EP 91: Giant Dall Sheep in Alaska with Adam Bronson and the Crew. In this episode of the Epic Outdoors Podcast Adam recounts his recent Alaska Dall Sheep hunt. Adam spent his time in Alaska searching for “the” ram and was fortunate to connect with an absolute giant. Alaska is a remarkable place with some of North Americas most rugged terrain. A sheep hunt in Alaska provides some of the most physically and mentally challenging hunting scenarios. For all those who have been to Alaska and for all those who dream of going this one is for you.
Disclaimer: this text was produced through an automated transcription service and likely contains errors. Please listen to the original audio for exact content.
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Which when you’re in Alaska, it’s light at 4 30, 5 o’clock
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You end up getting weather, you get stuff outta your control.
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It started crushing us with rain that night. We backed out, crossed the river, got back to camp. Anything
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To do with Western big Games.
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Welcome to the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour.
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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 got Jeffrey, he’s back from Alaska. So kind of excited to tease these guys a little bit, see what they, see, what they, 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 hall road clipped there in Alaska. So,
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And I flew up with two bags under 50 pounds.
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That’s right
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Dude. We are like, we are loading the trailer and I’m like, like, and, and my dad’s kinda like me, like, we’re pack rats. Like if it’s possible to take it, we’re gonna take, we are loading it. And I’m like, I don’t know how people do it with, with, with the backpack. Like they, most people are going to, dude, we fill the trailer.
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I’ll talk about coming home ’cause it was interesting ’cause yeah, you had to put a sheep, cape horns, everything cylindrical in there and it’s long. We’ll talk about what the Q pack is capable of. Alright,
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That’s good. Speaking of which is your Q pack in one piece right now?
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It is. Well it was when I got home, but thanks to Delta Airlines, they don’t handle stuff like I usually do. We’ve got a few so jobs to do and it’s being done as we speak.
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It’s got the shoe coppler right now. That’s right. All right. So anyway, we’d, before we get started, we wanna thank Under Armour for sponsoring this podcast. They do a lot of great things. Got some great gear out there on their website. Been ordering it left and right and, and getting geared up as as we’re hunting. ’cause a lot of their stuff’s coming out right now. So anyway, go to under armour.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
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Careful when you type in boys and girls back to back to back. Just be careful when you type
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That. Yeah, just use discretion. Okay. All right. So anyway, that’s enough of that. And we, 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.
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We want to hear about that ’cause we haven’t Oh, it’s,
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It’s brutal. Yeah.
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We can talk about the general,
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General Utah spent some time with my kids out there. The general impact of drought, is that, is that what you’re getting at there? Yeah, I it’s, it’s pretty
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Southern Utah, Northern Arizona. It’s all,
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It’s rough. People are turning back tags and 23 South Archie Oak, I mean they’ll never get ’em again.
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Unit 10, Rio random tag gon
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Guys sell Henrys gon tags for 10,000 less than they paid now, which gives you, oh you kidding. Very affordable $25,000 tag.
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It’s a very
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Expensive 190 inch deer. Really? And so anyway, just a lot of, ah, 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.
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It was pretty awesome. I mean, I, I would’ve been way happy with a whole lot less than that. It’d 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, and 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. But
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We need to have that podcast with the wives.
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We do. It’s just scary. ’cause Jason, it
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Empower women across the
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Earth. Yeah, well I have a great wife and she knows what I love to do and she’s behind me 110%. But when, and Jason’s too. But when we’ve hatched this idea a year ago and Jason and I have been too scared to go through it,
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My wife’s like, are you sure? Are you sure Jason and I, because I’m happy to visit about
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The roof. Yes. They say stuff like that and they’re like, okay, we’re just gonna go back to work.
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Basically
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We’re gonna have
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Jason, we’re gonna have male guests of our choosing.
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Yes.
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Believe in the same things we do. Yes.
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That that the same hopes and dreams
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That we have. That’s funny. But we don’t, we don’t want to see the other side.
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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. We’ve never dared
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Go through it. What’s the upside? There’s no, we could talk about, I mean, why do it, we could talk about fun stuff. It could go or we could go through with something interesting that could otherwise cause maybe a divorce.
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So
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Honey,
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I love you that someday down the road, that’s still in the queue for now. We’re talking about this. So anyway,
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For now we’re gonna spend college education money on doll sheep. So go ahead
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Adam.
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So anyhow, so a couple years ago, what was that stone
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Hunt that we’re gonna be doing next year?
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I think we’re getting smoked out right there. Sounds like. So that’s another topic. Fires
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Smoking
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People. 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.
