Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Interesting Sheep Conversation

It would still suck.. Having the opportunity to go every year is what keeps me sane working in cubicle land. Alaska has a great resource and with proper management residents should continue to have annual options. For me the annual sheep hunt is the highlight of my year. Sort of like Christmas when I was kid. Heck, its the main reason I live here.

I don't understand why Alaska would have one of the lowest sheep tag prices in the U.S. A non-resident sheep hunt in AK requires a guide, right? Big $$$ hunt, right? Why shouldn't the agency that manages the wildlife get "market" rate for sheep tags, especially when the cost of the tag is a small fraction of the cost of the hunt?

Do you go hunt solo or go with one or more other hunters? Being able to kill a ram only every other year, or every 3 or 4 years, wouldn't keep you from going sheep hunting - it would just keep you from being able to kill one every year, and perhaps only in some areas.

I don't know what the solution to the overhunting in some areas is, but sustainability should be the highest priority for management.

edit to add:
I see in another post you have three children. Once they are old enough to hunt, you could go sheep hunting every year, even if AK went to only being able to kill one every 4 years, and someone in your family could take one every year.

I don't think what your proposing is needed. There are better solutions, more like what Sitka Deer proposed. Certain areas could be limited, other areas more open, access to areas contained, and there are a lot of sheep that die of old age in areas we do not have current access to (i.e. Federal).

It feels like one of the last great adventures we have left.. I'd hate to see it go away..

Unfortunately the scientific studies have not been done to fully support this error... But there is a ton of evidence showing many problems with the full-curl rule.

To start the rams are not being held in check during the "rut" by dominant rams. It is obvious rams are going into rut and breeding younger all the time. Young rams lack the horn mass and strength to protect themselves and more all the time show signs of head-butting damage done at very early ages.

Aside from the physical damage done by butting heads the simple fact they go into a serious rut and deplete their "stores" is damage enough under most circumstances. It greatly reduces their survival chances each winter.

Ram:ewe ratios indicate issues and there has been a swing since the full-curl rule went into effect.

I disagree that the full-curl rule does not reduce total population.

Further, the herd has a great deal invested in each mature, dominant ram. The herd has far less invested in each 3/4 curl.

The next problem is leaving the breeding to extremely inferior rams that may NEVER reach full curl... It very effectively selects for breeding by the rams selected to survive by a rule that favors dinks.

Joe Want's argument that 50% of legal rams survive the hunting season is likely incorrect, but also shows which rams actually do the breeding...

There is an age and size when rams can expect to die and almost all die at the same relative time... that is a proven bad thing in virtually every species everywhere.

Kill the same number of rams (with fewer tags given out) and many will have far less impact on the herd.

Thanks Stephen.
Once you've seen enough of them, a guy knows.

Excellent question.
Tag prices should quadruple for non-res, and should be much higher for residents as well.
Guide mandate should be abolished, in most, if not all cases--especially for those who have killed sheep in AK and moved outside. (No personal dog in that fight, my son lives in AK.)

Certain hunts should go to draw and should have non-resident limits imposed. Out of state guides and non-resident hunters annihilated the unreal Chugach resource, it shouldn't happen again.

What about the marginally-legal ram killers? How about another picture of one of your squashed-circle rams?

And let me be absolutely clear... Those sheep are the ones least valuable to the herd. But the hypocrisy of killing sub-full-curl while pretending the rule is saving the resource is special.

And my support of the abolition of the full-curl rule should make it plain I support any ram over 3/4 as a trophy... It is simply the fact of fooling oneself and advertising it on the internet that deserves addressing. And pretending to have a clue about sheep management...

And to make it extremely clear, a non-resident is a non-resident and can be treated any way the State wishes. And the corollary is every resident is a resident and must be treated the same.

Fixed it for you...

Lol.....riiiiiiight. Some real sour grapes there.

Every sheep I have is legal and a personal trophy. 40"ers? No, I taught school in Alaska and my time was limited, I was lucky to get out at all.
Fairbanks Biologist Gardiner has seen/sealed every one of my rams.

Only a complete moron (read: you) would advocate legalizing killing less-than-full-curl sheep, too lazy to do the man's work of finding and killing a legal animal....your 'squashed circle' and 'hypocrisy' crap notwithstanding.


This is a real gem...Wayne Hiemer has sweated more sheep knowledge off of his nut sack than you could possess in your whole body...

In areas of controlled use, go to a points system!!! As I wrote before, it's a screwing of we long term residents when some cheechako or even a non-resident gets a tag in say 1 or 2 years and a long term resident still hasn't drawn.
My position & I'm stickin' to it.
Bear in Fairbanks

I happened to save the pictures of your ram as posted... anyone that knows anything about sheep will see it is short of full curl. The rings cannot be counted for certain, so it might be a legal sheep... But I think it is just 7... and to me it looks like one of the super-tight curled Nabesna sheep...

For you to spout self-virtue over a rule you failed to follow is funny.

Sour grapes over sheep is the last thing you will hear from me... especially over a sub-legal dink. I shot quite a few of them back when it was legal...

If all of yours were sealed you could not have shot very many as sealing is a recent thing.

Funny, but sheep biologists through the state have been coming around to the fallacy of full-curl only from the resource perspective. Many recognize it allows more opportunity for hunters... but with reduced odds.

Why would you bring up another man's scrotum??? Oh, yeah, your argument is that weak...

Make up your mind! lol!
Yer totally full of sh*t.

Sniffs rotten bait...moves on.

http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/static/regulations/wildliferegulations/pdfs/ramid.pdf

Could not get the pdf to load from the ADF&G website... The link above is just the one page on identifying a full-curl ram... It is obvious the pictured ram fails to make full curl... period!

Here's another picture of that "sub-legal dink"

Bio Gardiner aged and measured this sheep and deemed it 100% legal, full curl and no questions asked.
Like I said, you're 100% full of sh*t.




Moving on, I've wasted enough time with your stupidity.

Local Biologist said at the meeting this thread started on that 12-20% of sheep brought in are sub-legal... They prosecuted none of them...

All it takes to clear it up is to post a picture from the side that forms a nearly true circle... Problem is that option is not available with that sheep.

Take another look at the link provided.

The oval I just drew on your ram is 588x673 pixels: Raise the camera to make the oval a circle and the tip will drop way below full... fact!

Umm, duh, try using the image that I sent last, a clear straight-on view--one that isn't ROTATED like the one you used.
That sheep forms very close to a perfect circle and is slightly beyond 360* even with half of his lamb tip missing.



Keep trying...

Here's a pic of a 38" ram--taken from this site...
http://forums.bowsite.com/tf/bgforums/thread.cfm?forum=12&threadid=388937&MES

It is exactly the shape of mine, although slightly larger at 38".
There are oval-horned, "squashed circle" sheep, but you are wrong about either of these meeting that criteria. They are average full 360* rams.

Find something else to complain about, you are wrong.

From an alaska guides website...notice very few sheep form a 100% perfect circle...close to f*cking identical.

Not posting a photo that shows the horn as a circle is your only move as the sheep is not full curl and you know it...