesn't matter if he's six or seven and he's... It doesn't matter if he's a 40 inch or seven eights. No, it doesn't matter. They'll take it from you. So, it doesn't matter a score. They don't, there's no boot and crock, and I was joking. You need to take that long. I said, yeah, they should have something like, if he's 165 plus, how could you take him from? If he's got balls, let him kill him, you know?

Well, I don't know. Maybe not that far. You can't miss him. You couldn't make a mistake. Oh, that's true. All right, so anyway. So, he fed out, and when he fed out, he wasn't in a great spot, and I said, I whispered, I said, I'm so shivering, I need to do something. I'm going to miss. So, I get down there, and I start doing burpees and leg squats and all that. Yeah, like I'm 10 yards from him on the backside of the hill. While the ram's up and feeding. He's feeding, but not in a great spot, and I says, just let me know if he gets good. I'm going to do some push-ups. Yep. Do some clanks. Well then it was, so I did that, and I started getting warm. But then what happens when you get a heartbeat, and then I'm like... Now you're a little wound up. And I'm like... Oh, you can see the heartbeat. Yeah, you get it on the gun. And I'm like, oh, that was probably a dumb move. But I was literally

shaking. You know, I needed some kind of heartbeat. So I get on there, steep uphill angle. I had my binals on, so I put my binals up perfectly under the butt of my gun, so I wasn't touching it. Were you using the six-hour rangefinder? I had it, but it was in my pack. You know, which was the angle compensator? Or it wasn't that far, it didn't matter? No, it was a good shot. It was 500 yards, and angle compensated to like 430. What did you use? Steep. My guide had his. He had a Leica, angle compensated. But mine was in my pack, and he had his there, so we took them both just because they don't weigh enough. But had the red rock precision. That's a significant difference. Oh, 70 yards. That's a steep angle. Yeah, it was. It was your, yeah, it was a, it was enough, you're gonna mess an even a- It was a 20 degree.

I don't know. I'm not good at judging that, but that's what rangefinder for, right? Wow, yeah, that's right. Yeah, so, anyway, and it was a little, but, but the grass was right in front of us at 300 to 350. And we just knew he's gonna come down there, the angle would, would, would get better, distance would get shorter. I just thought, I thought that's where he's gonna come. Now, all of a sudden, he turns and he starts climbing in the rocks. And he did it once, and I looked at him like, what's he gonna do? And pretty soon, he goes up again, and he says, he's gonna climb. I'm like, yep, alright. I says, I can kill him. So, he started up higher, and now he's probably 75 yards or 100 yards up in the cliffs. Not nasty cliffs yet. Now, good trough, where if you shoot him, you gotta think about stuff like that, because these guys have told me horror stories of shooting rams that fall.

But fall, both cores pop up, you get to a ram, and you got two cores, two bone cores, and you got to go for 500 yards. Or chinked off horn, that's a seven-year-old now, he's not full-crowed. Yes, and the guy looks at you like, how convenient, he broke, huh? So, you're supposed to be, you know, just things, and you don't want to destroy your sheep. And so, he had a good trough, as we call it, you know, a gravel trough that went all the way down, which... Soft place to rest.

To roll, yeah, because he's gonna roll. It's so steep. So, anyway, and the video's rolling. I might as well just tell the world right here and right now. I shot one right over his back. What? You didn't tell me that! The video does not lie. The heartbeat shot. I don't know. And I thought, I mean, I was dead. But I've showed John, I showed Chris, you were gone the first day. I swore I punched him, because he kind of does this herky He's a jerk thing like, what was that? And, you know, then he's out of the viewfinder, right? And so, I didn't range find him. I just said, aim, blow. So, I just pulled him along. Because I knew he ran 10 to 20 yards closer. So, I just aimed low, boom. And I could see it rock him. I thought, hit him again. He staggers, rolls down the mountain dead. I figured I shot him both times until after we're done, we're on the mountain.

He's like, I'm sure you're glad you pulled it together. What's that little black dot over the thing's back? Rewatch this, and I'm like, yeah, that's a pretty good vapor trail the whole way to the sheep, and the dirt mark right on his spine, right over the top of him. So, it happens. I don't know how. It did. This next one just blew through his shoulder and just perfect. And they were within six or seven seconds. You'll probably hear them when we do the YouTube video. But I'm not that happy with that part of it. The ram, luckily, had no idea we were there, did not know what was even going on. He turned and looked up the mountain, you know, like what was that? Like sheep do. Usually, you know, a couple of shots. And he was dead, and then he rolled about 250 yards down, and he was a bloody mess.

