Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Hunting the Distance. Today,
Speaker 1: I'm recording live from Alaska. Just finished up a dull
Speaker 1: sheep hunt that I've had in the works for about
Speaker 1: four years, and it's a dream hunt. It's everything I
Speaker 1: imagined when you dream of, you know, being able to
Speaker 1: sheep hunt, the amazing country that Alaska has to offer.
Speaker 1: It was it was everything you know I wanted it
Speaker 1: to be. I'm here with my guide outfitter Matt Snyder
Speaker 1: with the Alaska Hunting Adventures. Welcome to the show, Matt, Yep,
Speaker 1: Thank you. It's it's kind of funny. You should have
Speaker 1: saved a look on if you could only saw a
Speaker 1: look on his face when I said, Hey, if we
Speaker 1: have time here, do you want to be on a podcast?
Speaker 1: And you kind of looked at me with this this
Speaker 1: goofy look. One thing I've got to learn about Matt
Speaker 1: is he he grew up kind of like me, you know,
Speaker 1: very kind of secretive, kind of quiet, you know, just goes,
Speaker 1: you know, a very humble guy for all of his successes.
Speaker 1: And so I'm really stoked to have Matt on the
Speaker 1: podcast because he is one of those guys that eats, sleeps, lives,
Speaker 1: Alaska hunting. He's we're going to dive into his story
Speaker 1: here in a little bit, but I'm excited to have
Speaker 1: him on. These are some of my favorite guests. So Matt,
Speaker 1: give us a little background of how you ended up here.
Speaker 1: You're near tok, Alaska, and how long have you been here?
Speaker 1: Kind of how did it all happen?
Speaker 2: Well, I guess it all happened because my mom was
Speaker 2: into the outdoors. She grew up in Pennsylvania on a
Speaker 2: dairy farm, and anyways, I guess I may have been
Speaker 2: an accident, but she had me pretty young, and her
Speaker 2: and my real father only because of her decided to
Speaker 2: make a run to or drive up to Alaska and
Speaker 2: seventy three, and long story short, they weren't getting long
Speaker 2: they divorced. She liked Alaska much obviously, we stayed been
Speaker 2: here ever since. She met my stepfather, Frank and Sminger,
Speaker 2: and they've been together since seventy five. They were, you know,
Speaker 2: originally in the Fairbanks North Pole area, and then he
Speaker 2: always liked this area down here south of tok on
Speaker 2: the Toe cutoffs, and we moved here in nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: seven have been here ever since. And he was a taxidermist,
Speaker 2: but loved hunting also. He was from Montana. Originally came
Speaker 2: up the day after graduat his graduation in nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 2: Been here ever since. But anyways, we've been here in
Speaker 2: the tok area since seventy seven hunting, and I went
Speaker 2: on to you know, went through high school here in
Speaker 2: tok then went got an airframe and power plant mechanic license,
Speaker 2: but kind of wanted to stay in this area, and
Speaker 2: guiding was one way to maybe do that. Since I'm
Speaker 2: so far from town, it's a long commute. If I
Speaker 2: was doing some forty hour week job, I just didn't
Speaker 2: really compute. But I also I commercial fished in the
Speaker 2: summers from about eighty four up into the you know,
Speaker 2: early two thousands anyways or whatever, salmon and herring depending
Speaker 2: various time different anyways, but anyways, I commercial fished. Got
Speaker 2: into guiding shortly after amp school, worked for other guides
Speaker 2: over the years, got my registered license, started the business,
Speaker 2: and yeah, currently just doing a handful of clients or
Speaker 2: less every year, keeping it small and simple and working
Speaker 2: out a home. And it's been working out pretty well.
Speaker 1: And like we talked, you know, one thing I like
Speaker 1: about Matt is he's he's recognized that, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: and we're going to get into this a little bit,
Speaker 1: sheep puntings went down, and so you know, he's taken
Speaker 1: less clients because he wants to keep that success at
Speaker 1: a level where you know, his clients are successful, he's
Speaker 1: able to kind of keep that same quality of a hunt,
Speaker 1: even though the sheep numbers, you know, last four or
Speaker 1: ten years have started to really you know, drop off
Speaker 1: for unknown reasons. We'll dive into some of those reasons,
Speaker 1: but yeah, you're you're here to and I've seen it
Speaker 1: on this hunt, like you're here to provide your clients
Speaker 1: a good trip, a successful trip, be in animals, even
Speaker 1: though the state of you know, sheep you know in
Speaker 1: particular isn't the greatest right now.
Speaker 2: Yes, So yeah, when I kind of got my foot
Speaker 2: in the door and started having, you know, from the
Speaker 2: opportunity to book a client or two, my folks were
Speaker 2: helping me. So we'd take you know, maybe six sheep hunters,
Speaker 2: you know, between the three of us. But now I'm
Speaker 2: down to two in the non permitted area, and sometimes
Speaker 2: I think I'm overdoing it, just there's more hunters out
Speaker 2: in the woods residents, and you know, I'm trying to
Speaker 2: go where I don't think I'm going to run into anybody,
Speaker 2: but a lot of the places I used to hunt,
Speaker 2: there's people there. So I'm moving into different directions and
Speaker 2: sooner or later they'll probably find out. You know, there's
Speaker 2: no guarantee I'll I could run into anybody anytime. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't want to go on a seven day camping
Speaker 2: trip and trip and not have an opportunity to maybe
Speaker 2: show the guy a legal ram. Anyways, Yeah, that's the
Speaker 2: short of it.
Speaker 1: So you're I've got to you know, before the hunt,
Speaker 1: you know a little bit since we've returned back from
Speaker 1: from the field. You know, got to look at a
Speaker 1: lot of your picture albums. You're a humble guy, So
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to pry this out of you.
Speaker 1: It's obvious by by the successes. You know, the pictures
Speaker 1: on your walls. You've you've did a great job document
Speaker 1: and basically your history. You know, I was flipping through
Speaker 1: last night, you know, your first caribou, your first ram,
Speaker 1: like it's all there, you know, and and so it's
Speaker 1: it's evident to me that you've been very successful. But
Speaker 1: your mom is also you told her she was still
Speaker 1: hunting sheep at seventy one. My mom's very accomplished as
Speaker 1: well as as a sheep hunter. So go into a
Speaker 1: little bit about you know, your your successes, your mom successes,
Speaker 1: your guys, clients' success you know, what have you did
Speaker 1: in the sheep real you know, in your career? I
Speaker 1: guess your last forty seven years year between you your mom, Frank, you.
Speaker 2: Know, well we've between the three of us, we've taken
Speaker 2: a lot of sheep. I can't even probably give you
Speaker 2: your number. And but we where we live, we qualified
Speaker 2: to hunt the wrangle Saint Elias Park, so we kind
Speaker 2: of chose to hunt there and not compete in the
Speaker 2: regular area where you know, the residents from the non
Speaker 2: rural communities would be. You know, we took you know,
Speaker 2: obviously we took advantage of it, and we killed some
Speaker 2: nice sheep over the years, and you know, and definitely
Speaker 2: made the time to go do it. It was they
Speaker 2: were and hard hunts. I mean, you can't fly in
Speaker 2: or anything like that. But yeah, as guiding went on,
Speaker 2: I kind of had to make a living, so I
Speaker 2: did less and less of those hunts personal hunts and
Speaker 2: more of the guided hunts. But I when sheep populations
Speaker 2: were good, we got a lot of hunted in and
Speaker 2: I'm glad I did, because it ain't It definitely is
Speaker 2: not the same.
Speaker 1: Man. How many sheep is your mom that you? I
Speaker 1: think you had mentioned that. Maybe twenty five?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think she's over in the twenty five range. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so she started hunting with Frank and yeah, seventy five.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Frank's similar number, maybe even more.
