Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Interesting Sheep Conversation

How about making every area a registration hunt, with harvest numbers strictly enforced based on the herd numbers. Break the units down to city block sized subunits so certain pockets don't get hammerer while other , harder to reach ones are never hunted.
Get rid of the full curl rule, but shut down the hunt when the target number is reached.

SD I have heard Wayne Heimer dispute this on many occasions and you can google him and read that only weather effects overall populations and full curl harvest hasn't yet been shown to,effect overall population size or even sub legal rams. Over harvest or rams, if it can be demonstrated only effects legal rams that year. Joe want gives a pretty good talk about the exaggeration of over harvest in alaska.

Oh, and Joe Want is convinced 50% of legal sheep on average are left in the mountains each year... I respectfully think that is far too low...

I just don't see this as sustainable. One of these rams was also sub-legal.

Thanks for sharing this Art/Sitka Deer. I'm jumping in late here, but appreciated all the comments and insight.

Question for you Art. If you were in charge of F&G what would you do? Feel free to PM me if you prefer, just curious what you would do about sheep hunting issues if given free reign/total control.

Full curl regs are imperative for sheep quality in AK.
Heimer was spot on.
It has made for tougher but more gratifying hunting with more mature rams.

First I would dump the full-curl rule which would stop the degrade clearly seen in the Chugach... The first effect from that move would be a reduction in the numbers of drawing permits available to kill the same number of sheep (higher success rate, younger rams).

It would also reduce the number of sheep available in non-draw areas. That would mean some way of reducing hunter effort would be required... I would favor a shorter season, highly desirable areas like the Chugach would go to one sheep every four years (but allow a hunter to go to the AK Range or similar every year as desired). And I would reduce NR guided tags by 2/3 in drawing hunt areas.

Areas with serious guide on guide conflicts would have the number of sheep tags reduced hugely. Would look at the idea of shutting some of the guided hunt areas down for 3-5 years to NR hunters.

I would increase the number of Controlled Use areas where sheep hunting was only legal on foot...

The idea of creating buffer areas to eliminate flying in to areas close to roads and towns would get some attention where feasible.

That is where I would start...

Usually ADF&G waits until it's an all out disaster before they act!

I believe that sheep should be put on a 4 year cycle just like brown bears in trophy area's. I know this will horrify some people but a Dall Ram is a trophy and the people that want to kill a ram every year are essentially meat hunters. I have felt this way for 20 years and would like to see it before the whole state is on a permit system.

yep...third ram from the right. Underage, and less than full curl.
Was the hunter cited?

I have been on 5 sheep hunts since 2008. I have shot one ram during this time. While the meat is good, its the experience that keeps drawing me back, despite my failures. A DIY walk in sheep hunt is an experience unlike any other. I will continue to do as long as I am allowed. Only being able to go very 4 years would be a heartbreaker.. Now if you are meaning specific trophy areas vs. sheep hunting in general I agree. Would be great to have some managed trophy ares where a guy could get a chance to see a monster..

Also there is a lot of federal land out there we can not hunt. Opening all of that up to draws would sure change the game..... AND if done right really help both the sport and the critters.