The Elusive 40-Incher

As I said in another thread, sheep hunting has been the passion of my hunting life. In spite of that focus, the only sheep I have been fortunate enough to hunt have been dall sheep (or Dahl’s sheep as some write it). By the time the events in this story occurred, I had been sheep hunting about 15 years. I’d shot a lot of nice sheep, but the elusive “40-incher” had evaded me. I’d gotten close – 39 on one side – but I just hadn’t been able to find a 40-incher at the ‘right’ time.

The Background…
In light of the above comments, I should probably point out that I’m not a “trophy” hunter per se. At the same time, it seems silly to me to shoot “small” animals on purpose. In defense of shooting small animals I often hear the likes of, “I’m a meat hunter”, and “You can’t eat horns”, or “The young ones taste better”. Far be it from me to question a fellow hunter’s veracity, but… I am not averse to challenging what I consider to be faulty logic.

The reason I always shoot the biggest animal I can find is because I’m a meat hunter. In my opinion, if you really are a “meat hunter”, you’ll have to acknowledge that the most meat comes from the biggest animals, and the biggest bodies usually have big antlers/horns attached to them. Also, unless the male is in full-blown rut, I really don’t find “big” bulls (or rams) that different in taste from “small” ones. I think the fact that in 15 years of hunting sheep I had yet to shoot a 40-incher illustrates what kind of “trophy hunter” I am. I simply always shoot the first, biggest ram/bull/buck I can find in the time I have to hunt.

However, as I said, I’d been at this ‘game’ for 15 years, and still didn’t have that 40-incher. It was getting a little embarrassing to call myself a “serious” sheep hunter and yet have no “40-incher” to show for it. Sheep aren’t difficult (stalking–wise) to take. Get above them and you’ve ‘won’. Since I was young and healthy, getting above your run-of-the-mill dall sheep ram wasn't that much of a challenge. If I didn’t have a 40-incher, it could be argued that it was because I really wasn’t that good of a sheep hunter. I set about to remedy what was clearly simply a case of 15 years of "bad luck". :lol:

The Preparation…
Starting at the end of the then current sheep season – another one without a 40-incher – I decided it was time for me to quit ‘fooling around’ and get serious about finding a 'big' ram. The first thing I did, was study the state’s records on 1) where ‘big’ rams were taken, and 2) where access was ‘tough’. A record of big rams and tough access should increase the likelihood that a 40-inch ram was even present. That research revealed several places, but the one that was most available to me, and the toughest to get to, was the drainage of the Yanert glacier.

Next, I went to the University of Alaska’s Geophysical Institute to look at the U2 photo library. This was a library of photographs of every inch of Alaska taken from the former U2 “spy” planes. The images were actually 11” x 11” color films – essentially color slides. Being a library, I could check them out, and I did. I got all the slides of the Yanert glacier and of the surrounding areas with appropriate sheep habitat.

With some 20 of these ‘slides’ under my arm I proceeded to a local photo-lab where I printed blowups of each slide. I took the ‘slides’ back to the UofA, and the black-and-white prints home, where I covered a wall in my basement with an aerial view of where I was going to get my “40-incher”. (If you want to see where the Yanert glacier is, on google earth enter “Yanert glacier, Cantwell, Alaska”.)

In general, I was looking at an area of about 150 square miles from which to choose a place to hunt. After pouring over the “sheep wall” for about a month, even using a magnifying glass on occasion, I had several places chosen as potential hunting areas. Now the ‘problem’ was getting there.

I had a neighbor ‘down the street’ that had a Cessna 185 and was a professed ‘avid hunter’. He was an Air Force A-10 pilot, and I had flown with him a few times and trusted his piloting skills. He was from Montana and was in Alaska assigned to Eielson AFB. He was always admiring my sheep horns, and ‘hinting’ that he would like me to take him sheep hunting. I’m kind of particular about the folks I hunt with, and he, (I’ll call him “Dan”), wasn’t the ‘kind’ I would normally go hunting with. But this trip wasn’t “normal”. I was on a mission, and he had something I needed in order to complete that mission - a plane. A plane (or a week on horses) was the only way to access the Yanert glacier. Once again I found myself compromising my standards in trade for “transportation”. (Kinda suggests what profession I might have chosen had I been born a woman, doesn’t it?. :eek: ) I would come to seriously regret that compromise.