Speaker 2: She more And then he started in sixty two or three,
Speaker 2: I guess after he became a resident and he hunted
Speaker 2: the Brooks and I think I don't know if it
Speaker 2: was right that when he got to Alaska, but there
Speaker 2: was a time when the Brooks Range had a two
Speaker 2: sheep harvest. I don't know that he ever got in
Speaker 2: on it, but I mean he had a lot of opportunity,
Speaker 2: and he definitely took the time to do it. I
Speaker 2: mean it was like on the top of the list
Speaker 2: to go do every year every fall.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then yeah, once you guys stopped personally hunting,
Speaker 1: you sprinkled it in there and then you know it's
Speaker 1: your client success becomes your success at that point, you guys,
Speaker 1: judging by all the pictures you and your mom are in,
Speaker 1: uh you know, and even Frank with with some clients.
Speaker 1: It looks like you guys continued that success you had
Speaker 1: personally into your local area. Yeah, you know the open
Speaker 1: units and.
Speaker 2: No, we've done real well. And then the the TMA,
Speaker 2: the Tooke Management Area is a draw area and we've
Speaker 2: always promoted it and you know, when we get a
Speaker 2: client to draw, lucky be lucky enough to draw from it.
Speaker 2: We've had pretty good success. Yeah, so yeah, that's anyways, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it was managed for a trophy area or it
Speaker 2: still is trying to but you know, with numbers so low,
Speaker 2: it's yeah. When that when that was the inception of
Speaker 2: the draw area, Tom, it was one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: permits and anw we're at ten, so it just yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean it flux weighted in between, not from ten
Speaker 2: but like sixty to one hundred for quite a few years.
Speaker 2: And then we had some bad winners and you know,
Speaker 2: so on and now we're at ten and that's one
Speaker 2: non resident because it's only.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ninety ten there. What else is so aside from
Speaker 1: sheep hunting, you know, taking you know, maybe two hunters
Speaker 1: with your mom kind of stepping back from you know,
Speaker 1: sheep sheep guiding, you're you're kind of the last guide,
Speaker 1: and then you do have some some assistant guides that
Speaker 1: are helping you out here. Yep.
Speaker 2: I got one guy working for me. He kind of
Speaker 2: he did some packing in the in the beginning and
Speaker 2: got assistant license. Now he has a regish license and
Speaker 2: he's actually he's still helping me, and he's doing a
Speaker 2: couple of hunts of his own. And you know in
Speaker 2: other areas. Yeah, yeah, just booking agent or a contracting guide.
Speaker 1: So keep a small, small operation, you know, keep your
Speaker 1: client success up and try to focus on that as
Speaker 1: your fighting goal.
Speaker 2: I stress out too much. I couldn't. I don't think
Speaker 2: I could run a big operation with yeah, lots of employees, clients.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all good guides are outfitters. I've got the
Speaker 1: you know, you my buddy Brian Sanders, you know Bradley
Speaker 1: Dammering with IDAHA white Tail guides. You guys all share this.
Speaker 1: I don't know what characteristic it is, but you can tell,
Speaker 1: like the the stress isn't necessarily on it, but you
Speaker 1: can tell you guys care enough that like it is
Speaker 1: pressing a little bit there's a little bit of weight
Speaker 1: on your shoulders, and I appreciate that. Like I think
Speaker 1: any client that was ever to book with you guys,
Speaker 1: like they know that you guys are doing everything in
Speaker 1: your power to you know, to to make it, make
Speaker 1: it happen for him, which is you know important, you know,
Speaker 1: taking care of him and trying to see him, you know,
Speaker 1: find success. Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, I'm trying to, Yeah, give them the best opportunity
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So in addition to sheep, what else do you
Speaker 1: guys guide here?
Speaker 2: But I do some moose hunts in the fall and
Speaker 2: and then spring bear hunts and they're over bait and
Speaker 2: Mom's the contracting guide currently for that. She Yeah, I
Speaker 2: let her. She's dealing with the spring bears as the
Speaker 2: contracting guide, doing the bookings, doing the paperwork, letting her
Speaker 2: now that they're not cheap guiding due to age and
Speaker 2: conditioning a physical condition whatever, but gives them a little
Speaker 2: revenue and she pays me out of that like I
Speaker 2: used to when I paid her on the on the
Speaker 2: sheep side, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. They live in absolutely beautiful place. Sounds like
Speaker 1: they've got great success on no matter you know what
Speaker 1: they're hunting. Whether it's moose, you know, spring bear sounds
Speaker 1: like you guys have you know, if you're interested in
Speaker 1: black bear, they might not have the biggest black bears,
Speaker 1: but they're loaded up, covered up in them.
Speaker 2: We have seems to be have plenty of bears. We
Speaker 2: got tons of game cam pictures. But yes, our interior
Speaker 2: bears are especially the black bears have no comparison to
Speaker 2: a coastal bear even as far as size. Yeah, they're
Speaker 2: pretty bears. We get face colored bears. We get some
Speaker 2: big grizzlies, you know grizzlies, let's say, but you know,
Speaker 2: not the norm obviously, we just get some once in
Speaker 2: a while. And yeah, and I've done fall bear hunts too,
Speaker 2: which is spot in stock. Some guys preferred that, but
Speaker 2: between the sheep and the moose, it seems to keep
Speaker 2: my fall fairly busy. You're busy enough.
Speaker 1: And uh, for those that are interested, you guys offer
Speaker 1: you know baited you know wheelerd in hunts. You guys
Speaker 1: offer you know fly in baits.
Speaker 2: Well it, yeah, there's one flyout bait and it there's
Speaker 2: a lot of factors and it's on a river bar.
Speaker 2: And I mean, if we got deep snow that winter
Speaker 2: and then you know, it's springtime, so it's melt off.
Speaker 2: Sometimes the airstrips underwater and I can't even use the bait.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so just hit or miss on that.
Speaker 2: But the rest of them are, yeah, your your mom's housing,
Speaker 2: you're you're being housed at the house, and then you
Speaker 2: just go out for the day to the bait sites.
Speaker 2: So it's a little totally different than the fall hunts
Speaker 2: where you're in a tent yep and camping whole hunt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's let's roll into you know, some of
Speaker 1: the problems or troubles the doll Sheep are currently have
Speaker 1: and if we want to jump into that, we we've
Speaker 1: been able to. You know, we've been hunting together for
Speaker 1: the last three days and I've been asking questions for
Speaker 1: for four days straight. Yeah, just I show up to
Speaker 1: a new place, don't really know, you know, so I'm
Speaker 1: I'm asking Matt a thousand questions, what about this? What
Speaker 1: about that? And so I've covered some of this, but
Speaker 1: I want to kind of jump back into it, you know,
Speaker 1: doll Sheep, and I'll let you lay it out, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to miss miss quote. But you know,
Speaker 1: like four years ago, a big drop maybe even ten
Speaker 1: years ago. You go back, like we talked about like
Speaker 1: harvest numbers being up around the eight hundred. Now you
Speaker 1: think you know, last year's count was under four under
Speaker 1: four hundred for the state wide harvest. Can I hear
Speaker 1: your opinion on what's you know? They might not be
Speaker 1: popular opinions, but let's hear what you think you know.
Speaker 1: There's there's sickness, there's predators, there's bad winners, Like what
Speaker 1: do you think cause.
Speaker 2: Well fishing game? Definitely, winners are the most apparent or
Speaker 2: has the biggest effect. A bad winter, deep snow, maybe
Speaker 2: not enough wind to blow the snow off the ridges
Speaker 2: or whatever. Maybe it's the wrong direction of snow or
Speaker 2: wind that is, and they just can't get the food.
Speaker 2: But so yeah, winners or bad weathers, the you know,
Speaker 2: the bad one. I don't know. I some it's hard
Speaker 2: to everybody has an opinion. I think there's more to it.
