Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Interesting Sheep Conversation

If you can't see the virtually exact horn shape between mine and the other legal rams I've posted you're beyond hopeless.
A two year old can see they are all the same.

You based your bogus 'circle' thinking on a rotated picture and you're too stubborn to admit that you were wrong.

Carry on, good luck with any credibility after these photos and this exchange.

I won't be questioning Art's credibility or your good fortune in having your sheep judged as legal when you brought it in.

That sheep is very close. It appears that the "axis of the curl" might put the curl in a different position than the 360 circle of the outside of the horn. Either way, its very close.

The biggest difference in the pics you have posted in comparison to your sheep is they all appear to be older than yours...

At any rate, congrats on your sheep. I hope that the BOG can figure out a common sense solution to the biological sheep issues and hunter crowding soon.

Are you saying that ram is not legal? If you are, you're wrong. I've seen rams with way less curl than that declared legal by F&G and broomd's ram is legal and by a long ways.

Well, I will question his credibility. I know the AK bromance factor is high here for "Art" but I can care less.

And 'good fortune' my ass. That sheep was approved on it's legality, nothing more, nothing less.
The only difference between my sheep and the other legal representations I provided is their larger mass and size ratio overall.
Some drainages in AK consistently produce smaller full curled rams. eg: Healy Creek drainage.

The 360* axis on all three appear to be virtually identical. The 38" ram while biggest and probably 8.5-9.5 y/o, might be a tad less on axis.

I guess we'll speed past that off ramp to a graceful exit to this argument...

The point is that as more and more people hunt sheep something has to be done to preserve the populations and alleviate crowding in the mountains. If the only sheep out there are squeakers, then there is a problem.

Ok, that's fixed.

Here are the rings I counted. Are there more that I am not seeing?



I am sure you had a great hunt and that your sheep is indeed a trophy. Great work and congratulations. However, if this sheep and many other smaller sheep are being sealed as legal, what does that say about the management plan based on "full curl". Is it sustainable?

That question is much more important than this set of horns.

For the sake of conversation can we see a pic of the ram viewed so that the outer edge of the horn does form the 360* circle?

Anybody questioning this needs to call ADF&G and ask to talk to the sheep bio and ask if they are prosecuting ANY undersize sheep...

Broomd, it is not clear to me that you understand that the axes of curl for both ram's horns typically aren't parallel. IOW, you CANNOT judge full curl from a straight side view. You have to look down the axis of curl of one horn.

I'd reckon about half of Alaskans (and more than one sealing authority) can't figure that one out, and some of the AK reg and website pics, not to mention those on this site, don't help that any.

You very clearly have not looked at the links provided and the definition of legal is eluding you...

A number of years ago I posted photos of a similar situation with a poster claiming a sheep was legal. The picture I posted was a 3/4+ curl made to look full. Many, many fell for it. Unfortunately I cannot find the pictures in my photobucket account.

I used a simple trick of angle and a very short lens to create a little extra "curl"... the short lens is not a suggestion I am making on this ram, but angle is...

It's not eluding me and I'm not going to argue with you Art, since that's all you seem to do around these parts.

That ram was deemed legal by F&G, so you're wrong, like it or not.

Not convinced... call ADF&G and ask 1) How many undersized rams were sealed this year and 2) How many were prosecuted...

Just because they let them out the door does not mean they are legal... Just one more reason to question the whole full-curl rule.

Well, Spartan, thanks for the kind words, you're a class act whether we agree on anything here or not ultimately.
That said, a couple of things...

A growth 'ring' is the actual space between the striations (annuli). You have highlighted the annuli themselves--this is a mistake. To be legal by age a sheep has to have 8 full growth rings, or it has to come full circle. This ram comes full circle and passes muster with the 'tube test' http://www.fullcurl.net/fullcurl.htm , and the 'stick test' across the bases to the tips. He has rubbed lamb tips on both sides, mostly the right and slightly on the left. Obviously we know a 'rubbed' lamb tip does NOT constitute brooming.

When a sheep starts rubbing passed the first annuli and into the second growth ring it is deemed broomed--all least per Dave Kelleyhouse at TOK f&G. I stopped in there one year and caught him with some free time.
This ram was aged 7.5 like several I have; some are pretty well past full curl, others are like this one, and still others are 8 y/o+ and/or hard broomed.
Every sheep I have from Alaska (and Idaho) has been looked over by F&G biologists--voluntarily, whether plugging was required at the time or not and deemed legal, no questions asked.

