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Some pictures are worth more than others....

Nice ram!

Nice ram. Congrats.




Travis

TURKEY -

actually I like 'smoked' turkey. <G>

Congratulations!

Jerry

Well done!

Yep, nice looking ram for sure...congrats!

I dare say 2000 words is probably seriously underselling that scene (but I get what you're saying. ) That's grand pic of what must have been a great experience, at least for two of the three fine specimens pictured!

Smoke, you suck.

Some guy named starsky dropped some poles of yours off this morning. trade you for a swaro cap.

for those of us that ain't into pictures, whydontcha type a few words about the hunt.

Why did that handsome young hunter let that homeless, old guy in the pic ?

I guess a feller just can't get far enuff back in, to avoid those pesky panhandlers

Thanks Klik. There are two fine specimens there, but one has horns and the other is in his 20’s.

I can’t say enough about the outfitter, Steve Johnson, and especially his guide Andrew. Both went the extra mile and Andrew worked his butt off to get me on that ram not once but twice. It was a walk-in hunt, my first hunt in AK and first sheep hunt. I wasn’t as prepared as I should have been for the terrain, I'm not a very good rock-hopper. Andrew was top-notch, a natural-born hunter and a pleasure to be around. He knew the area and had one nice ram pegged before I even got there, we saw him on the way in but by the opener he’d moved off somewhere else. Didn’t matter, Andrew found some more and put me on them on the third day of the hunt, but my fear of heights and lack of confidence in my ability to keep my feet planted kept me from getting a shot. I’m sure some guides would have been royally pissed at that but not Andrew. We just got some more food and a tarp and headed back for another run at ‘em. They stayed in the same general area and a couple evenings later we were waiting on them to feed down to us, which they did. They were around 700 yards away so we got up against the mountainside and snuck in closer. We finally got to within 180 but they were hidden behind a rocky knoll and above us. We were on a grassy knoll so we had the advantage.

They must have caught our wind, all of a sudden rocks were rolling and they were headed out, directly away from us. Andrew had been keeping tabs on this particular group of three rams, one possibly legal but too close to call, one full curl, and the one I shot, double broomed and the boss. As soon as they came into view, he had them pegged and told me to take the one on the left as they were headed over a rise. They were 250-280 at that point, and I had a great rest on the grassy knoll. They slowed a little, the crosshair settled, and the ram went down.

I was shooting a NULA 260 with an S&B PM II fixed 10X, the bullet was a 123 Scenar. The ram was 10 years old and had 14 ¾” bases.

Took us three full days to pack him out, with the last 2 ½ of those days pretty much constant rain. Everything we had was soaked and the rocks were wet but Andrew had me climbing stuff I never would have done on my own in good weather. Hardest hiking I've ever done. A great hunt, great scenery, great people, and the animals themselves are something else.


Here are some more pics:


Rams from above:





This one shows his mass a little better:




Tarp Camp:





Andrew fleshing out the cape:

2,000 aren't enough. Thanks for the great post, what a hunt. Congrats to you!

Congrats, Smoke!

Awesome pix. Congratulations SP!

Thanks all, a few more pics, the scenery was outstanding:





Spotter from above:




Tent camp:




Young rams, kings of the hill:

Fantastic!! Congrats on a fine ram. There is nothing like sheep hunting!

Great story, Smoke. Beautiful pics.

Most excellent smokepole...Congrats!

Stellar!

Outstanding!!! Thanks for the show..