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Jason Harrison will cue you. Super good guy. I wasn’t gonna say his name. Well, he’s an advertiser of ours. He’s, he’s supported us from the, from the get go. He’s killed a ton of sheep. Yeah. He’s, 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, and didn’t
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Realize that he already had another trip planned to the Yukon. Something had to give for him. Yeah. And I was able just to move mine up a year and Jason go the next year and all is well. First hunt. So back in Alaska, man, you know, wrangle mountains. Yeah. Big genetics. And the last few years this ult, matatu Outfitters 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. Not, and they’re
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All just the same exact age as the killed seven year old rams. They were born whatever was in the water, the right weather, winter, everything.
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Something, you know, I’ve, I’ve talked to ’em about that because you know, sheep go through that and spurts even down here in the lower 48, look at the muddies. Yeah. I mean there was 10 years ago they weren’t killing the one 70.
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No, but we predicted and the biologists were like, we have an inordinate amount of
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Young up and comers
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Young up and comers, three to fives, retarded amounts. And then,
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Then then 2013 we killed a couple. And since then there’s been a few giants. One
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Or two giants every year.
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Yeah. And a lot of one seventies. Yeah. Alright, we’re digressing back to Alaska.
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Progressing is what I like to say. We’re
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Progressing. Yeah. So anyway, it was, it was just time to go back and went up there with really not a, i I mean I, I’d kill the dollar 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, or same something
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Whites coming back. Yeah. I
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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 could, I told my guide Jay Stanford, I said, Hey, I can get there a whole lot of ways. A big heavy double broomer. That would be cool.
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You find it and I’ll justify it. Yeah.
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Well and he just, and he said, I like that. Let’s just, when we both see it and we know it’s, we’ll know it. And I says, that’s exactly right. That’s right. It could be a broom flaring cool thing or
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One of those guides, like them big heavy broom.
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Yeah. And if he’s old, they’re, they have one up, they’re in their guide shed that I would shoot like that. That’s probably 34 to five, but he’s like 12 years old and just a stud. I think your dad Jason shot one like that. Yeah,
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He did with Chris McKen
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Tenner. You were with him?
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I was with him on the
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Bottom plane like that. I would shoot like he’s just, just an old, he’s probably lost six or eight inches on each tip, but, oh. Anyway, so south southeast Alaska has had a lot of rain. That’s the 1st of August and you know, when you go up there and plan for that, you have all your rain gear.
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It rained our, our brown bear in May sucked. Yeah.
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It was nonstop rain. And so 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, they looked at me and says, no, really the wettest, we haven’t seen this much rain here specifically because part of the rains where these guys are at are in kind of the rain shadow of the chuga and the Saint Elias That’s right out on the coast. They’re on the backside of it. They’re still in the mountains, but Yeah. And you know, they, they say Yeah, we get 10 or 12 inches rain. And I’m like, what, 10 or 12. That’s like Cedar City. Yeah. And we we’re in the desert. Yeah. And they, everything’s green. We
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Have good antlers growth years and bad hunter growth
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Years. Yes. And so anyway, they’re, the rivers are swollen. Bottom line, they couldn’t get get me out really. I was gonna go hunt some of the upper glacier country. They couldn’t get me there. They just said, Hey, we, we, you know, it was fogged in, we we tried to get us up there. And I’m like, they’re like, well, we’re not gonna kill you getting in. And they’re like, please don’t. Let’s just, they said, we can take you back to the lodge or we can put you on one of these lower ranges. We just say, dump us out. So we hunted that first, first day on a range we had first ran, first sheep I saw was a double boomer. Oh geez. After I’d said, Hey, I, I can maybe she, he’s like, there’s your double broomer. And I’m like, no. It’s like first morning I’m like, doesn’t feel right. Yeah, he looks good. He’s heavy, but I’m like, the stomach appears is impossible.
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He was in a precarious spot. No, he was a really cool ram. He was. But just the first ram saw. So we saw 14 rams the first day. He was the only one that would’ve 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, and looks like you’re on the face of Mars. They’re, you’re like, what can these sheep eat? And every once in a while you see a pocket of green in a, a little basin and you’re like, all right, there’s some sheep. And second day we saw, after we got moved there, we saw a group of five ramps, two of which were legal. And we, we cat mouse them for a while, just I guess, for lack of a better word, trying to make sure they weren’t, we weren’t walking away from something we shouldn’t.