We had a quart of water and a pack of 20 wet wipes, and we used everything and got exactly half of them clean, because that's the side that the pitcher needs to be taken from. And I've got some unique pictures of a pink, red sheep on one side and all. Tell some guys that can fix those photos. Yeah, and they're white. It'll all come out in the tanning and bleaching process. But we walked up to him. We had, you know, high-fived and all that, and we walked up to him, and it was just humbling because he just got bigger in the mat. And I pulled his, you know, he's mangled his head's under, and I pulled him up, and he's just, and you're like, oh my gosh. Thirty-nine and six-eighths. Yeah, thirty-nine and six, fourteen and a half bases. It's just perfect. He's broomed right to his lamb tip, so he'd lost a little bit on each

end, but just perfectly. Well, that's a sheep. I mean, that's the dream. That's the goal. Those sheep like that are, that's like killing a net, Boone and Crockett, non-typical mule deer, if not even better. They don't kill very many. Well, and the humbling part of it is, yeah, they don't. And of course, you want one. You can't just make it happen. And even if I had a bank account, you look at people with banks account, they just can't... The thin horn sheep are the hardest thing to make happen. If you want to buy a Rocky and buy a desert and want a state tag, you're going to kill a big ram. It's going to happen. Or a dang nice ram. Yeah. I mean, I'm not... Now, you go buy a 170-inch dollar stone, there's guys spend 250... Hundreds of thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Yeah. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands. Yeah. And it may not happen.

Some guys have even spent towards a million in several different hunts. So, very lucky. Very blessed. Appreciate both Don Martin, Jay Stanford, and Ultimate Tooley Outfitters for all their help. Circumstances allowed it. Had the water been lower and all that, they might have killed that ram opening day with the other hunter. Oh, that's true. It's not like you knew about the specific ram or had him named or anything crazy. Nope. They couldn't hardly do any flying that whole week. It was crushing. I mean, it was not like they'd found a couple pockets of sheep in the easier mountain range that rattled with random fog, but this upper stuff was... It was unchartered. And it's consistently good, but just go hunt sheep. And very blessed, lucky, and happy to bring one home. It's awesome. Yeah. I don't know. I'll probably hunt another doll at some point in my life.

I now will be even more just like, let's just go hunt sheep and whatever trips the trigger, literally. Because I don't know. I don't know when it'll be. And I joke with my wife. And again, she's awesome. She knows what this means to me. But I said, hey, I still didn't break 40, so I've got to go back sometime. You know, 40 is kind of the, I don't know, 200 inch of mule deer. Kind of the whole grail, but really, it's not. Yeah, both my rams are over 39, and one's, you know, 10 or 12 inches bigger than the other. It's significant, but neither are 40. So, there's always next time. Honey, I've got a 14 and a half baser, so I'm good now with the bases. Now I need a 40 inch. I'll shoot one that just breaks 40. But anyway, it was pretty awesome. It's awesome. Got home a little bit early. Well, you talked about that QU pack and packing out. Tell us about it. Did you come out in one?

Yeah, I took the ICOM Pro 7200, which is usually the pack that I take when I guide sheep hunters. It's lightweight and can handle some serious gear. Yeah, if I'm on a unit that I know that we're probably going to need to stay overnight or two, or it is a backpack hunt, it's not usually full when I go, but it's capable of filling up. I'm filling up. And when you're up here, just you and a guide in Alaska, and you have all your stuff, and then you... These Alaska sheep are giant right here. They're tanks. And you get to take all the meat, all the neck meat, the rib cage, everything up there to be legal. And that's a heavy load. And I'm not saying I was as heavy as my guy Jay. Jay, he was freaking heavy. But he's a young stud, and that's what I told myself. He's the young one, he can handle it.

