Sometimes that once in a lifetime hunt just needs repeating and somehow I was able to work out heading back to the Yukon to chase my dream animal, a stone sheep. Over 13 days we covered two mountain ranges, 2 spike camps, over 100 miles on foot in sheep country, constantly finding rams the first 8 days, some legal but none 9 years or older. Sheep were the focus but we were constantly seeing caribou and black bears, usually at the end of the day, too far and too wore out to chase them. Not to mention 4 bull moose in a drainage several miles away that we glassed every evening, two of which pushed 60”.
On day 8 after chasing a huge grizzly for 4 hours across a mountain, then a band of rams that turned out not to be up to par, we capped off our 18 hour hike by packing back down to the horses/cabin at 1:30 in the morning. Day 9 after a 6 hour ride, a 2 hour hunt and a one mile sprint I managed to drop a 60” bull at 572 yards. Spent into the night getting him mostly quartered, then spent the rest of the next day getting him out.
Got up early the next morning and started climbing, around 1 we finally found what we were looking for. Two shooter rams. They were in the right spot, 600 yards bedded, but with a 30mph wind and their perfect location a shot was never really considered and so we made a move to kill one. Unfortunately, the mountain quickly became a whiteout of snow, sleet and fog that you couldn’t see 10 yards through. We’ll get them tomorrow we said, only to wake up the next morning to see the mountain completely saturated with fog and it stayed like that all day. We checked my moose kill the next morning for a grizzly and made the day ride back to base camp. No ram but it wasn’t from a lack of effort or skill, sometimes it’s just not in the cards but I will be back.
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