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And we got close, you know, killing range of these 250 to three 50 yards and took pictures of them. One was a long kind of a flare and steer horn almost looking around, but he was like nine and probably 39 or so long ram on a little longer on one side. The other one looked almost like a carbon copy of the ram that I’d already shot, but probably an inch or two shorter. And, and, 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 happy. But I says, this is day two. And we, we walked and you know, 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.
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To go to Alaska and other places, well it’s has to be, you can meet three, three criteria to be legal. It’s gotta be eight years or older. And to, to, 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 gotta 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 gotta, which is hard on a live animal. You, a lot of times you get the oblong angle and you get one angle and it looks like he’s curl in a quarter. But it’s not a full circle. So the guides are, are very trained to not get, not get ahead of themselves unless you see a no no doubter. And then the third criteria is if they’re double broomed or broken, which means the full lamb tip is gone. You’ve got, 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 is all gone. It’s also legal. So it has to meet that criteria. So to be legal in Alaska. And, and there are some, some unique differences, archery areas and stuff I think is less than
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That. But yeah, most guys will kill 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 outta your control. And generally you’re talking about a 10 day hunt. You go And
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We knew and we knew that. And
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They’re expensive one.
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We knew that too. As we’re watching these rams, they were, they’re, these two are pretty, could be fogg in one of them is for the next
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Rest of your home. Yeah.
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Whatever. And we knew there was bad weather. I mean we’re, we’re getting spit on the whole day. And it’s not about, you know, if you’re gonna get moved to a different part, they gotta come get you. You know, and if, if it, 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, and you know, some of that glacier stuff, glacier country, it, it’s up, up and over stuff is significant because you’re going up and over and you’re walking ice fields for miles and you gotta 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 and up and over the next it’s part of it is, all right, we’ve hunted this out and you’re, you get up in the fog with, you know, at 6,500 or something like that, going over to the next and, 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 g p s but it’s just, it’s, it’s easier said than done to just hike to the next basin and hunt it out. So anyway, the, we got wind through guides. The couple, couple of the other hunters in the, with the outfitter killed opening day.
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Couldn’t get to where they saw the big ram.
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Yeah. They, they killed opening day
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The ram you’re gonna feed your family.
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But I actually didn’t even know that yet. But, but they’d killed and they said, Hey, we gotta go up near where you guys are to pick some people up. Maybe we’ll move you to that drainage ’cause such and such killed a ram, you know, within a mile of their, their where we let ’em go. And they didn’t even touch the whole rest of the drainage. And I’d been to that drainage before and it’s, it’s a, you can hunt it for four a day. It’s giant. Yeah. I mean it’s 10 or 12 miles long sheep on both sides. So we knew it was basically barely touched and, and we’re like, all right, if, if you can get us do that, otherwise we’re, we will hike down there, spend all day if we can, if we can navigate the ice fields. And all that turns out they could get into us.
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They moved us down there. Which means in Alaska you’re done hunting that day. They moved us in the morning, can’t because they had a window. You can’t hunt until 3:00 AM the next day. Which isn’t a bad thing. It ended up being a, a terrible rain day. Luckily they moved us when they did. ’cause if they didn’t we would’ve 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 hundred from California killed. Just a beautiful, it’s a mid to upper one sixties. Just I saw that. Wow. I’m like, yeah, that I would shoot that. Yeah. Like that. Yeah. And they’d killed it. But, but they had seen a ram opening day that, that was big. But it was on the other side of the valley across the raging river. They couldn’t go after it.
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But, so they’re like, oh, well put that in the back pocket. They kept going hunting winter up in the next basin, killed their sheep and now we’re getting flown out. And he had a pitcher and you’re like, it could be about 0.2, 4, 6, 8 seconds to say that’s that’s, that’s our wrap. That’s right. That’s our wrap. That’s a sheeter. And my guy too was 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
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Vision. Meaning you only had about a four inch view. Yeah. Through the tent
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Window. That’s right. A couple, a couple meanings. Yes. A literal you could not see. But then b that’s the only round we need to find before we even start hunting. Yeah. And so with the commotion, the mountain that he rams Yeah. Being really high. He was, he was dropping us off and you know, they’d killed the ram in there and shot a couple times. I don’t remember. But the ram was way high in the goat. He’s deal, we call it globe goat cliffs, all that back. Yeah. They, he had a little ram, well it probably three quarter curl rhythm 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 down the water would come down down. Yep. 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, I had a
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Red Rock rifle, just let her rip.
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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 kinda let up. And we glassed we didn’t still didn’t know a hundred percent it was the ram, but it was right where Don, the other guy that was with the first a hundred 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. ’cause goats are notorious for just climbing where come get me if you can. ’cause I know you can’t basically. Yeah. And you’re gonna be nothing you’re gonna do that night. So the next morning we, we, you know, 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.