Speaker 2: There's predation too, lambs. If you've got a real wet
Speaker 2: spring right when they're being born, that's not good. And
Speaker 2: then the Golden eagles or eagles in general, mainly goldens
Speaker 2: is it seems like the population is thriving quite well
Speaker 2: and I've personally seen them catch lambs even when they're
Speaker 2: not newborns. You know, you know, three weeks old, you know,
Speaker 2: they're already scampering around pretty good. And they still get
Speaker 2: them or if they get the if they get they
Speaker 2: almost it seems like you see them in pairs a
Speaker 2: lot of times. I haven't seen him do it, but
Speaker 2: I think they're trying to one's distracting the U and
Speaker 2: the other one's getting the lamb. And anyways, I don't
Speaker 2: think we'll get predator control on eagles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's gonna be a tough cell to be able
Speaker 1: to deal with.
Speaker 2: But I think they need to be managed.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And obviously the wolves get some I've seen. I
Speaker 2: don't know, just a personal opinion. I think one of
Speaker 2: these real deep snow years, the snow never did set
Speaker 2: up till way late in the winter. So and I
Speaker 2: trap wolves, and I never really saw much for wolf
Speaker 2: sign down low. It was like where are they? And
Speaker 2: then I was flying through the mountains one day and
Speaker 2: caught a wolf trail way up on the ridges and
Speaker 2: it's like, huh, they must be up here where it's
Speaker 2: getting some wind and it's hard packed and they're traveling.
Speaker 2: They can travel and not just go down and just
Speaker 2: be stuck. So my thought is they're probably picking on
Speaker 2: a few sheep when they're up there, and then when
Speaker 2: the snow set up, I started seeing signed down low
Speaker 2: and then they're chasing moose.
Speaker 1: Moose and caribou down low or what do they can't
Speaker 1: get down there? Yeah? Because I mean, aside from you know,
Speaker 1: grizzlies probably aren't a big predator form, right, it's wolves,
Speaker 1: your eagles. And then you guys have been doing you
Speaker 1: work with fishing game and I don't correct me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, Like you guys, your guys. The system's confusing
Speaker 1: because there's like the state fishing game and then there's
Speaker 1: the federal and like you work with them quite a bit,
Speaker 1: and so you've looked at like testing and you know,
Speaker 1: are they are they showing up with like pneumonia? And
Speaker 1: is factor? I did?
Speaker 2: I found a dead sheep one summer flying I called
Speaker 2: the local fishing game and the air taxi has a
Speaker 2: chopper there. They went out and retrieved it and it
Speaker 2: tested positive. That I mean, there were some other things
Speaker 2: that tested positive for I think, but whatever the main
Speaker 2: one was was one that we've been I don't know
Speaker 2: the scientific name, but we call it movie. But it's
Speaker 2: some type of you know sickness that's pneumonia type.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we don't know if that's what killed the
Speaker 2: ram or not. But obviously it wasn't a when I
Speaker 2: saw it, it was a whole just laying there with its
Speaker 2: head down. He could tell that it was dead, so
Speaker 2: it wasn't the birds hadn't gone on it or nothing yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. The older gentleman we talked to when we
Speaker 1: got went and got my sheet plugged, I'm down there,
Speaker 1: was telling us a story about the mom, you know,
Speaker 1: being dead from movie and then the lamb was sitting
Speaker 1: there with it. They had to dispatch it and test
Speaker 1: it in both and they both you know, had it,
Speaker 1: and so it's like it is happening, but you wondered
Speaker 1: to what extent? And then the I think I've always
Speaker 1: wondered is where did this come from? Like if they
Speaker 1: always had it, we just didn't have the ability to test,
Speaker 1: or is it's something that's like been brought in from
Speaker 1: domestic livestock.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think you might get both answers that, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's always been a trace of it, and I don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe with their with the obviously, maybe it has more
Speaker 2: in effect when there's a bad winter because they're run
Speaker 2: down already, they get it. Maybe they could bust through it,
Speaker 2: you know, their immune system if it if they're in
Speaker 2: really good health, but if they're already in poor shape,
Speaker 2: it has more of effect. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: they're not able to tested positive for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what you're saying is if if it truly
Speaker 1: you know, the main the main reason, which I think
Speaker 1: most can agree on, are these bad winners. What it
Speaker 1: does from a Hunters standpoint is it puts these holes
Speaker 1: probably in your age classes. Right if those those lambs
Speaker 1: that were going to be you know, eventually rams, at
Speaker 1: some point you're now missing let's say you're ones and twos,
Speaker 1: you're missing your fours and fives, you're and so as
Speaker 1: a as a guide, you're you're you know, potentially lining up.
Speaker 1: You know, if you have one or two bad years,
Speaker 1: it's like, well, shoot, you know, these older rams may die,
Speaker 1: you know, you may not have big ones. Then we
Speaker 1: might have any eights and nine coming.
Speaker 2: In twenty twelve was a bad year, bad winner, bad
Speaker 2: lamb crop. And that's seven and eight years after one
Speaker 2: of those winners, you notice it because there's no there
Speaker 2: was no lamp I'm daring to speak of. And then yeah,
Speaker 2: you when you're looking for your eight year old class
Speaker 2: rams or just.
Speaker 1: Just not there, not there, and you really need you
Speaker 1: know what realistically, you know, maybe a young a good
Speaker 1: genetic seven eights and nine's, you know, maybe a ten
Speaker 1: that sneaks in there. Is that going to be typically
Speaker 1: your the age class you're looking forward to.
Speaker 2: I like to be eight and above. For sure. It
Speaker 2: hasn't always happened, but yeah, not well, Unfortunately the way
Speaker 2: things are now, when you do find illegal RAM, it's
Speaker 2: pretty hard to pass it up because he might be
Speaker 2: going to the client might be going home empty handed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're while you're you know, deep down you
Speaker 1: want to find him a good, respectable RAM, there's also
Speaker 1: this side of like the success and if this client's
Speaker 1: going to be happy with it, you know, as it's
Speaker 1: a guide client, that's probably a tough position to be in.
Speaker 1: You know, you want to find him something big.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, yeah, and there's people are
Speaker 2: out hunting, so there's enough competition out there that yeah,
Speaker 2: it might not survive Anyways, if I'd see a nice
Speaker 2: six year old and say, well, that's got to live
Speaker 2: because he'll be way better next year, I'm not an
Speaker 2: he's full curl. He might not make it just during
Speaker 2: unseasoned I'm not. I mean I get it. You know,
Speaker 2: one a new sheep hunter, when he sees the legal ram,
Speaker 2: he wants to take it. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, I'm I'm
Speaker 2: very fortunate that I got to hunt sheep, and you
Speaker 2: know when they were populations are really good in my
Speaker 2: younger years. For myself, Yeah, it was. Yeah, I'm good
Speaker 2: thing I did it. Yeah, or I don't think even
Speaker 2: a hardcore sheep are now, I mean, couldn't have to
Speaker 2: kill twenty rams and the course at thirty five forty
Speaker 2: years it could be pretty pretty tough.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And you don't have to talk about this
Speaker 1: if you don't, i know, pre state you were talking
Speaker 1: about like the aggressive predator management, you know, and and
Speaker 1: and you think that that's you know, whether we agree
Speaker 1: whether it's right or wrong, what we will say is
Speaker 1: that it seemed there weren't near the predator load on
Speaker 1: the lands. Yes.
Speaker 2: So yeah, when Frank came to this in the early sixties,
Speaker 2: you know, there was you know, the wolves had a
Speaker 2: bounty on him. I think there was, even if it
Speaker 2: was not when he was here. Maybe prior to or
Speaker 2: prior to statehood, there was a bounty on eagles, Dolly
Speaker 2: Varden for salmon eggs or whatever, this z elf stuff
Speaker 2: that I've heard secondhand, but but yeah, there was you know,
Speaker 2: predator poisoning and whatever. When Frank came in those early years,
Speaker 2: you know, in the mid sixties, you know, the mid sixties,
Speaker 2: most populations and whatever, everything was thriving pretty good. Whether
Speaker 2: it's right or wrong, I think it definitely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, had a positive impact, will agree, like a positive
Speaker 1: impact on and at that point, right, whether it's good
Speaker 1: or bad or it's the right balance.