The sheep on the left is the one we are discussing. The ram on the right is rare in that it is curl and 1/8+, and pretty wide at 7.5 y/o and posses every bit of its lamb tips. Kelleyhouse checked this ram and said, while it lacked obvious mass, it had good length and width, specifically for it's range.

John, nothing appeases some who think they know it all.
Art obviously knows more than Alaska biologists, or defaults to "they let plenty of sub-legals out the door without prosecution" to justify his arguing and bashing a decent ram I took several years ago.

I know exactly what you are talking about, Vek. It's no mystery to me.
Ram being discussed:

rotated slightly for clarity...

further rotation...

Stick across bases...


Example ram from guides website:


I'm <done> here, wasted enough time on stating the obvious.

What is so hard about posting the one picture that proves your point?

Oh, yeah, that facts thing again...

If you take a photo of the tip of the horn being right at the outside of the base it will show what the issue is. Playing games is not making it look better for you. I drew the squashed oval on the latest photo and it continues to show what the problem is...

And there it is... my post above was before you posted the "stick across the bases" photo, which is proof, period that the sheep is not full curl.

Give me a minute or two to post the photo that proves it.

The circle is still squashed, but it is easy to see a change in perspective toward the rear and slightly up will round out the circle. Even if perspective is changed to the right in a horizontal plane only, the tip of the horn will fall short of reaching "THE FRONT OF THE BASE". Every tiny bit of perspective elevation will separate the tip farther from the base, which it already fails to reach.

What. an. idiot.


You remind me of an Obamacare proponent, constant proof to the contrary and no admission.

What a waste of my time...

Funny, the calls I have gotten this morning are all laughing at someone other than me... And from folks that know what they are looking at...

ADF&G does not prosecute anyone, if they have an issue they call the Troopers and let them sort it out.

My understanding is the Troopers will only issue a citation if the believe they can win in court. From what I understand they rarely cite rams that are between 7/8 and FC and 7yo, and will issue a warning instead. Full curl is subjective, as much as an age ring. That's not to say that the ram is legal if its sealed, only that they can't win in court. I looked into this, wondering if that if by sealing a set of horns it was forever legal. Apparently so, but there is no wording in the regulations relating to this that I could find.

An estimated 1:8 to 1:12 (8-12%) of rams checked in are sub-legal, some are issued tickets, some are issued warnings, some are sealed as legal. These numbers are from ADF&G, stats and interviews with bios. ADF&G doesn't keep track of the number of sheep which result in a ticket, only the number which they think are sub-legal and "red tagged." I've tried to keep track over the last few years, and it seems that only a couple dozen make the Trooper reports each fall, so maybe less than 1/2 the rams that are "red tagged" are issued tickets? I guess one could conclude that 8-12% are sub-legal, but only 4-6% are actually issued tickets.

We need a better way to measure rams consistently, with less gray area. The Yukon has a method using a jig, and a bunch of annuli measurements. It either passes or fails the test.

How many are shot and left? Probably as many as are checked. I would agree that the FC rule really isn't doing us any favors in that regard.

The thing I worry about with a 3/4 curl rule would unless we have a limited harvest (drawing), we'll end up with the majority of rams on the mountain being near the minimum legal.

My understanding for implementing the FC rule was due to excessive harvest and the lack of "mature" rams on the mountain to breed. Mature, meaning 8yo+ which happens to coincide with a full curl (coincidence?). I don't recall the name of the study, I think it was done in the AK range in the early 80's, been a while since I read it. As I recall, the younger rams where being subjected to higher mortality due to more breeding interaction and resulting injuries, whereas if there are older rams on the mountain they are held in check with less interaction. Also there was a reduction in the number of ewes being bred due to less "pressure" being put into the chase. This resulted in them not coming into heat because they hadn't weaned their lamb, IIRC. This resulted in an every other year impregnation thus reducing the propagation of the herd. As I recall the number of bred ewes was around 60%, whereas in a healthy herd with more mature rams, the rate would approach 95-100%. It was assumed to be directly related to the lack of mature rams and directly related to the then, 3/4 curl rule.

Consequently the legal ram was changed to 7/8 and they saw improvement, and I don't recall if moving it to FC helped in total recovery of impregnation rates, or just make it easier to define legality. There has been a lot of money spent on FC regulations. The end result is maximum opportunity for "trophy" class animals while preserving a portion of the herd into the upper age class.