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And we realized this is him. Got a lot of live video of him crossed the river that night. It was sketchy, but boulder’s coming down through next to you and things like that. And 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, it’s interesting, once he’s dead and in your hands, you’re like, how did, how did, how did we not just, yeah, he’s legal, but when they carry themselves a different way, these rams, they’re not, you know, they’re, they’re not old enough to just push it up and start twisting back. They’re, they’re eight years old. They’re right about when they’re, you know, seven, eight being legal. But they’re magnums. And so, you know,
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But and the shape of the horn
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Too, too come down.
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So then you can’t tell if he’s full curl for fact. Yes. So you’re looking up. Yeah, you’re
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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 b
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He’s
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Full curl. Yeah. That says, and we couldn’t tell that until the next day.
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If you got 170 inches, that’s not legal. Yeah. There’s problems with the
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That’s right. We trust me. Me at night I would talk to him. I’m like, would they take a and crockett ram from you? And he’s like, probably. Oh yeah.
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They’d make an example of you. They would, you wouldn’t get to hunt in the wife. They would love to put, they get done.
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I couldn’t hunt. I’d have to hunt Puerto Rico and Mexico the rest of my life.
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Chipmunks maybe That’s right. With something that didn’t burn powder. That’s
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Right. Yeah, that’s right. Slingshot only. But anyways, so he’d
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Be aiding and ab bedding, it’d be bad.
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That’s right. So all that day we watched him 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.
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How far is he at that point? Like we
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Were probably 900,000 in the
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So do you think he can see you? But he doesn’t
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Care? He well, no. We were stealthy. We were so overly cautious because we knew he’d been exposed to these other guys. Oh yeah. But they’re green.
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Yeah. So it doesn’t matter
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Far enough away. Yeah, he’s not. And we were very careful. We’d always, you know, but yeah, we didn’t want him to see us. ’cause if he push him up higher and he goes over like, we’re like, if we, if we invest time in this and blow him once we’re starting over at day five or six and now
00:19:25:01 –> 00:19:25:15
And he knows
00:19:25:15 –> 00:20:01:25
What else is out there. Yes. Yeah. You probably, but we’re kind of starting over. So we were very, you know, this is our wild chance. We would wait until they would bed head on the ground before we would claw, go through the open country, stay the brush and nasty. Yeah. 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 Tali met. And I remember thinking, here we go. We’re gonna kill him today. Because he’s finally, all right, my basin’s back to normal and I’m, I’m just feed. And he fed and fed and fed and let us close the distance. He fed like he hadn’t fed as much. And I thought ’cause
00:20:01:25 –> 00:20:02:25
He’s up in those goat rocks.
00:20:02:25 –> 00:20:13:19
Yeah. The feed wasn’t as good that day. He fed till 10 30, which when you’re in Alaska it’s light at 4 30, 5 o’clock. Yeah. And he crushed it till 10, 10 30. Which is that,
00:20:13:26 –> 00:20:15:03
That’s a lot of grass. You
00:20:15:03 –> 00:20:15:27
Used to hunting deer and stuff.
00:20:15:28 –> 00:20:17:19
Stuff’s like, that’s a lot of food. Yeah.
00:20:17:19 –> 00:21:09:02
That’s like five or six hours of hard feeding. And so when he beded down, we made our move. We were probably in that time that morning we got, we got great views of him and we got outta 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 reeded. Right. And so we just banked, keep the gun on the pack. He’s gonna step out any moment there was 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, all right, they’re in there. But, but we didn’t see a big ram. It was like till 5 15, 4 hour. And we got pelted with rains. ’cause you’re there, you hiked up there, you’re sweating. I just, you know, had my Q u Marino 2, 2 10 top on and just threw the rain jacket over it thinking all right, if it rains, I’m good. Well then, and
00:21:09:03 –> 00:21:10:05
I’m warm. This is just keeping
00:21:10:09 –> 00:21:34:00
Me dry. Oh yeah. And after four something hours we were vis visibly just shaking so cold. ’cause it’d come in in 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 packed 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 down it and
00:21:34:00 –> 00:21:37:08
Then you’re just rain laying there, it’s the hum humidity.
00:21:37:09 –> 00:21:37:22
It’s humidity
00:21:37:25 –> 00:21:39:23
Slowly. It does.