Speaker 2: I think you know, yeah, they might have been targeting wolves,
Speaker 2: let's say, but if you put poison out, it's probably
Speaker 2: gonna it's gonna kill other predators.
Speaker 1: For sure, yeah, secondary you know, even territortiary like down
Speaker 1: the line that continues to kill. Yeah. Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: you like to go full circle. If the eagles are
Speaker 1: having a problem, you know, if you keep those down,
Speaker 1: like it's maybe in aroundabout way good for sheep.
Speaker 2: You know, even if that's not the intention, right, that
Speaker 2: the Uh, everything's cyclic, but I will say that the sheep,
Speaker 2: it's gonna be uh, it's gonna be a real slow cycle.
Speaker 2: You know, for them, the recovery is gonna I'm not
Speaker 2: going to see what I saw again.
Speaker 1: I don't ever again in lifelifetime. Is there is there
Speaker 1: any management plan or long term plan with fishing game.
Speaker 1: I know you're on some advisory committees, you work with
Speaker 1: them on doing some aerial surveys and do it, so
Speaker 1: you're pretty involved in this. But do they have like
Speaker 1: and it's hard to plan, like it's wildlife management, but
Speaker 1: you can't control the weather, you can't control you know,
Speaker 1: these things to a t is Alaska fishing game and
Speaker 1: and the entities that make these decisions are they trying
Speaker 1: to to.
Speaker 2: I think they're getting everybody's asking what the heck's going on?
Speaker 2: So uh, yeah, they're I think they're doing more studies
Speaker 2: and I think, yeah, of course, don't quote me on
Speaker 2: any of this stuff. But you know, moose and caribou
Speaker 2: or what they call intensive management animals. Sheep are not
Speaker 2: intensive management. So they're going to spend a little more
Speaker 2: money on the moose and caribou, and I get it.
Speaker 2: That those are the ones that fill the freezer more,
Speaker 2: you know, you know that that's more that subsistence animals
Speaker 2: that people need or but I obviously I hunt sheep,
Speaker 2: so I kind of yeah, I got a deep respect
Speaker 2: for him, and I yeah, I want to see them throughout. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, and if it means me stop stop hunting them,
Speaker 2: you know, I yeah, I I'll do that to make
Speaker 2: sure that they stay.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, one of those tough, tough decisions where you
Speaker 1: remove yourself and the resources old.
Speaker 2: But I'm, you know, in my fifties, and yeah, if
Speaker 2: I got cheap time sixty, I'll be thinking twice if
Speaker 2: I'm going to continue.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah. So we just got out of the mountains.
Speaker 1: You were telling me as a joke that you guys
Speaker 1: got like seventeen inches of rain here a year, and
Speaker 1: I was joking that I think I've been here for
Speaker 1: half of it, but in reality hasn't rained that much.
Speaker 1: It's just so sporadic that we've been in our rain gear,
Speaker 1: you know, the entire hunt, and you know, on the hunt.
Speaker 1: But we got out of the mountains and let's just
Speaker 1: I wanted to just kind of recap our hunt and
Speaker 1: see you know what you thought of it versus is
Speaker 1: you know, you get to do this every year for
Speaker 1: the last forty five years, I show up, you know,
Speaker 1: for one trip and still don't even scratch the surface
Speaker 1: on understanding, you know, doll sheet, you know, aside from
Speaker 1: what I've watched and read and then got to you know,
Speaker 1: experience with you. So would you say, like just in
Speaker 1: your scouting, what that this year was better than maybe
Speaker 1: years loud, you know, years past, or is it kind
Speaker 1: of just on par with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess from what I saw last year, there
Speaker 2: was definitely a good number seven eights girls, and there
Speaker 2: was a good number this of course there was seven
Speaker 2: eights and three quarter last year. This year are still
Speaker 2: a good seven eighths. But I'd say I did see
Speaker 2: a few more legal rams in preseason scouting. It's still
Speaker 2: not high by any means, but this fall seemed better
Speaker 2: than the previous two. But it's they're still low numbers.
Speaker 2: That's just the bottom line.
Speaker 1: And you're you're thinking about half or maybe even more
Speaker 1: than half just five years ago, they're ten years ago,
Speaker 1: would be were ten years ago for sure fifty percent
Speaker 1: or more less.
Speaker 2: And I think there's pockets that even five years ago,
Speaker 2: a little you know pocket of the you know, a
Speaker 2: little block of a mountain range where it's half Yeah,
Speaker 2: because the TMA, like I said, they dropped it to ten,
Speaker 2: like three or four years it was that was one
Speaker 2: where yeah, within two years I think it was, the
Speaker 2: survey account went down to half.
Speaker 1: Gotcha just bad winner and.
Speaker 2: Yeah just something yeah, right, two in a row.
Speaker 1: Huh yeah. So you do you know, on our hunt
Speaker 1: we elected to go in by wheeler. You know you've
Speaker 1: got you're an opportunist, I've learned. You know, you've got
Speaker 1: multiple groups hunters. Some are flying in, some are hiking in,
Speaker 1: some are wheeling in. You're just looking at what you
Speaker 1: got to do you know on that hunt to be successful.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, and try to pick a spot where not
Speaker 2: as likely to run into residents, you know, like uh yeah, anyways,
Speaker 2: it's yeah, a lot of those mind a lot of
Speaker 2: my scouting. As you fly over the drive to the
Speaker 2: trailheads and see how many cars are parked there, it
Speaker 2: gives you an idea who's out there, I mean, how
Speaker 2: many are out there?
Speaker 1: But yeah, so you do a little both. I know
Speaker 1: when we had walked in, you said, you know you'd
Speaker 1: you'd went in there, I think a week prior, confirm that,
Speaker 1: you know, the the rams you'd saw, and that it
Speaker 1: was a good enough group, and and kind of built
Speaker 1: the plan. So when I showed up, we had kind
Speaker 1: of had an idea, we're going to go here, We're
Speaker 1: gonna do it this way. We're going to camp here
Speaker 1: and hunt. So we kind of The first night I
Speaker 1: got here was supposed to rain pretty hard. I don't
Speaker 1: know if we would have win in that night anyways,
Speaker 1: because we maybe didn't need to. So then we we
Speaker 1: loaded up our gear we had. You know, you're more
Speaker 1: particular than anybody I've ever packed with. You know, we
Speaker 1: always down look, you know, we always oh it's light,
Speaker 1: it's you know heavy. We went through all three of us,
Speaker 1: me and you, and then Dave framed the camera guy,
Speaker 1: went through like what do we need? Like this should
Speaker 1: be enough gas to get us through cooking this. So
Speaker 1: we really just limited. We didn't pack anything extra, and
Speaker 1: you know, about the first morning of the actual hunt,
Speaker 1: going up the hill, I started to realize, why, you know,
Speaker 1: you just don't want to pack any extra gear. So
Speaker 1: we spent i'd say half a day going through all right,
Speaker 1: this is our sleeping situation. You know, you carry this food.
Speaker 1: We got all our food put together, and then you
Speaker 1: offer a seven day hunt, you know some people. So
Speaker 1: we we loaded up with seven days of food, all
Speaker 1: of our all of our sleep stuff on our back,
Speaker 1: you know, all of our gear, everything we needed to
Speaker 1: to basically live out of our pack for seven days.
Speaker 1: And and that was going to be the hunt. Like
Speaker 1: we're gonna leave and we would come back. You know
Speaker 1: if we called early, yea great, If not, we would
Speaker 1: we would hunt. And so we we uh went into
Speaker 1: this area and it kind of rainy, kind of crammy,
Speaker 1: and you were able to spot skylined up ahead for
Speaker 1: for rams. It appeared that two were probably.
Speaker 2: Legal, definitely worth getting closer.
