YUKON DALL SHEEP-1999

I was sitting in the Phoenix airport terminal waiting for my flight to Seattle for the first section of my trip to Whitehorse in the Yukon Territories. I had booked a Dall Sheep and Grizzly hunt with Tim Mervyn of Mervyn's Yukon Outfitting for September of 1999 and this was the beginning of a fabulous adventure.

After arriving in Whitehorse on September 2, I was met by Tim and immediately taken to a rifle range to check the accuracy of my rifle. I was using an ultralight 300 Weatherby Magnum, shooting 180 Grain Nosler Partition which had been sighted in to be 3 inches high at 100 yards. This allowed me to shoot dead on out to 450 yards without making any adjustments. My rifle was perfect after the trip.

Early the next morning after spending the night at the High Country Inn in Whitehorse we flew by small float plan to the main camp located at Lake Killerman. My guide Ken Bodally had camp all set up and was waiting for me to arrive. After making our plans for the next five days we had a great dinner of Moose steaks, corn on the cob and apple pie. It was lights out at 9:30 as we had to be up by 5:30 and get ready for a 3 hour horseback ride to our first spike camp which was to be our home for the next 5days.

After we arrived at our spike camp and unloaded all of our gear we took off on the horses scouting for dall sheep. We were able to locate 3 small groups of sheep all of which had at least one ram that was of legal size. The largest of which, as you quessed it, was in by far the hardest location to get to. We made plans to be at the base of the mountain the next morning before the sun came up. It was going to be a 2-1/2 to 3 hour hike straight up over rocky and slate covered ground, with very little cover to hide us from the sheep.

Seven o'clock the next morning found use on top of the mountain after what I would have to say was the most grueling hike that I have ever experienced in all my years of hunting. We had our spotting scopes out and we were viewing 3 small rams and 3 ewes, but the big ram was nowhere to be seen. We spent the rest of the day on the mountain top in search of the big ram with no luck. We did spot 3 other groups of sheep of which also contained no shootable rams. We left a little late for our hike back to the horses and had to hike in the dark down hill for approximately 1 mile. The hour ride back to camp was also in the dark and hair raising as we jumped a Grizzly that scared our horses. I quess that's why they call it hunting.

This pattern continued for 5 days with the same results. Lots of sheep and legal rams, but not the ram I wanted. On the sixth day of the hunt we packed our horses and headed back to the main camp for a much needed good nights rest. We also needed to replenish our supplies and get fresh horses before we set out for a new spike camp.

The next camp was called the Ruby Camp and was a seven hour ride by horses from the main camp. We reached the camp at 3 o”clock in the afternoon in the middle of a heavy snow storm with the wind blowing at 50 miles per hour. Hunting that day was out of the question. The next morning came with a very heavy fog cover with the viability being zero. By 2 o'clock the fog began to lift enough for us to take a ride up the valley in search of sheep. We had only gone about a mile when we spotted two large rams running up the mountain out of site into the thick fog. We left our horses at the bottom of the mountain and headed into the fog on foot in search of the big rams. The visibility was only 30-40 yards making the search extremely tough and dangerous as there were steep cliffs on both sides. We finally just sat down and waited for the fog to rise. In an hour the fog had risen enough for us to see under it and continue with our hunt. To our surprise while walking up in the fog we had passed within 40 yards of a group of 23 rams of which 5 were of trophy size. They hadn’t seen us and were feeding directly in our direction. We just laid down and waited for them to get within shooting distance. When they reached a distance of 100 yards, from a pron position and with a sold rest from my Harris bi-pods, I was able to make a one shot kill of a 40 inch Yukon Dall Sheep.

The trip back to the main camp the next day once again in a snow storm but for some reason the trip was a lot more fun with the beautiful dall sheep. On the way back I did harvest a beautiful Silver Tip Grizzly, but that is another story.