When I discussed the hunt with Dan, he liked the whole idea, and was of course enthused about it. I told him that the only task he had to perform in the next 11 months was do a little recon and find a place to land from among the several hunting sites I had selected. I would take care of everything else.

As the winter progressed, I continued my research, talking to people that knew the area and knew what guides hunted the area in general. It was pretty clear that the locale chosen was both “good” sheep country and “tough” country to access. My anticipation grew with each passing day. Periodically I would ask Dan if he had scouted for landing sites. Through the winter, he responded “No”.

It’s generally wise to have a back-up plan when it comes to planning a sheep hunt. This was certainly called for in this case. First, I had never been in this country before. Second, I didn’t even know if you could get a plane close enough to the areas I wanted to hunt. Third, weather can easily knock out your first plan. The back-up plan for this trip was an alternate site that I knew from previous scouting was both reachable by plane, and contained legal (full curl) rams. They weren’t 40-inchers, but they’d do for “back-up”.

As Spring rolled around my queries about the recon being accomplished got increasingly ‘pointed’. Finally, I was insistent, and finally Dan told me he had done the recon, and that he had found a place to land among the places I had chosen. Whew!

Normally I plan 10 days for a sheep hunt. The primary reason is that in the mountains it is very easy to have to spend 7 days in a tent due to weather. If you don’t plan on 10 days you could get completely weathered out. Furthermore, this was 'vacation'. I loved spending time in the mountains. If I shot a ram on the first day of a 10-day hunt, I loved it. I had 9 days left to explore and just 'laze about'.

Let me talk briefly about what I pack for a 10-day sheep hunt. First, you've got to carry everything you need on your back. I never went on any “gentleman’s” sheep hunts. There would be no guide providing sleeping tents, cook tents and packing horses. Second, you've got to get whatever you take into a small plane, AND you have to plan for what you’ll be bringing out, meaning sheep meat and the cape and horns. (By law you have to bring out the horns to have them “sealed”. “Sealed” just means checked by Fish and Game.) Traveling light isn't just the watchword, it's the "law".

My “sheep pack” with rifle and ammo weighed in right at 55 lbs. Included were:
1) A 4-man tent - A “4-man” tent is the perfect size for two people, just as a “4-man” raft is the perfect size for two rafters,
2) Sleeping bag and pad,
3) Camping stove and pan,
4) One cup,
5) One spoon,
6) Matches AND “fire kit” – it’s never wise to go into the Alaskan wilderness without a reliable fire kit, (I have another story about a caribou hunt, this same “Dan”, and the need for a fire kit.)
7) Small battery-powered flash-light (that'd be "torch" if you’re ‘not from around here’),
8) A change of clothes (wool shirt and pants) in case you get soaked – most of the time you didn’t need the extra clothes.
9) 5 pair of socks and skivvies. (Those get changed every other day.)
10) One pair of ‘long underwear’. This in case you had to bivouac over-night away from your tent or a snow-storm blows in.
11) Ten dehydrated meals,
12) 20 Instant oatmeal packets,
13) 20 “granola” bars
14) 30 tea bags, and sugar to taste,
15) “Hunting knife” – mine was a CaseXX Folding Hunter. (I just lost that knife this month in a boating “accident” floating down a remote river – but that’s another story.)
16) Four game bags,
17) 5 lbs of salt for the cape,
18) Camera,
19) Toilet paper,
20) Binos – mine are cheap - $25 - 10x25s
21) Good, light weight, spotting scope – at least 25 power - and small tripod,
22) Rifle and ammo - I always bring at least 20 rounds. Sometimes 40.

A day’s ‘rations’ went like this:
Breakfast was two packets of instant oatmeal. The cup is used as the bowl. When the oatmeal was finished, hot water for tea is poured in the cup and one tea bag used - sugar to taste. The tea cleans the cup of any residual oatmeal. The cup goes in the pocket of six-pocket pants for opportunistic drinking the rest of the day.

Lunch is two granola bars.

Supper is the dehydrated meal (always Mountain House stroganoff for me) eaten from its own container. Two tea bags for after supper.