Speaker 1: Closer look. And then I would this is where my
Speaker 1: million questions, you know, being a meal deer hunter, being
Speaker 1: an elk hunter, like knowing what I can get away with.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well they can we can see them with
Speaker 1: my naked eye, Like how you know, how comfortable are we?
Speaker 1: And you said probably two thousand yards? But as you
Speaker 1: start to approach and the open, so we we kept
Speaker 1: camp back, you know, found a found a good spot
Speaker 1: and then rain moved back in of course, and we
Speaker 1: just kind of you know, hit the sacks a little
Speaker 1: bit early, you know, for for those that aren't used
Speaker 1: to Alaska, your tent doesn't get dark till about eleven o'clock.
Speaker 1: So you're kind of laying in there in a bright
Speaker 1: tent at nine o'clock knowing that we're going to get up,
Speaker 1: you know, fairly early. We're not going to be in
Speaker 1: any hurry in the morning because you don't know if
Speaker 1: those sheep are going to be right above you. And
Speaker 1: and that's one thing that I learned, you know, hunt
Speaker 1: with you is Matt hunts with ten by twenty five's.
Speaker 2: My binoculars, yes, all pocket tie style.
Speaker 1: Yep, he's got you know, we're minor and the binal harnesses,
Speaker 1: which are great for protection. But Matt is able to
Speaker 1: get his glasses out a lot quicker, a lot more,
Speaker 1: which in sheep country, you know, all these nooks and
Speaker 1: crannies seemed like he was, you know, able to. It
Speaker 1: wasn't such an effort to get your binoculars out the glass.
Speaker 1: He's always you know, able to, which you know for
Speaker 1: sheep hunting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it was in my eyes, very important. I mean,
Speaker 2: they can something could pop up skylined, or or there's
Speaker 2: just a ram horns and an eyeball sticking over the ridge,
Speaker 2: and not that necessarily you're going to see it every time,
Speaker 2: but it's good to scan every as you're going up
Speaker 2: the mountain, every time you take a break, if that
Speaker 2: for that matter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it seems like every hundred yards you move
Speaker 1: a different part of the landscape open. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and and yeah, what sheep? Sometimes I will say you're
Speaker 1: fairly easy to spot being bright white. There are times
Speaker 1: where you know, maybe the rocks are wet and everything's
Speaker 1: kind of glaring white. So you still need to look
Speaker 1: things over with your bino's or.
Speaker 2: Far like I said, if it's just a head over
Speaker 2: the yeah, it's you're not really going to see hardly
Speaker 2: anything white.
Speaker 1: Ye. Yeah. And whether the sheep broadside versus facing the
Speaker 1: way or towards you like, you might not get that
Speaker 1: big white exposure and.
Speaker 2: Bright sunshine is always tough.
Speaker 1: So day one, we got up, had some coffee and
Speaker 1: I guess we did and really eat breakfast, just kind
Speaker 1: of had some.
Speaker 2: Water and we got ready to go, and.
Speaker 1: You were having some heartburn. Whether we're going to go
Speaker 1: up the ridge to the left or the right, and
Speaker 1: I think you kind of settled like, all right, we're
Speaker 1: gonna go to the right. You like that approach a
Speaker 1: little bit better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just needed to get to up high and do
Speaker 2: some glass and see what we find, figure out where
Speaker 2: they might be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And one thing I'm gonna I'm gonna go about.
Speaker 1: One thing I learned about Matt is it it's he
Speaker 1: doesn't you know, people always want to answer it's hunting,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know why sometimes I always want an answer,
Speaker 1: you know, a definite answer. I love that Matt's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what that they're gonna do their wild
Speaker 1: sheep like you know, and so it truly is hunting.
Speaker 1: And I like that part where he's not, you know,
Speaker 1: it didn't claim to know exactly where the sheep were
Speaker 1: gonna be or what they were going to be doing,
Speaker 1: not that he maybe didn't have a good idea. Is
Speaker 1: that it's it's always hunting and we're just gonna go hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So for that first day we left camp where it
Speaker 1: was knowing that we had a pretty big loop we
Speaker 1: could make if we could traverse these ridges and get
Speaker 1: to where we needed to. You had never hunted this
Speaker 1: particular ridge that we decided to go up first thing
Speaker 1: in the morning.
Speaker 2: I never walked the specific ridge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so up, up and away we go, you know,
Speaker 1: the first thousand feet or through just some green, you know, outpine,
Speaker 1: your typical sheep country, and then the green kind of
Speaker 1: runs into the finger cliffs and screen patches, which I
Speaker 1: was more comfortable there. We get up through those, and
Speaker 1: then we get to the ridge top and Matt we
Speaker 1: kind of stayed a little bit lower, kind of took
Speaker 1: it just the quick break and Matt's I'm go o
Speaker 1: up and look and he comes back and that well,
Speaker 1: so I remember you're exact wording. This is a little
Speaker 1: nastier than I thought, or a little crummier ridge, And
Speaker 1: we thought and I kind of walked over there and looked.
Speaker 1: And I also realized on this hunt that you can
Speaker 1: walk more places in your eyes. Think you're going to
Speaker 1: be able to walk on a sheep hunt. Not that
Speaker 1: it wasn't easy, you know, somewhat easy when we got
Speaker 1: over there, but looking from afar, you're like, we can't,
Speaker 1: we can't get through here, Like to me, you know,
Speaker 1: you'd be in the train die. You're like, we just
Speaker 1: got to go over there and look at it, and
Speaker 1: so we start weaving and bobbing, you know, some verticals
Speaker 1: to get around some cliffy stuff, and you know, staying
Speaker 1: the loose stuff is kind of what the plan looked like,
Speaker 1: you know, and figure out where you're gonna be able
Speaker 1: to actually wrap the ridge and you know, put that
Speaker 1: that steck section of cliffs together with the next section
Speaker 1: of scree you know, and just we picked our way through.
Speaker 1: It was probably what an hour of just kind of
Speaker 1: slow technical. You're faster on the technical stuff for sure.
Speaker 1: You're you're just comfortable digging your feet met up. Is
Speaker 1: my foot gonna sit here for long enough? I'm going
Speaker 1: to make the next step? Right.
Speaker 2: I think it took over three hours just to get
Speaker 2: to the top of the ridge, the total climb, Yeah,
Speaker 2: from from right to know the end there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, correct, Technical, And then so we're we're trying to
Speaker 1: we're trying to get back to where those what we
Speaker 1: thought were some rams that needed more attention the night
Speaker 1: before and uh, in Matt's scouting he had seen nine
Speaker 1: and we didn't know since the we were skylined if
Speaker 1: we just only seen four of the nine or.
Speaker 2: What, Yeah, something was over the ridge. Yeah, when I
Speaker 2: when I went in there on foot and uh, you know,
Speaker 2: late July, and looked at everything on through the spot
Speaker 2: and scope. Yeah, I saw nine, and I assume that's
Speaker 2: basically what is there.
Speaker 1: So we finally get through what I would call the
Speaker 1: nastier stuff. It wasn't that bad once you're in there.
Speaker 1: It looked bad from away as we get through there,
Speaker 1: and and I think we cress like one more. You know,
Speaker 1: every time you kind of wrap these little fingers, you
Speaker 1: can open up new new new territory or a new basin.
Speaker 1: And we actually glass from the top. Me and you
Speaker 1: had walked up in glass and then we I think
Speaker 1: you had taken a full step up and over and
Speaker 1: then kind of back to hey, there's sheep here. We
Speaker 1: backed up. We all kind of dropped our pack on
Speaker 1: the back side of this finger and uh, being very conservative,
Speaker 1: I think me and me and Dave just stayed back
Speaker 1: and you went forward with your spotter, and we're able
Speaker 1: to get some eyes on them. They were moving on us, though.
Speaker 1: I think you were able to spot five, but they
Speaker 1: quickly kind of went and there.