00:21:39:29 –> 00:22:04:24
And so you turn your back to it and then you turn your other back ’cause it’s coming different ways. And anyway, and and my guy, he’s, he didn’t put his coat on too. And afterwards we talked about it. I’m like, yeah, I knew my, my worn super down coats in my pack. But if I get out there and I start doing that, that’s when the ram’s gonna come out. Then I have toho it back in. You bolting the same thing. I’m thinking ’em all that and, and really that would take me four minutes to get it outta my pack. But I put it off for four hours
00:22:05:17 –> 00:22:06:13
And you were miserable.
00:22:06:19 –> 00:22:25:18
And he tells me, he’s like, well I just didn’t get mine outta my pack. ’cause 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. That’s we good guy. We just froze. That’s a guy. But I’m like, he took one for the team. I says, anyway, so he finally fed out and he got the, well he, that morning he looked, he says, oh yeah, we’re killing.
00:22:25:20 –> 00:22:26:24
He’s full curl eight year old.
00:22:27:02 –> 00:22:29:04
He’s there. He just said, yep, he’s there. He’s
00:22:29:04 –> 00:22:31:26
Barely legal. 170 inches. Okay. We got
00:22:31:26 –> 00:22:49:17
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. They just have a, they drop so low and they come out forward towards the nose. They just don’t, they’re not arking up. They don’t a up around quick. Yeah. And it doesn’t matter if he’s six or seven and he’s, it doesn’t
00:22:49:17 –> 00:22:51:13
Matter if he’s a 40 inch or seven eights,
00:22:51:14 –> 00:22:57:24
No, it doesn’t matter. They’ll, they’ll take it from you. So it doesn’t matter A score. They don’t, there’s no cro. And I was joking, you
00:22:57:24 –> 00:22:58:01
Need to take
00:22:58:01 –> 00:23:03:14
That long. I said, yeah, they should have something. Like if he’s 1 65 plus, how could you take him from him?
00:23:03:15 –> 00:23:08:26
He’s got balls. Let him kill him. You know. Well, alright. Maybe not that far.
00:23:09:14 –> 00:23:10:22
Well, so anyway, you can’t
00:23:10:22 –> 00:23:13:13
Miss him. You couldn’t make a mistake. Oh, that’s true. All. So anyway,
00:23:13:19 –> 00:23:28:29
So he fed out and I, it was, and, and then when he fed out, he wasn’t in a great spot. And I said, I’m, I, I whispered. I said, I’m so shivering I need to do so I’m gonna miss. Yeah. So I get down there and I start doing like burpees and leg squats and all that. You do? Yeah. Like I’m 10 yards from him on the backside of the hill while the
00:23:28:29 –> 00:23:29:22
Ram’s up and feet.
00:23:29:24 –> 00:23:34:00
He’s feeding but not on a great spot. And I says, just let me know if, if he’s, if he gets good, I’m gonna
00:23:34:00 –> 00:23:34:24
Do some pushups. Yep.
00:23:35:03 –> 00:23:41:29
Do some claims, something. Well then it was, so I did that and I started getting warm. But then what happens when you get a heartbeat and you try to, and then I’m like,
00:23:42:12 –> 00:23:43:00
Now you’re a little wound
00:23:43:01 –> 00:23:44:22
Up. And I’m like, oh,
00:23:44:22 –> 00:23:45:23
You can see the heartbeat and
00:23:45:23 –> 00:24:01:24
Skull. Oh 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. Yeah. So I get on there steep uphill angle. I had my vinyls on. So I put my vinyls up perfectly under the butt of my gun. So I wasn’t touching it. Rock
00:24:02:02 –> 00:24:03:29
Were you using this six hour range finder?
00:24:04:16 –> 00:24:06:01
I had it, but it was in my pack. You know the
00:24:06:02 –> 00:24:08:23
Angle compensator? Yep. Or it wasn’t that far. It didn’t matter. No,
00:24:08:23 –> 00:24:14:05
It was, it was a good shot. It was 500 yards and angle compensated to like four 30.
00:24:14:12 –> 00:24:15:02
What did you use
00:24:15:08 –> 00:24:25:19
To My guide had his, he had a Leica angle compensated. Yeah. But mine was in my pack and he had his there. So I, we took ’em both just ’cause they don’t weigh enough. Yeah. But a Red Rock
00:24:25:19 –> 00:24:26:28
Precision, that’s a significant difference. Oh,
00:24:27:00 –> 00:24:28:28
70 yards. It was steep.
00:24:29:03 –> 00:24:30:01
That’s a steep angle.
