AK Jeff

I quickly broke out the spotting scope to try and size them up and sure enough it was the same group of rams from the night before, plus two smaller rams.

AK Jeff

Here's a picture I took through my spotting scope from the better part of a mile away. "My ram" is the one standing broadside.

AK Jeff

We worked our way back down to the valley floor to see if we could do a better job of getting onto them than the night before. After hours of crawling through the rocks and working the small stream drainages we ended up at the exact same rock that we had watched the rams from the night before at just under 600 yards. I pulled out my rangefinder and ranged them at 494 yards. Closer yes, but still not close. I decided if I could just shave 100 yards off I could make it happen so my Dad stayed behind and I started to belly crawl up the side of the little drainage we were in. After about 75 yards I pulled out the rangefinder again and damn if those sheep weren't 502 yards out. They were feeding away faster than I could crawl, but I realized at that point that the creek bank steepend enough that I could get on my feet and crawl up the rocks so I opted to try and gain more ground. After about half an hour of boulder crawling I got to a point where the drainage turned away and I couldn't gain any more ground. I crawled up to the rim of the embankment and pulled out the rangefinder again. It gave me the angle at 24 degrees and then the battery died. Talk about bad timing. At this point it was either get something done or pack up and call it quits so I propped up the bipod on the rifle. I wanted to take as much operator error out of the equation as possible so I grabbed an angled rock and used it as a shim under the butt of the rifle which allowed me to perfectly level the rifle without holding it at all. I guessed the distance to still be 450-475 yards and I bracketed the ram using the distance compensators on the VX-III. I dry fired the rifle twice to test if my point of aim moved and both times it stayed steady. I loaded up, waited for one of the other rams to clear away, and let the 300 sing. The ram instantly dropped like a ton of bricks, but my excitement was short lived when almost as soon as he hit the ground he jumped back to his feet. Right away I saw him kick his back leg and I thought I was going to be sick when I realized I had just wounded this beautiful ram. Two of the other rams ran up beside him which prevented me from shooting again and all three of them stood there for what seemed like an enternity. As I watched my ram I couldn't see a drop of blood on him, but it was obvious that he wasn't feeling so great. He finally cleared away from the other two rams and naturally I thought I needed to correct high right, so I did just that and let another one fly. Clean miss, and off he went toward the head of the canyon with two of the rams in tow while the other three went straight up into the cliffs. I was not feeling good about things at this point and realized that I had to run up to where they had disappeared behind what appeared to be an old glacial morraine near the head of the canyon. It took me about 15 minutes to run up there, but Usain Bolt couldn't have done it any faster. Here's the crap that I had to scramble up through...

AK Jeff

When I crested the end of the morraine I couldn't hardly believe it when not only did I see the rams, but I had gained some ground. The next hundred or so yards was relatively flat so I ran around the little boulder mounds as fast as I could. I rounded the last one and hit the deck. My ram was in the lead and at about 300 yards quartered away it seemed like a chip shot by comparison. I let a round loose and the ram spun, fell, and died. It was only then that I realized how late it had gotten, but I had to get up there and see that ram. Even though it wasn't far it took me about 15 minutes to get up to the ram so I could bask in the moment. What I would have given for my camera, but I had left it back with my Dad. All I could do was get down country before it went completely black and left me boulder hopping in the dark.

We came back first thing the next morning and to our disappointment the ravens had risen early and beat us to the ram. As soon as I saw them I knew his eyes would be gone so the pictures wouldn't be the best, but thankfully they didn't wreck his cape. Here he is. 36 and change on his right horn, and 33 and change on the broomed left side. ADF&G aged him at 9 years old.

AK Jeff

Remember that first shot that knocked him down? Does that look like about a 30 caliber hole? No wonder my second shot was a clean miss. I corrected high right when I should have just aimed slightly lower.

AK Jeff

My bad. Thankfully all you can see from the front or side is that little character hole. Actually, had I not hit him in the horn he may well have gone straight up through the cliffs and I never would have bagged him. Could well be a blessing in disguise.

AK Jeff

Bagging a dandy Dall sheep was great, but hands down the best part of the trip was getting to spend some quality time with my Dad.

AK Jeff

As we packed up the meat and head to begin backpacking the ram out of the mountains it started to rain slightly which made this rainbow back down the valley.

AK Jeff

Go in light, and come out heavy...

AK Jeff

One more random scenery shot...