Speaker 2: It was still morning feed, yeah, so they were just
Speaker 2: before they were getting ready to bed for part of
Speaker 2: the day.
Speaker 1: So you were able to get a good look. And
Speaker 1: I need to add some information in the story. When
Speaker 1: Matt is in sheep mode, he becomes even more quiet
Speaker 1: than than normal or when I'm not asking him a
Speaker 1: bunch of questions. So it was it was like trying
Speaker 1: to decode a little bit exactly what's going on, because
Speaker 1: he he did, you know, right off the bat, he
Speaker 1: didn't say. And then I think after he realized there
Speaker 1: was a legal one, as he was passing by me,
Speaker 1: He's like, I think there's a good one in here.
Speaker 1: I think it's something that was that effect. And so
Speaker 1: I'm like, I think we maybe have a legal one.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't, but Matt he probably already knows.
Speaker 1: He's just probably not trying to get me excited or
Speaker 1: so then these things fed down into a little, a
Speaker 1: little you know, something that we couldn't see, just a
Speaker 1: little finger crevice, you know, in the rock, and we
Speaker 1: couldn't see, so we elected to move. You thought we
Speaker 1: could move maybe about fifty yards. No, it was more
Speaker 1: than that, because we walked down that main ridge and
Speaker 1: back up to that next point maybe hundred yards. We
Speaker 1: moved maybe a hundred yards and reset up and there
Speaker 1: you were able to catch one. The last one feeding in.
Speaker 2: I saw two, yeah, feeding behind a you know, a
Speaker 2: rock that was halfway between us and them, and I
Speaker 2: thought they might have kept moving, so we and positioned
Speaker 2: ourselves in case they reappeared.
Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah, So then we we dropped maybe forty yards
Speaker 1: from there because because the sheep were feeding straight up
Speaker 1: the mountain and we had we were on the I
Speaker 1: guess the prominent ridge where as they fed up, we
Speaker 1: just couldn't see off of the points right, So they
Speaker 1: were basically feeding in the blind to us. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: Matt said, well, let's move down another forty yards and
Speaker 1: so we you know, and you knew the country, or
Speaker 1: read the country well enough, you knew there was kind
Speaker 1: of a little carve out on the ridge line and
Speaker 1: like they should come out to this red rock. So
Speaker 1: we we took time, got all set up and steep
Speaker 1: as heck. Like I'm I'm comfortable shooting, but I wasn't
Speaker 1: real comfortable shooting very far in some of these setups,
Speaker 1: just because it was so steep You're trying to hold
Speaker 1: on and shoot off of a rock. But we we
Speaker 1: got all set up there and we waited for what
Speaker 1: maybe twenty five minutes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and they weren't showing. Then I kind of
Speaker 2: had a hunch that maybe they did bed down, so
Speaker 2: I chose to move around a little bit and see
Speaker 2: if I could see something, and I found it and
Speaker 2: I saw once I spotted one bedded, so I knew
Speaker 2: they're probably were done feeding for the morning.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, because I stayed on the gun and Dave
Speaker 1: was set up and we stayed there, and I think
Speaker 1: you went up the ridge and rolled the ridge just
Speaker 1: a little bit so you could see, and then came
Speaker 1: back and said they're betted. And we had one more
Speaker 1: little knob below us that was like the one last
Speaker 1: spot that we knew, and we knew they were only
Speaker 1: two hudred yards away at this point. Even where they
Speaker 1: were betted, we had a knob that was maybe thirty
Speaker 1: Everything seems farther basically because it's straight up and down,
Speaker 1: but like horizontal, it might have been twenty, you know,
Speaker 1: thirty yards out there. It wasn't too far. And then Matt,
Speaker 1: you know, he looks at us and says, we're no
Speaker 1: longer allowed to roll rocks. So's as we're going at
Speaker 1: a snail's pace, we're just gonna get down there super quiet,
Speaker 1: and sure is the first thing I do when I leave.
Speaker 1: There's a boulder, you know, a two to three man boulder,
Speaker 1: and it's loose as all can be, and I'm like
Speaker 1: trying to get it to sit still. But we get
Speaker 1: down there about halfway and just kind of knowing that
Speaker 1: Matt wanted to peek over first, we stayed back and
Speaker 1: you were able to spot them right off the point,
Speaker 1: and then realized the best shooting position would be for
Speaker 1: us to kind of skirt to the right side of
Speaker 1: that rock and to try to take a look at
Speaker 1: him there.
Speaker 2: Yes, yep.
Speaker 1: So Matt waves us down, tells me kind of where,
Speaker 1: you know, don't go to where he originally went, just
Speaker 1: come right to where I'm at. This is where you're
Speaker 1: gonna probably get to get to shoot from. And fortunately
Speaker 1: we were able to to get down there undetected and
Speaker 1: then try to see if you can even though you're
Speaker 1: one hundred and eighty hundred nine yards away. The shooting
Speaker 1: set up layout is just not great. Like I'm on
Speaker 1: my tippy toes the guns like hunched over the backside
Speaker 1: of a cliff, and then you're trying to like get
Speaker 1: your eye relief to open up or get your shoulders
Speaker 1: high enough and then get bent into the gun. So
Speaker 1: we're sitting there, Matt, being you know, being super conservative, said, hey,
Speaker 1: just I'm gonna look at these for a while, just
Speaker 1: some more, you know, you want to You knew that
Speaker 1: it was legal, You'd already told us up above that right,
Speaker 1: it is legal. But he's like, I just want to
Speaker 1: take a look. I want to just make sure look
Speaker 1: everything over really well, I kind of I got off
Speaker 1: the gun and actually back back down the cliff and
Speaker 1: just kind of sat there and you know, kind of
Speaker 1: tried to gain my composure while you Dave was getting
Speaker 1: set up and you were kind of watching him, and.
Speaker 2: So they didn't know where were there, so we were
Speaker 2: safe to take our time.
Speaker 1: Yea.
Speaker 2: And yeah, even look at him and he maybe aged
Speaker 2: the old one for just for.
Speaker 1: Just to confirm you you want. And that's one thing Matt,
Speaker 1: you know, wants to take older rams if possible, and
Speaker 1: ones that aren't got you know, I don't want to
Speaker 1: say don't have a ton of genetic potential, but just
Speaker 1: ones that you know that are the right ones to take, I.
Speaker 2: Guess, and whatever if I can aid, if I can
Speaker 2: throw an age on him through a spot and scope
Speaker 2: and then we harvest him and then see how well
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, just testing yourself. Yeah, so everybody gets set
Speaker 1: up Matt. Matt says, all right, where you know he's
Speaker 1: he's the middle one betted and and we confirmed, like
Speaker 1: he's probably ready to beat me in the back of
Speaker 1: the head, and said, yeah, we've agreed on which rams
Speaker 1: legal ten times. But it's just one of those things.
Speaker 1: It's we you know, said it ten different ways, like,
Speaker 1: all right, there's two betted up top, two betted down low,
Speaker 1: one in the middle, he's the farthest to the left.
Speaker 1: If you want to do that, he's one in the middle,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the lower rams ended up moving
Speaker 1: in the middle of us. Thinking around there, we had
Speaker 1: three betted up top and him and I said, now
Speaker 1: he's a fourth. You know we can from now he's
Speaker 1: a fourth roe no farthest to the.
Speaker 2: Left, and I'm I'm fine with that because I've had
Speaker 2: to go the other way and there was a miscommunication
Speaker 2: and that that's not what we want. We do not
Speaker 2: want to shoot the wrong ram. It's happened for Frank
Speaker 2: in the past, but luckily it was still illegal ram,
Speaker 2: so there was no issue. It's just the big one
Speaker 2: got away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and we could. We even went as far
Speaker 1: as confirming like look at his right horn, see how
Speaker 1: it kind of spins, you know, yeah, really curls out.
Speaker 1: And so we made sure, all right, now he's looking left. Yep,
Speaker 1: he's looking left, you know, just probably way over the top.
