Our year started off in May with a 100% successful spring brown bear season, with all five of our hunters harvesting big bears in the 10ft + class!
In August we operated in two of our three Dall Sheep areas. The weather wasn’t terribly cooperative during the first hunt period, and we lost a bit over 50% of our available hunting days due to low clouds / poor visibility but one of our hunters capitalized on it and got a great Barren Ground Caribou bull. In one of the areas the rams weren’t where they typically are, so it took us until the middle of August to find them but find them we did and one of our two hunters, who was well prepared mentally and physically for the demanding challenges of a Dall Sheep hunt, harvested a beautiful, 13 yr old ram! The other hunter, despite plenty of time to train, unfortunately was not physically prepared for a remote, backpacking Dall Sheep hunt so was never able to really make it into the mountain. In our other area many legal rams were spotted, one hunter missed a good shot on a nice ram, another unfortunately shot the wrong ram, one was hunting a particular ram and just couldn’t close the distance to less than about 600 yards and our final hunter was able to harvest a nice ram on the last day of his epic hunting adventure with us!
We had planned to guide two hunters for Arctic Grizzly and Caribou in September but one day before his arrival date, one hunter was forced to cancel their hunt so one of my guides and I did a reverse 2×1 (two guides with one hunter). Our hunter’s primary goal was to harvest a nice Arctic Grizzly and after missing a broadside shot at 200 yards they connected about a week later on a beautiful Arctic Grizzly!
I finished the season helping a close guide friend of mine guide a childhood friend of mine to a beautiful 6.5 yr old Mountain Goat on Kodiak Island, where we experienced unusually nice weather!
