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2007 August Northern
Brooks Range ,
Alaska Dall
sheep, caribou, grizzly bear
My favorite place in the world is the Brooks Range of
Alaska. I often call it “my church.” This fall was another exciting
season. The weather was warm and dry. The hunting was fantastic as
always. My first hunter was Fred Pillon of CA. Fred was in good shape,
and we put on some serious miles on the first few days. We saw a TON of
rams. Unfortunately for us, the largest rams we saw went over the
mountain, and out of our hunting area. We relocated to an area I had
hunted many times before and had taken several nice rams. We had hiked
to the head of a 7 mile-long drainage, after a day and a half of hunting
out of our new camp, we had yet to see a legal ram. I took my boots off
to change socks and dry my feet while we ate lunch. I am sure everyone
knows where this is going: I looked behind me, and sure enough here he
came! A lone ram was moving down the mountain 600 yards distant.
Believe me, it was a hasty stalk. The ram topped out and saw us at the
same time we saw him. As they always do he went up and out of sight. We
quickly scurried 100 yards up the hill to see if we could see him again.
Luck was on our side. We saw the ram for about 5 seconds. I was able to
judge him and Fred put a perfect shot into the ram at the VERY last
second.
It was Fred’s first Dall sheep, and it was a fine
trophy. Over 37” and 11 1/2 years old.
My next hunters were a father and son team, Bill
and Alec Fransen of
Olympia , WA Alaska
My third and final hunter of the 2007 sheep season was
Pat De Rico of CT. Pat had hunted with me in 2006 and killed a MONSTER
ram, a great caribou, and a wolf. Pat’s ram from the previous season was
very old and heavily broomed. He came back in hopes of a “curly” horned
sheep. Just 3 hours into the first day we spotted a beautiful ram for
Pat. We watched until the band of 3 bedded, and made our move. It was a
2 mile and 2 hour stalk before we got into position. We waited for 6
hours thinking the ram was 130 yards below us. We were starting to doubt
ourselves. Finally, I threw a couple rocks down towards where we
believed the rams were hidden. About a minute later he appeared from
behind a rock. With one shot, Pat had “Curly”, a magnificent ram with
lamb-tipped horns. We didn’t get back to camp that night until 1:30
a.m., but the work was done.
The
next day our pilot came in and shuttled us to a new camp along a river
bed to hunt for grizzly bear. We had 3 days to sit and wait until the
grizzly season opened. We only saw a sow with cubs until the evening
before season, when we spotted a lone bear. I knew the bear was a sow,
but it was fully mature and a large bear for
Northern Alaska . The next morning Pat spotted the same bear
after only 30 minutes of glassing. We quickly close the 1 mile gap
between us. When we got the area where we had last seen the bear, we set
up and I began to make a predator/distress call with my voice. It didn’t
take 30 seconds for the bear to “slink” in on us through the thick
willows. Pat was able to take the bear with one shot at 35 yards just as
it was circling directly downwind of us. It was the first time I had
tried predator calling on a grizzly. I will definitely be trying it
again. That bear looked just like a house cat sneaking up on a mouse. It
was an adrenaline rush to say the least.
The
next day our pilot came in and shuttled us to a new camp along a river
bed to hunt for grizzly bear. We had 3 days to sit and wait until the
grizzly season opened. We only saw a sow with cubs until the evening
before season, when we spotted a lone bear. I knew the bear was a sow,
but it was fully mature and a large bear for