Hello again everyone, I know most members on this blog post current reports on their progress but seen as I am a new member I am going to do and overview of our 2010 season.
My season started in late august when I was flown up to Alaska by Steve Johnsen, owner of Ultimate Alaskan Adventures. I would be helping him guide one of his Dall Sheep/Brown Bear back pack combo hunts.
I first met Steve back in mid august of 2009 when I had purchased a back pack Dall sheep hunt off of him for my old man. I tagged along to help pack and film the entire hunt. It was very important for me to capture the adventure on video as it was my dads dream trophy and I had made it a goal of mine since I was about twelve to see my dad take a white Ram.
The '09 hunt proved to be an amazing and very tough adventure. It took us 2 days just to pack in to the area Steve wanted to begin really searching for a big Ram.
We closed out the end of the day by glassing between fog patches before we hit the hay. It didn't matter how tired I was from the long trek in that night was a sleepless one as I was sore from a heavy pack and had Rams on my mind.
When we finally opened the tent flap the scene was discouraging as we were totally socked in. With only two options, one being to stay in camp and the other being to climb as high as possible and attempt to get above the clouds. The decision would be to go with the climbing through the clouds as none of us wanted to spend an entire day around camp not hunting.
It took us the first half of the day just to reach the summit of the pass but when we did we were enthused, we could see a decent amount as we did in fact get to an altitude high enough to be above most of the cloud cover. Feeling pretty good about our situation we planned to remain on top slowly stalking along the ridge, stopping to glass every 100 yards or so.
We kept this strategy up for about 2 hours when Steve hit the deck in front of us, he slowly turned and motioned for us to drop with his hand and silently mouthed "BIG RAMS". The rams were feeding away from us at about 800 yards on an open slope. Pinned down in some boulders we had to wait for the fog to roll back in before we made a move, for once in my life fog cover might actually help with sheep hunting.
Every time the fog moved in we would quickly move towards the rams and when it blew clear we would dive into the nearest pile of boulders and wait. This cat and mouse game kept up for an hour or so before the Rams fed over a peak. Now we were clear and it was time to really move, we literally ran to and then up the steep slope. Just before reaching the top of the pinnacle we stopped caught our breaths and when everyone was set we slowly crawled over the top being very cautious not to skyline ourselves. When we first crawled over, no Rams to be found. "where did they go?, They have to be right here".
After a few minutes of very careful glassing Steve spotted a tiny piece of white. They were feeding down the slope about 300 yards below but all we could see was the top of ones back because of the bench like formations on the steep slope.
The only way to get a shot would be to belly crawl 100 more yards to the edge of the next bench. With no words spoken this was decided, one by one we started our slither towards the unsuspecting rams, Steve leading the way, Dad in the middle and me following with the camera rolling. It took us some time (I am sure it seemed like a lot longer than it really was) to get to the edge of the cliff but when we finally did there they were. Two big mature Rams in the Mountains of Alaska. It was almost unbelievable, the best part was they didn't have clue we were there and the camera was rolling. I knew it was only a matter of seconds before my dad would have his ultimate dream trophy. We watched and waited until the biggest ram fed totally in to the clear and gave dad a perfect broadside shot.
After retrieving our ram we had 3 days of packing out with very heavy packs. This was the most memorable hunt of my life and I was extremely proud of my dad. At the age of 57 he was able to do what most 40 year olds couldn't.
One of the best parts about this hunt is I felt like I had finally given a little something back in return of all those years of dad taking me out hunting and putting up with my complaining about it being too cold or not seeing enough game and the list goes on and on. I would really like to thank my dad for all those times and helping mold me in to the person I have become but most of all I would like to thank him for remaining in great shape so we can still enjoy these adventures together, I am looking forward to many more in the years to come.
That explains how I met Steve for the first time and set up the start of the 2010 season but I will go in to detail how that first adventure of 2010 turned out in next weeks post. Remember for anyone who wants to see the footage of the hunt talked about above or our other awesome adventures please look for
our DVD's
check out our FaceBook group - "Lets Go Hunting Or Fishing With Mountain Man Adventures"
hit on our website - www.mountainmanadventures.com
email Tom at - mountainmanadv@hotmail.com
Thanks, Tom Sallows, Mountain Man Adventures
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