For this hunt, I would be bringing a rifle I had made specifically to be my “sheep gun”. (At the time, I called it the “Ultimate Weapon”. After a later and ‘exiting’ coastal brown bear hunt, it is now referred to as the “Sissy Gun”.) It is a Remington Model 700 chambered in a cartridge with a 7mm bullet on a 300Weatherby case. I can, to this day, still shoot tiny little 3-shot, half-inch clover-leafs at 100 yds. And by the way, it also wasn’t a so-called “mountain rifle”. What a bunch of marketing hoohah. If you can’t carry an extra pound or two around the mountains all day, you shouldn’t be in the mountains in the first place. The "Sissy Gun", sporting a myrtle thumb-hole and a beaver-tail forearm, weighs over 9 lbs. It’s NEVER been a ‘burden’ to carry. My other "sheep gun" is another Remington Model 700 chambered in 7mm Mag and sporting another thumb-hole stock with beaver-tail forearm in ROSEWOOD. It weighs 10 lbs.

My preferred bullet – one proven repeatedly on game – was the 115-grain Speer HP. For this bullet on the 300 Weatherby case, I had my handloads doing about 3500 f/s at the muzzle. And “No”, it doesn’t “destroy meat”, but “Yes” it does “flatten” game "dead right there". How I came to appreciate this bullet and ALL HPS with large-meplats is yet another sheep story.

Now that everything was 'set', all that was left was the dreaded "wait” before the long-anticipated hunt. It was tough to sleep even though it was ‘sheep’ I was counting each night as I lay in bed.

Paul


"The Hunt" and pictures will follow after you've had a chance to masticate on this a for a few hours.
 
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Well, flytie, it is a sad story in many ways, but in then end, at least for me, it was good fodder from which to create a real Hunting Story. It is from the likes of these 'adventures' that our mettle is made. After the meat is eaten, the horns are hung on the wall, and the hide made into whatever it may, what remains is 'The Story'. This hunt's Story is no less valuable or interesting than one in which everything works as planned and everybody takes "40-inchers". Let's see if I can explain myself without getting "preachy".

In these days where the term "ethics" gets bandied about casually and used as a club to beat up whatever hunting "technique" one doesn't approve of, we also find ourselves in an era where, following an unproductive hunt, it is "socially correct" to say the likes of: "It isn't important that we didn't take any game, because we had a good time in good company and it was great to be in the outdoors."

With rare exception in very specific circumstances, you will never hear me make that sort of comment.

If I want to have a "good time" in "good company" in the "great outdoors", I can go camping. I don't need to take a firearm and kill animals so I can eat them. Spending a few days in the woods an not killing anything is called "camping", not "hunting". If I go Hunting, I expect to take game, I am disappointed if I don't, and I'm not going to make any "socially correct" comments the likes of "it doesn't matter". It does matter that I didn't get the animal I was after, and it matters a lot!

HOWEVER...

Regardless of the "success" or productiveness of the outcome of the hunt, every Hunt is an EXPERIENCE. Some are "good" experiences. Some are "bad" experiences. The experience is The Story. Hunting stories are to be told... and told... and told again. The experience - that unique moment in time with that unique set of cosmic circumstances - is what is timeless. It does not rust or rot nor is it consumed by fire or flood. The Story is immortal, and yet... DEATH is at the very heart of it.

Hunting is a very special - I would go so far as to say 'spiritual' - part of my life. It is most certainly NOT "sport". (I despise that word being attached to Hunting.) When I go into 'the woods' to kill an animal, it is a "Big Deal". I kill animals intentionally. I derive satisfaction from the process of hunting and killing. But... I never take a life casually, or for "sport".

While the above may seem a digression, it most certainly is not. The point is, when I go afield to Hunt, IT MATTERS, and it matters a great deal to me whether I find and kill the game I pursued or not. But killing the animal sought doesn't matter (other than in the "details") to The Story. In other words, an unsuccessful hunt is genuinely disappointing to me, but there is likely a great Story that comes from that moment in time that I was Hunting.

I really don't want to "preach", and apologize if this comes off as preachy. It's just that as I get old, I see "socially correct" trends that, if carried to their logical conclusions, lead to the end of True Hunting as I have known it. It will instead become the 'plaything' of the elite in which "proper" etiquette and "proper" behavior and "proper" clothes and "proper" firearms and "proper bullets" and "proper ranges" and "proper" training (brain-washing) and "proper" everything EXCEPT ACTUAL HUNTING will be what the "hunting stories" will consist of. Hunting stories, real Hunting Stories, are ones in which the game taken, the tools and methods used, and the DEATH of the animal hunted is central.