00:24:30:06 –> 00:24:33:17
Yeah, it was. It was. You’re Yeah, it was a, it was enough. You’re gonna
00:24:34:10 –> 00:24:35:12
It was a 20 degree. It,
00:24:35:20 –> 00:24:40:01
I don’t know. I’m not good at judging that, but that’s what rangefinder for, right? Wow. Yeah,
00:24:40:06 –> 00:24:40:19
That’s right.
00:24:40:26 –> 00:25:00:02
Yeah. So anyway, and it was a little f but but the grass was right in front of us at 300 to three 50. And we just knew he’s gonna come down there. The angle would, would, would get better distance would get shorter. I just, I thought that’s where he is 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, I’m like,
00:25:00:23 –> 00:25:02:01
I’m like gonna cost’s he gonna
00:25:02:01 –> 00:25:31:08
Do, do And pretty soon he goes up again and he looked at, he says he’s gonna climb. I’m like, yep. All right. I, I says I can kill him. So he started up higher and now he’s probably 75 yards or a hundred yards under the cliffs. Not nasty cliffs yet. Now good trough where if you shoot him, you gotta think about stuff like that. ’cause these guys have told me horror stories and of shooting rams that fall, both cores pop off. You get to a ram and you got two cores, two bone cores and you gotta go 500 yards
00:25:31:12 –> 00:25:34:04
Chinked off horn. That’s a seven year old now he’s not full curl. Yes. And,
00:25:34:07 –> 00:25:49:17
And the guy looks at, you’re like, how convenient he broke. Huh. So you’re supposed to be, you know, just things and you don’t want to destroy your Yes. Your sheep. Yeah. And so he had a good trough as we call it. You know, a a gravel trough that went all the way down. Which soft
00:25:49:17 –> 00:25:50:05
Place to rest
00:25:50:17 –> 00:26:03:04
Or to roll. Yeah. ’cause he’s gonna roll. Yeah. It’s so steep. So anyway, and the video’s rolling, it’s, I might as well just tell the world right here and right now. I shot one right over his back.
00:26:03:10 –> 00:26:05:16
What? You didn’t tell me that.
00:26:07:23 –> 00:26:08:21
The video, it is not
00:26:08:23 –> 00:26:09:11
Lie. The heartbeat
00:26:09:11 –> 00:26:42:22
Shot. I don’t know. And I, and I w thought, I mean I was, I was dead. But I’ve showed John, I showed Chris you were gone the first day I swore I punched him. ’cause he kind of does this herky 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 below. So I just pulled it amongst, because I knew he drove, he ran 10 to 20 yards closer. So I just aimed low boom. And I could see it rock. And I thought hit him again. He staggers rolls down the mountain dead. I figured I shut him both times until after we’re done. We’re on the,
00:26:42:24 –> 00:26:45:11
The go’s like I’m glad pulled it together. Like what’s that
00:26:45:11 –> 00:26:53:00
Little black do 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
00:26:53:00 –> 00:26:53:20
Hit Ram John.
00:26:54:06 –> 00:27:08:17
Right on the right on his spine. Right over the top of him. No. So it happens. I don’t know how it did. This next one just blew through his shoulder and just, just perfect. Just perfect. And they were within six or seven seconds, you’ll probably hear ’em when we do the
00:27:08:20 –> 00:27:09:10
Wow YouTube
00:27:09:10 –> 00:27:19:14
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
00:27:19:17 –> 00:27:20:07
Sheep dude usually
00:27:20:14 –> 00:27:40:24
Get a couple chunks and he was dead. And then he rolled about 2, 250 yards down. And he was a bloody mess. 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 him clean ’cause Wow. That’s the side that the pitcher needs to be taken from. Wow. And I’ve got some unique pictures of a pink red sheep on one side.
00:27:40:24 –> 00:27:43:18
And well, we know some guys that can fix those photos. Yeah.
00:27:43:19 –> 00:28:00:12
And that’s true. They’re white and it’ll all come out in the tanning and bleaching process. But geez, we walked up to him. We had, you know, high fived and all that and we walked up to him and, and it, it was just humbling. ’cause he just got bigger and the ma and I pulled his, you know, he’s mangled his heads under and I pull him up and he’s just, and you’re like, oh my gosh,
00:28:00:12 –> 00:28:01:25
39 and six eights.
00:28:01:25 –> 00:28:11:16
Yeah. 39 and six and a half, 14 and a half bases. Geez. Just, just perfect. You know, little, he’s broomed right. To his lamb tip. So he’d lost a little bit on each end, but just
00:28:11:16 –> 00:28:26:12
Perfectly, that’s a, that’s a sheep. I mean that is, 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. Yeah. It’s, they don’t kill very many.