Speaker 1: We knew a tram was which one after about two clues,
Speaker 1: but we went to you know, six and seven, just
Speaker 1: to make sure we and then we agreed. We were
Speaker 1: literally shooting straight down on his back like it was
Speaker 1: that steep we you know, he was betted. We had
Speaker 1: a little bit of an angle, but it was, you know,
Speaker 1: pretty pretty vertical of a shot. Yes, yes, So the
Speaker 1: wind was I don't know, a constant ten or fifteen,
Speaker 1: maybe with some gusts to twenty at that point in
Speaker 1: the morning. Maybe a little less, yeah, fifteen.
Speaker 2: It was worse up on top of the ridge.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: And then we dropped but yeah, no, I yeah, so
Speaker 1: we I mean no more the vitals were we were
Speaker 1: you know, I held it. I thought two inches to
Speaker 1: the right of the spine where I wanted to hit
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna eat some humble pie here eat crow.
Speaker 1: You know a guy that prides himself in shooting. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to make any excuses besides the rest or something.
Speaker 1: I got to make some excuse. But first shot at
Speaker 1: one whatever it was, one eighty five, one ninety. I
Speaker 1: somehow what I thought was a good squeeze. I'd even
Speaker 1: we're so close. I moved my scope to sixteen. Watching
Speaker 1: the footage. Unless the bullets goes like it looks like
Speaker 1: it hits out to the left and maybe up towards
Speaker 1: his head, elevating and elevation.
Speaker 2: It to me, it's what the footage it looked.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks like a miss.
Speaker 2: He shot high yep, miss.
Speaker 1: So all right, you know you you reload. We got
Speaker 1: different ways to communicate. We're trying to figure out which
Speaker 1: one's him. Now that they've all ran together and kind
Speaker 1: of bunched.
Speaker 2: Up, they all jumped up from the bed position.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and me thinking I had hit it because you
Speaker 1: heard the flop, But evidently it was. That's what it
Speaker 1: sounds like. One of their bullet goes into dirt and
Speaker 1: rock one of the bigger ram that we I thought
Speaker 1: was the whole time, You thought was the whole time
Speaker 1: but we couldn't communicate on which one it was at times.
Speaker 1: Finally put its head down, like either to sniff the
Speaker 1: ground or to you know. Yeah, and we agreed, like
Speaker 1: all right, he just dropped his head, you know, one
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty. Now I had a good broadside shot
Speaker 1: and hit him perfect, hit both lungs as well as
Speaker 1: kind of shocked the spine. So it's kind of the
Speaker 1: perfect perfect everything. You know, killed and you went down.
Speaker 2: And uh and and fouled up.
Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah, he listened to Matt's commands, the please please
Speaker 1: stay still. So he actually died on an amazing spot
Speaker 1: for you know, the country that he was in.
Speaker 2: Just to seat still, well, you wanted a life sized hide.
Speaker 2: So had he rolled, he was going to have some
Speaker 2: rock dings, I no doubt about it. But he stayed
Speaker 2: in the little grass patch he was in, and you
Speaker 2: know it was perfect, good for butchering everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, great, great spot to take care of him. You know. Uh,
Speaker 1: I've always said like the wanton waste rules and and
Speaker 1: Alaska always make me nervous. It's what we should all
Speaker 1: be doing anyways, but like whose interpretation? And I can
Speaker 1: guarantee you that there was less than one percent red
Speaker 1: meat left on that carcass when we left, like two
Speaker 1: of the bloodshot ribs. I think we're about all that
Speaker 1: was left. Everything else we ri rolled off. We pulled
Speaker 1: every piece of meat off. The little thing is what
Speaker 1: everybody should be doing.
Speaker 2: And I can contribute that to my mother. She does
Speaker 2: not waste anything. She grew up on a dairy farm,
Speaker 2: butchered hogs and beef with the family and uh yeah,
Speaker 2: and uses a lot of stuff that the average person won't.
Speaker 2: I mean we packed out the nuts and the heart and.
Speaker 1: Kidney fat and yeah, the bottom jawn, kidney fat everything.
Speaker 1: So no, and it's we've we've been fortunate to have
Speaker 1: sheet meat, uh you know since we've got even some
Speaker 1: other sheet meat before we left, and it's been it's
Speaker 1: absolutely amazing, some amazing table fair. And so that then
Speaker 1: the pack out and one thing, you know, it was
Speaker 1: easy for me to train up, like I felt amazing
Speaker 1: the whole hike up, even though we did claim you know,
Speaker 1: two thousand yeah.
Speaker 2: Get winded, but still it wasn't horrible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we were. It was windy and we were
Speaker 1: dealing with that. But the downhill is what you can't
Speaker 1: train for. The steepness and the rocks of this downhill
Speaker 1: and so the pack out, you know, yeah, we had
Speaker 1: three guys, which is pretty fortunate, you know, the full
Speaker 1: but like downhill, like my legs they're not sore anymore.
Speaker 1: Where a couple of days removed from the hunt, but
Speaker 1: the next day like gosh, dang, you can't, you know,
Speaker 1: train for this. So if you if you're coming to
Speaker 1: Alaska on a sheep hunt, figure out some way to
Speaker 1: train your legs for going down. And I'm not making excuses,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to make an excuse. So I preface
Speaker 1: that I had had to carry my gun out, so
Speaker 1: I had to put my hiking pole away. And so
Speaker 1: there I am like running down the hill with you know,
Speaker 1: as we're packing this thing out and I can't stick
Speaker 1: in you yeah, and they held like there are a
Speaker 1: lot of I think I'm gonna start packing that all
Speaker 1: the time because there's a lot of elk and deer
Speaker 1: hunts where I put that hiking pole away, and I
Speaker 1: think it's gonna be just as light as they are
Speaker 1: in that nasty uneven trained their their life savers.
Speaker 2: Uh No, I in my early years, I didn't. We
Speaker 2: just carried our gun in our hand, and I used
Speaker 2: it as a cane or that, so beat the hell
Speaker 2: out of the stock. But h but now that I'm guiding, yeah,
Speaker 2: I you know, I carry a pick or ice axe,
Speaker 2: and if I didn't have it, yeah, I I'd go
Speaker 2: back to the house and get it. If I got
Speaker 2: to the trail head I didn't have it, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I need it that bad. I feel like I do.
Speaker 2: It's very helpful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's another thing. This is a pro tip if
Speaker 1: you're going to book a doll sheep hunt, make sure
Speaker 1: your guide uses an ice axe, not a walking stick.
Speaker 1: I think that that adds some credibility to their to
Speaker 1: their operation.
Speaker 2: Well, it's yeah, it comes in handy for other things.
Speaker 2: If I got a little excavation for a ten spot
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So we ended up we didn't really want
Speaker 1: to go back through the same path we had walked
Speaker 1: up that morning. Maybe not. I think it would have
Speaker 1: been plenty safe, but we just we elected to go
Speaker 1: down the rid instead of trying to go back through
Speaker 1: the yew.
Speaker 2: My age, I don't like to pack heavy loads up hill.
Speaker 2: If we can do a little side hilling down and
Speaker 2: around it, it's a little bit more time than effort. Then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we we circumnavigated the mountain on the pack out,
Speaker 1: pretty steep, but pretty easy going for the most part,
Speaker 1: made it down, you know, just like this crazy Lasco weather.
Speaker 1: The best the best six hours we had was that
Speaker 1: morning hunt and then the forty mile an hour little
Speaker 1: microburst and the rain all hit us. You're half flying
Speaker 1: into the basin, you know. So we we got to
Speaker 1: pack out in the rain the whole second half, and
Speaker 1: on our route back, we were able to dump the sheep,
Speaker 1: you know, so that we wouldn't have to pack the
Speaker 1: sheep all the way back to camp. We stayed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we didn't need to pack the sheep any meat
Speaker 2: any further and we had to, so we stashed it.
Speaker 1: And went gray Grizzly Bear didn't get.