But I'm like, well, I mean, I've got all my stuff and my gun and a life-size cape, because I wasn't sure. I'm like, I better skin him that way, and then the head. And so, I'm still heavy. My toes are still numb on one foot. So, it's just from being pounded, which has happened before on sheet punts. You just pound, pound, pound, and do a little nerve damage or whatever. And then it comes back a week or two later. But, you know, the pack worked great. It was awesome. Yeah, like Jason joked earlier, it wasn't until I, you know, I forgot my QU gear bag that your pack zips up in for the airlines. I forgot that, and so you're sending it through the conveyor belts and whatever thing, with everything buckled and cinched as tight as it can be in a tight thing. But it came back when my lumbar part was torn off by Delta, so that's the only thing that needs to be done.

But it was great. Used their Scarpa boots, were awesome. And lived in their rain gear, lived in their new Guide Pro pants. Really liked that. I liked the knee pad option, because up there, everything you're on is rock. They shed water, and the other thing is, I like his base layers. They just don't smell. Like we talked about. I wore the same t-shirt, Merino t-shirt, the whole hunt. And I took two, but like, there's no need to change it. And then I had another one over it, and then at times a heavy one in my super down coat and rain gear sometimes, but they're awesome. Great gear. I mean, just trust it to it. You won't go wrong. Did end up standing in Hillburg at Co tent, and same with my guide. They're tight and cozy, those single mans. There's no way to put it. When we actually got moved to a different spot, it was near a strip where they actually had a, you know, bomb shelter tent.

That was nice, because you can at least stand up to get dressed and have some of your gear in there. It doesn't really get dry up there when it's raining, because it's like the humidity is so high. It's like always a little damp, even when it's not so dry. You just got to learn how to be comfortable in your environment. Yeah, and have the gear. Merino is another thing about that. When it's a little damp, it still has warming properties, you know. It does.

It was great. Red Rock precision, second shot at least. First shot was somebody else's gun. Yeah, or something. Maybe there was a gust I didn't account for. I don't know. But I blame it all on myself. I should have killed him. Maybe it was just that I was feeling a little anxiety that he was going to start to climb. He was feeding. It's not like he was alert, but I airmelled it. Not much. I mean, it probably missed him literally by an inch over his back. Yeah. But he came home with me, and I'm...

It doesn't matter. Who cares? He's awesome. Yep. I was ready to spray bullets before he got away. I need one like that. I killed a doll and just, like you said, you gotta take it to the next level, but you can't. It's just the right situation. I know. Yep. I know. Meaning, you can't plan for a ram like that. I know. And especially most blue collar guys, you just go hunt sheep, and when something happens like that, it's a total blessing because we can't go often enough or you're not, you know, you're not hunting with sheep.

Let's say you went 10 times in your life. If you really were addicted and you had the funds to do it, and you went 10 times in your life, it's 10 times to kill a monster. I mean, think about how many guillard hunts we go on to kill a monster. Oh, yeah, how many tags we eat. It's the same. Is there enough? Can you do it enough? Can you make it happen? I mean, it's a special ram that makes that. Of course, what do they kill? Three a year that are like that? Four? Five, maybe? On good years? Yeah.

I mean, it's... In North America, we're talking. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's right. It's unbelievable. It was great. How, you know... Anyway, quite a quite an accomplishment, and congratulations. It's awesome. I mean, at least you killed them. Earlier this year, I went on that brown bear hunt, and I saw brown bodies. But you're... That's a little bit... It's a similar. It's a little bit different. You're... It's similar in that you're gonna want to hunt for a 10-foot type bear. Yeah. And a brown bear is like, you only really need one in your life. Yeah. And maybe two. But you know what I mean? If you shoot an eight and a half or nine footer, you're gonna want to go shoot a big one again. So, you might as well just wait. Just one of those hunts, that's just what happens when you pass them.

You got crushed with rain, and you didn't have the option to move. Like, you were pretty much stuck where you were at. Yeah, oh, I know. So, anyway, you spend, just because, my point I guess is it doesn't matter, you spend the money, you go, you spend all the airline, all these other things, doesn't just mean you're gonna kill one. No. Everything has to kind of align for you. You know, we talked a lot about the QU gear that I used on my sheep hunt, and if you need to get a hold of them, you can go to QU at KUIU, QU.com. Or, if you're in the field and something, you know, you're realizing your rain gear is a piece of crap and you want to upgrade and get something, give them a call at 800-648-9717. They got a great staff there that can expedite something, get it to you quick. Great gear, just really essential stuff for mountain hunting, no question about it.