When I look at flytie's signature -
The baddest man ever, Cholley was frightening. In his playing days, he weighed in at 19st. These days he demolishes the scales at nearly 24st. A former heavyweight boxer, his career was a gory legend — he once laid out four Scots in the same match. Cholley believes that rugby today is soft. “There is no fear in rugby any more.
- I cannot help but believe that you share a concern for the loss of what is real, replaced by what is socially "acceptable" and "domestic".

A sad story indeed. But a good Hunting Story, nonetheless.

Paul
 
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Barry was a New Zealander, a deer culler in the fifties when the red deer there were threatening their native wildlife (Flora mostly in the bush). He's written many books, some as "fiction" and some as autobiographical. He too can make a fairly simple, true story poignant whilst retaining the humour that an 'onlooker' may see. Some of his tales are just that, hilarious yarns whilst others are more philosophical. It's a taste thing I'm sure, but he's one of my favourite authors.
All the best Tom
 
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He sounds like good reading. I'll look him up.

Thanks,
Paul
The life and times of a good keen man - autobiographical

A good keen man. His first novel based on his deer culling experiences

Wild Pork and watercress - fiction

They are my personal favourites, but there are many more
 
Well, flytie,
When I look at flytie's signature - - I cannot help but believe that you share a concern for the loss of what is real, replaced by what is socially "acceptable" and "domestic".

A sad story indeed. But a good Hunting Story, nonetheless.

Paul

Paul, you have the very heart of the matter, I agree wholeheartedly with both sentiments. It is a damned good Hunting story, and I do share your concerns.

ft
 
I think I detect a trend in some of the recent posts on this forum. We obviously have many talented people contributing and their skills in putting across their thoughts seem to be doing something very positive. Paul (Gitano) tells it the way it is, with no apology for being himself, doing what he does, thinking what he thinks; and of course none is needed. It is refreshing to hear this attitude from him and from others. The rules and regulations that surround us all the time can have the effect, if we are not careful, of making us into "smaller" people. We should spend more time being who we really are rather than trying to be what somebody else would like us to be. I am not advocating breaking the rules (well not overtly anyway) it's more something to do with mentally distancing yourself from a culture that always wants to confine and control us. Had we been hunters a long time ago I suspect many of us would just have walked off until we could no longer see another man's campfire. Difficult to do today.
Once again I feel inadequate in putting thoughts into words.
 
Paul, the kind of hunting that you have written about here is rarely encountered in the UK, due to the fact that we live in such a small and overcrowded country. I guess that the only terrain we have that is even vaguely similar is Scotland, or maybe Dartmoor/Exmoor in some of the more inaccessible areas.
I have no experience of the planning and thoughts that go into a 10 day hunt where, you have to physically carry everything you need on your back, and the only way out with you game is by foot. That I guess is a true,almost primeval hunting experience, where the weather and terrain are central to the way things could ultimately pan out. I get it from your writing that success and failure are really big things to you, given the amount of time and effort that go into every aspect of the whole hunting experience, and I cannot start to think what it must be like to live and breath and dream about a hunt for a year or more before going.....
Thankyou for all your efforts in putting your story down for us all to read. To me, it opens a window into a different kind of hunting experience, which is totally different to the kind of hunting I experience myself. It increases my understanding of what it must be like to hunt these true wilderness areas.

All the best

Lakey
 
So how long will it be before Dan makes his way back on to your Christmas card list?:lol:
I know what you mean about the term "sport" as applied to hunting. I'm convinced that the word sport has done untold damage to the way shooting is viewed here in the UK. It was always easy to decry the activity when it was regarded as the realm of just a few toffs. It's now a bit more egalitarian here in the UK and many of the pursuits that were traditionally seen as purely the realm of the wealthy, landed gentry are becoming more available to the working man (such as stalking and game shooting).
 
It's now a bit more egalitarian here in the UK and many of the pursuits that were traditionally seen as purely the realm of the wealthy, landed gentry are becoming more available to the working man (such as stalking and game shooting).
I get that sense, and I am glad to hear it.

Paul
 
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