Brooks Range Dall Sheep - Foot on the gas!!!

[sjhgraysage]

Spectacular!
Congrats x 2!

My son that you met won't do pineapple on pizza, his mother I and love it. 😉😁

[boneaddict]

Nicely done!   Like I said, the word Epic and Alaska go together like hand and glove.   You went and you conquered it.   What a great adventure.   Thanks for sharing it.

[Falcon]

Carl,

Making your dream come true was well earned.  Thanks for taking us along for the ride

[dewandgin]

Awesome story and awesome time spent with your brother

[Jpmiller]

Was the amount of work, discomfort, and pain during the hunt more, less, or about what you expected it? I always feel like I have a grasp of what a given hunt will take from me physically and mentally and always underestimate it in hindsight. Wondering how this one worked out for you now that you're a little removed from the hunt?

[Karl Blanchard]

Thanks guys for the kind words

Was the amount of work, discomfort, and pain during the hunt more, less, or about what you expected it? I always feel like I have a grasp of what a given hunt will take from me physically and mentally and always underestimate it in hindsight. Wondering how this one worked out for you now that you're a little removed from the hunt?

man great question! So going into this hunt I obviously did a lot of reading and research. Seemed like everyone liked to sensationalize the difficulty of sheep hunting the north country. If you didn't have a 5lb rifle and a 36lb pack you'd actually die. My theory has always been steep is steep. Miles are miles. Whether that's Alaska or New Mexico. A 15 mile day ridge running for rams can't be all that different than a 15 mile day chasing bugles in Idaho right?!  Well I think I was 50% right   

The big things you can't escape from a physical standpoint was the Muskeg. I imagined we were gonna be mostly on rocky ground. The amount of life sucking miles we spent slopping through the skag was horrible. If I ever go again my pack workouts leading up to the hunt will involve ankle weights as I'm not sure how else to prepare for that crap.

Wetness. I expected I was gonna get wet but it's more of a constant than I had imagined.  Even on the sunny days it's gonna rain on you at least once or twice.

Although I was correct in that steep is steep, the instability of the rocky slopes taxes you mentally a lot more than hiking through forest. You're a lot more tense traversing that stuff as well which fatigues muscles more quickly.

Other than those few things it was about what I expected. Unsurprisingly all the gear and weights that have accompanied me on uncountable hunts still worked just fine. My 9.5lb rifle didn't somehow magically hinder me just because I was sheep hunting. Michael and I not sharing a super compact micro spotting scope didn't prevent us from crossing over steep terrain or making serious ascent and descents. If anything, next hunt I'll for sure bring a bigger spotter. Fit is fit and if you've done the work to develope the muscle and stamina nothing is gonna stand in your way. It was for sure some of the most physical hunting I've ever done  however and I'd definitely urge anyone that's going sheep hunting to really pick apart their gear, cut weight where they can and start working out yesterday because you're probably gonna get your ars kicked....especially on the 10 miler back to your pickup spot through muskeg with a 100lb pack 

[Rainier10]

That was a great question and answer. I was wondering that same thing. Thanks for the detailed answer.

[Jpmiller]

Thank you, appreciate your response.

[LDennis24]

So I always wondered if on these sheep hunts you find dead sheep heads anywhere or old horn pieces. Did you ever see anything besides Caribou sheds?

[Karl Blanchard]

So I always wondered if on these sheep hunts you find dead sheep heads anywhere or old horn pieces. Did you ever see anything besides Caribou sheds?

we sure did! We were in the danger zone on Michael's ram and found an entire skeleton of a pretty nice ram on a small grassy shelf in the middle of some cliffs. We were in full stalk mode so didn't go down to it for inspection however.  Now I'm wishing we had as I'd love to know age and true size but at the time it would not have been a smart move and honestly where it was it wouldn't have been a save move to inspect even if we weren't stalking a ram.

[Karl Blanchard]

Was doing some post hunt research and found some fun facts....in the last decade there has only been 8 rams killed in our unit. 2 were our rams and 4 were shot in 2012. So from 2013-2021 only 2 rams were killed by general season hunters (resident/non-resident). I'm thinking we got pretty dang lucky 

[trophyhunt]

That's interesting, maybe you just found a honey hole???

[jbeaumont21]

Wow, hunt of a lifetime for sure! Did you guys do any fishing at the lake?

[Karl Blanchard]

That's interesting, maybe you just found a honey hole???

apparently we did  I'd bet money that 2 of the rams we saw will be legal next year too!

Wow, hunt of a lifetime for sure! Did you guys do any fishing at the lake?

we made a sad attempt at it. I brought a setup that was just perfect for grayling.....not so great for 30lb spawning lake trout 

[HikerHunter]

What an awesome hunt and story, thank you for sharing!