00:28:26:18 –> 00:28:31:25
Well, and and the humbling part of it is, yeah, they don’t, and of course you want one, you can’t
00:28:32:08 –> 00:28:33:11
Make it happen. Don’t,
00:28:33:11 –> 00:28:47:02
You can just make it happen. And even if I had a bank account account, you look at people with bank account, they just can’t, the thin horn sheep are the hardest thing to make happen. If you wanna buy a rocky and buy a desert one estate tags, you’re gonna kill a big ram. It’s gonna happen. Or
00:28:47:02 –> 00:28:47:29
A dang nice ram. Yeah.
00:28:48:00 –> 00:28:50:07
Yeah. I mean, I’m not, yeah, I mean you buy a, now you go
00:28:50:09 –> 00:28:54:10
Buy 170 inch dollars stone. There’s guys spend 200
00:28:54:10 –> 00:28:54:22
Hundreds
00:28:54:22 –> 00:28:57:11
Of thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Yeah. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands.
00:28:57:11 –> 00:28:58:20
Yeah. And it may not happen. So some guys
00:28:58:20 –> 00:29:02:10
Have even spent towards a million and several different hunts doing it.
00:29:02:10 –> 00:29:17:28
So, so very lucky. Very blessed. Appreciate both Don Martin, Jay Stanford, Ultima Tuley Outfitters Ford, all their help circumstances allowed it had the water been lower and all that. They might’ve killed that ram opening day. Well just with, with the other hunter. Oh,
00:29:17:28 –> 00:29:22:04
That’s true. So not like you knew about the specific ram or had him named or
00:29:22:06 –> 00:30:09:00
Anything crazy. They, they couldn’t hardly do any flying that whole week. It was crushing. I mean it was not like they, they’d found a couple pockets of sheep and the easier mountain rains that were out of the random fog. But this supper stuff was not, was unchartered fine. Which it’s, it’s consistently good, but just go hunt sheep. Yeah. And very blessed. Luckily lucky. And it’s awesome. Happy to bring one home. It’s awesome. And I, 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. ’cause I, I don’t know. I don’t know when it’ll be. And I joke with my wife, and again, she’s, she’s awesome. She knows what this means to me. But I said, Hey, I still didn’t break 40 so I’ve gotta go back sometimes, you know, forty’s kind of the, I don’t know, 200 inch of mule there. Its like
00:30:09:00 –> 00:30:10:17
The grill. Even though that really, it’s
00:30:10:17 –> 00:30:21:19
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, but neither are 40. So there’s always that time,
00:30:21:19 –> 00:30:27:04
Honey. I I, I’ve got a 14 and a half baser, so I’m good now with the bases that yes. Now I need a 40,
00:30:27:11 –> 00:30:46:00
I’ll shoot one that just breaks 40. But, but anyway, it was pretty awesome and it’s awesome. Got home a little bit early and that always, well you talked about that q u pack and packing out. Tell us about, did you come out in won or Yeah, took what? I took, yeah. I took the icon pro 7,200, which is usually the pack that I take when I guide sheet hunters. I’m on a unit can
00:30:46:00 –> 00:30:46:05
Handle
00:30:46:05 –> 00:31:28:06
Some serious period. Yeah. If I’m on a unit that we’re take that I know that we’re probably gonna 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, of 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 gotta take all the meat, all the neck meat, the rib cage, everything, everything up there to be legal. And that’s, that’s a heavy load. And I’m not saying I was as heavy as my guy Jay Jay, he was freaking heavy. Like, but he, he’s a young stud. And and that’s what I told myself. We, he’s the young one. He can handle it. But I’m like, I’m like, well I mean I’ve got all my stuff in my gun and a and a life-sized cape.