Speaker 2: It in the middle of the night, and the chances
Speaker 2: you have to take.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then about an hour hour and a half,
Speaker 1: heke maybe back to camp. Decided to stay the night
Speaker 1: there and.
Speaker 2: Just relax from where the stashed the meat, yea.
Speaker 1: And then we're able to load it up next morning,
Speaker 1: kind of get up at our own pace. And the
Speaker 1: next morning was pretty ding. It was nice, right, We
Speaker 1: did get a nice hike out.
Speaker 2: Yeah he's an ikeap but it was drizzling now and then.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so yeah, it's tough to If you could
Speaker 1: draw up a sheep hunt, you may want to kill
Speaker 1: on like day seven of a hard hunt, right to
Speaker 1: get as much sheep hunting as you can. But it's
Speaker 1: awful tough. You know. We had a three day hunt,
Speaker 1: you know, really from start to finish. Yeah, and we
Speaker 1: were able to kill on day one.
Speaker 2: So sometimes you're lucky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say lucky, you know, some would say
Speaker 1: lucky would be killing the same ram on day seven
Speaker 1: or eight. But that starts to put pressure on you.
Speaker 1: I know, I'd be nervous, wrecked by about day three
Speaker 1: or four if you're hunting and like, haven't killed one yet.
Speaker 1: You've got hunters out there right now that they've been
Speaker 1: stuck in a tent for four days straight. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: that's the other option. Like, is that better than he
Speaker 1: killing on day one? No?
Speaker 2: No, And yeah, can't predict the weather, but we seem
Speaker 2: to get her done in seven days. Yep, lions willing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, it's a pretty good track record, you know.
Speaker 1: And I probably shouldn't say this, and and uh, you'll
Speaker 1: tell me if I shouldn't there, if you want to
Speaker 1: cut out. We were at the fishing game yesterday getting
Speaker 1: it plugged, and the older gentleman there, we went and
Speaker 1: looked to hit one of his giant moose in the
Speaker 1: place there, and uh, he's like, you know, fishing game,
Speaker 1: we can't really recommend guides and outfitters. But he's like,
Speaker 1: whoever told you to go with matter? However, you figured
Speaker 1: this guy out, like, you know, with the right one.
Speaker 1: So he's like, you know that that's a good testament
Speaker 1: to the operation match running. And they get to see
Speaker 1: all the sheep that come through this area. And so
Speaker 1: if you know, fishing game knows he's doing it right
Speaker 1: and and has there you know, the success he does. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a testament to the operation you're running in the success.
Speaker 2: Good word of mouth is always good. It's good to
Speaker 2: hear those positive stories.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. It's like I would, I would hang
Speaker 1: my hat on anybody that wants to sheep hunt with
Speaker 1: with Matt. He's as good as they get.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I just wish I had more opportunity to
Speaker 2: book the guys. You know, it's just I gotta call
Speaker 2: this now and it's just not enough sheep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, talking with Madam like you know, what
Speaker 1: shows do you go to? And he's like, I haven't
Speaker 1: had to go to a show in a while. Like
Speaker 1: it's all just word of mouth. That works easy. My
Speaker 1: overhead's lower, so I'll have to pay for these shows
Speaker 1: and go bs customers or clients.
Speaker 2: And honest, awesome, even when I did go to the
Speaker 2: show's word of mouth was better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, still got you more clients. So how do people
Speaker 1: find out about the operations? You know, you and your
Speaker 1: mom are running on the spring grizzly. You know you
Speaker 1: and you and your guys are running on on sheep.
Speaker 1: How you know websites are.
Speaker 2: Well, I have, we have some. We have a website.
Speaker 2: It needs updated of course all the time. But word
Speaker 2: of mouth is primary. Yeah, the folks still Frank does
Speaker 2: bronze art. They go to the shows, so they talk
Speaker 2: a little bit, even hunting, even though it's they're there
Speaker 2: for the and the booth for the bronze art. But
Speaker 2: and they've been doing it a long time, just with
Speaker 2: the bronze art, so everybody knows them and they know
Speaker 2: they hunt, and I'm associated with them, so that all helps.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So just your website and that what's your website again?
Speaker 2: The top management area dot com.
Speaker 1: Gotcha and you So you'll have people put in for
Speaker 1: special areas like the toke or the Delta is not yours,
Speaker 1: but you.
Speaker 2: Do apart it's not the delta, but not anymore, so
Speaker 2: we put in for the toke.
Speaker 1: And then you do have open unit hunts that you're
Speaker 1: booking out in the in the future, you know, a
Speaker 1: few years out. So if you're interested in doing an
Speaker 1: open sheep punt with Matt, feel free to get a
Speaker 1: hold of me or get a hold of him and
Speaker 1: I can pass on, you know, some contact after I
Speaker 1: you know, see see what you you know, where's the
Speaker 1: booking and how it goes? And uh, like I said,
Speaker 1: word of mouth is great. I actually will.
Speaker 2: Give me a call. I'll talk to you even if
Speaker 2: I don't got nothing to offer.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I I booked this hunt because my good buddy
Speaker 1: Chris Parrish Hauld come up and hunted with you in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. And I'd always had the sheep bug you.
Speaker 1: Everybody always asked me what my dream hunt. It was
Speaker 1: always a stone sheep, and then realized stone sheep aren't
Speaker 1: as affordable as all so let's switch to this. And
Speaker 1: so I switched I, you know, doll hunt and I
Speaker 1: talked to you in twenty twenty and one thing for me,
Speaker 1: not that it was important, but I'm like, well, how
Speaker 1: long until I could be the first hun of the year,
Speaker 1: you know. And and so I think that was twenty
Speaker 1: four was the first opening. And I think I had
Speaker 1: said I wanted to hunt with you specifically, so we
Speaker 1: we lined all that up and pushed it out to
Speaker 1: twenty four. And yeah, it was. It was a hunt
Speaker 1: of a lifetime. I wish we could have, you know,
Speaker 1: stretched it out to three or four, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, it would have been six or seven because
Speaker 1: the weather they've got. So I'll take I'll take the ramp.
Speaker 1: You know. It's a beautiful ram, you know, absolutely gorgeous,
Speaker 1: and a hunt of a lifetime, just a short hunt
Speaker 1: of a lifetime. So it was it was awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you coming on here. This is probably
Speaker 1: the first and last podcast you ever hear Matt do.
Speaker 2: So unfortunately that's highly likely.
Speaker 1: We've been joking with him that after he has this
Speaker 1: much fun, I'll probably start his own podcast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you heard Male's response.
Speaker 1: He just went.
Speaker 2: Probably not.
Speaker 1: So that's a wrap from the field here in Alaska.
Speaker 1: We've had an awesome time. I'm you know, Alaska is
Speaker 1: absolutely beautiful and I recommend everybody, you know, if it's
Speaker 1: in the cards or you can make it happen, come
Speaker 1: up to Alaska and kind of, you know, enjoy the
Speaker 1: what they've got to offer up here. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a crazy place to me. I can't still wrap my
Speaker 1: head around town being five or six hours away. You
Speaker 1: often to stay the night when you go to town,
Speaker 1: and if anything breaks down during the winter or at
Speaker 1: any time, you better know how to fix it. And
Speaker 1: so these uh it's it's kind of crazy just seeing
Speaker 1: the place around here like they are, uh in different world.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of tools around here, depending on
Speaker 2: if you're plumbing, wiring, you know, changing oil on the car,
Speaker 2: the airplan whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's fixing the airplanes, building new airplanes. You got
Speaker 1: it all. So no, it's it's been awesome. Really appreciate everything, Matt.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a hun I'd recommend to anybody, and
Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough for for everything. Sounds good.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining in the cutting the distance. Until next time,
Speaker 1: shoot straight and the it'll probably be middle elk season
Speaker 1: by time this this drops. I hope you all are
Speaker 1: having a luck out there on your elk hunts. M H.