Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Sheep hunter found dead near Eureka

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ANCHORAGE (KTUU) - Friends say it wasn't like Huey Farrell to not check in on his InReach satellite phone.

Farrell, age 42 of Wasilla, reportedly left to go sheep hunting on Aug. 7 and headed towards Eureka by himself. When he didn't check in by InReach or cell phone, friends started to get worried and reported it to MatCom Dispatch on Aug. 11, the day after the sheep hunt opens.

The next day, Alaska Wildlife Troopers responded to Milepost 123.5 of the Glenn Highway and found Farrell's pickup truck without his four-wheeler in the bed.

The next day, AWT flew a Helo-4 on a search for seven to eight hours, but couldn't locate him. On Aug. 13, AWT renewed the search on four-wheelers until they ran out of daylight.

He was finally located on Aug. 14, when four friends joined the search. He was found deceased from an apparent ATV accident.

No foul play is suspected.

you pay the price when you play stupid games.. I was in Alaska for 3 years . and going it alone is a stupid game I would of been killed if it weren't for two friends when I fell over a cliff and hung on until they could pull me back up. otherwise I would of fell 150 feet and there were no other way to get out of it. I feel sorry for anyone in that position..RIP

hate to hear this. I lost a good friend a couple of decades ago to a 4 wheeler accident. It was years later before I finally accepted it was an accident and not a murder case.

Feel bad for his family, betting he probably was either going down to steep a hill or tried sidehilling and rolled it over on top of himself. Monument can be a treachorous sob too.

Yes, he was found with the wheeler over turned on him according to my neighbor. My neighbor's ex-wife and Farrell's wife were co-workers from what I gather. Some of their other friends went looking for him yesterday morning early and the neighbor was telling me how he was found, etc. Sad situation.

Going it alone or staying home are often your only options! You just have to manage your risks and know your limits.

Yes, not everyone has friends with the physical abilities to sheep hunt. If I was in that position - I'd do it myself. I've done 3 solo elk huts already in NM. But I know first hand AK is another level of risk - especially for sheep. RIP

Is it not better to die doing what one loves to do, or die in an old folks home, waiting for someone to visit you? I hope it was the best day of his life and was chasing the sheep of a lifetime.

Amen

But when a guy has family, well responsibilities change.

I’ve sheep hunted some by myself. Actually loved it, wife, she hated it. But I totally get what prompts a guy to do so. High country is so rare and special in my heart, you either do it with someone you’re really close to, or go it alone.

My time in the mountains has been some of the best of my life, whether with my son, my closest friend who’s like a brother to me, or alone.

Hope something broke like his neck so the poor guy didn’t lay there and suffer. Hate the suffering his wife and family are going through now and while they were looking for him.

Not a lot of joy in these stories fellas. But truthfully it’s part of what draws me to hunting the way I have, hard to have an adventure without a dash of danger thrown into what we do.

RIP and may his loved ones fare well.

Dying while doing something you love to do is a romantic notion wasted on the acceptance of someone else's death. I have hunted and fished all my life and never tired of it, but I am not fantasizing of dying during one of those activities...

Well said...

Prayers for the family.

It might be well said, but its not a choice you, or any man are likely to have a say in.

Neither am I.

RIP Farrell ..

Myself I'll take dying when I'm old as dirt and without my boots on , if Farrell was able to sheep hunt in the mountains alone he had many more years that he could have enjoyed hunting .

I had a friend I knew a long time ago, he was 23 years old. He loved to fish and his favorite spot was near a low head damn. At this damn when the river was up a bit you could see the boil down stream. Kind of wide, he would take his flat bottom boat in there, just below the boil, usually alone.

One day, mid spring when the smallies are in the river heavy, a deputy sheriff saw his truck with the tail gate open. I think this deputy was the one my friend said would stop in and talk to him. What he saw when he looked at the low head damn was a boat pop up and then get sucked down again. There was a good bit of debris too.

I don't know how long my friends body was trapped in the current, rolling around and around, but he had a closed casket funeral. How he let his boat get pulled in across the boil, and the dynamics of getting pulled in I do not understand. Things like that look dangerous and I stay the hell away from them.

No schit. I want to live through it! lol Because if I die during one on those activities I love means something horrible went wrong during that outing.

I do feel for the man and his family. RIP.

I told a good friend once that it was my wish to die at 112 as I bent down to start skinning a grizzly bear after pictures had been taken.

His reply was, “ Hell with that, I want to kick it walking out of a whorehouse zipping my pants”.

Leave it to you to die with two skinning and packing jobs to be done...