00:31:28:12 –> 00:32:29:01
’cause I wasn’t sure. I’m like, I better skin him that way. And then the head. And so I’m, I’m still heavy. My toes are still numb on one foot. So I don’t Wow. It’s just from being pounded and which has happened before on sheet punch, you just pound, pound, pound and I strikes a do a little nerve damage or whatever and then it comes back a week or two later. Yeah. But, but you know, the pack worked great. It was, it was awesome. Yeah. Like Jason joked earlier, it wasn’t until I, you know, I forgot my q u 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 pack pa part was gone torn off by Delta. So that’s the only thing that, that, that needs to be done. But it was, it was great use. 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. ’cause up there, there everything you’re on is rock. They
00:32:29:06 –> 00:32:33:01
Shed water. And the other thing is I like his, his base layers. They, they just don’t seem,
00:32:33:20 –> 00:33:26:06
We talked about, I wore the same don’t smell t-shirt, Marino t-shirt. The whole hunt isn’t unbeliev just, and I took two but like there’s no need to change it. No. And, and then I had a, you know, another one over it and then at times a heavy one in my super down coat and rain gear sometimes. But they’re, they’re awesome. Great gear. Great. I mean just trust it to it. You won’t go wrong. Did end up standing in hill Hilberg at Atco tent and same with my guide and you know, they’re, they’re tight and cozy. Those single mans, there’s no no way to put it. No. When we actually got moved to a different spot, it was on a, 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, and have some of your gear in there. Doesn’t really get dry up there when it’s raining. ’cause it’s like the humidity’s so high, it’s like always a little damp even when it’s not, you’re just gonna
00:33:26:06 –> 00:33:27:23
Learn how to be comfortable in
00:33:27:23 –> 00:33:38:18
Your environment. Yeah. And, and have the gear. It’s different. Merino is another thing about that one. It’s a little damp. It still has warming properties. You know, it’s, it does. So it was great Red Rock precision second shot at least.
00:33:40:02 –> 00:33:41:29
First shot was somebody else’s gun.
00:33:43:09 –> 00:34:04:22
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 gonna start to climb. He was feeding. It’s not like he was alert, but I air mailed it. Not much. I mean it, it probably missed him literally by an inch over his back. Yeah. Yeah. But he came home with me and I’m,
00:34:05:08 –> 00:34:06:08
It doesn’t matter. He
00:34:06:08 –> 00:34:07:12
Cares. Bet. He’s, he’s awesome.
00:34:07:15 –> 00:34:07:22
Yep.
00:34:08:14 –> 00:34:10:22
I was ready to spray bullets before he
00:34:10:22 –> 00:34:20:07
Got away. Geez. I need one like that. I killed a doll and just like you said, you gotta you gotta take it to the next level. But you, you can’t, it’s just the right situation you gotta go on.
00:34:20:11 –> 00:34:36:11
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 off on enough or you’re not, you know, you’re not hunting with a special tag. Let’s
00:34:36:11 –> 00:34:46:28
Say you went 10 times in your, 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 yelder hunts we go on to kill a
00:34:46:28 –> 00:34:48:20
Monster. Oh yeah. How many tags we eat? It’s
00:34:48:24 –> 00:34:54:29
The same. Yeah. Is there enough? Can you do it enough? Yeah. Can you make it happen? I mean it’s, it’s a, it’s a special,
00:34:54:29 –> 00:34:55:08
You have
00:34:55:08 –> 00:35:05:02
To commit to it. Special, special ram that makes that. And of course, what do they kill three a year that are like that? Four, five maybe in North America on good years. Yeah. I mean it’s in
00:35:05:02 –> 00:35:06:10
North America we’re talking. Yeah,
00:35:06:15 –> 00:35:07:19
Yeah, yeah,
00:35:07:22 –> 00:35:08:08
Yeah. That’s
00:35:08:08 –> 00:35:22:20
Right. It’s unbelievable. The, it was great how, you know, anyway, quite a, quite an accomplishment and congratulations. It’s awesome. I mean, at least you killed one earlier this year. I went on that brown bear hunt and I saw brown bodies. But you’re,
00:35:22:28 –> 00:35:27:14
But that’s a little bit, it’s a little bit different. You’re, it’s similar in that you, you’re
00:35:27:14 –> 00:35:27:20
Gonna want hunt,
00:35:27:27 –> 00:35:42:13
Kill one 10 foot tight bear. Yeah. And a brown bear’s like you only really need one in your life. Yeah. Maybe two, but you know what I mean. Yeah. If you, if you shoot a eight and a half or nine footer, you’re gonna want to go shoot a big one again. Yeah. So you might as well just,
00:35:42:17 –> 00:35:47:10
Well, and those just wait, not just one of those hunts. That’s just what happens when you pass. You
00:35:47:10 –> 00:35:53:00
Get crushed with rain and Yeah. You didn’t have the option to move. Like you were pretty much stuck where you’re at and Yeah.
00:35:53:11 –> 00:36:05:23
Oh I know. So anyway, you spent 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.
00:36:05:28 –> 00:36:35:08
You know, we talked a lot about the KU gear that I used on my sheep hunt. And if you need to get ahold of them, you can go to q [email protected]. Or if you’re in the field and something, you know, you’re realizing your ring gear is a piece of crap and you want to upgrade and get something, give ’em 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.
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