I was surprised when my dad told me that I had drawn a Tok Alaska Dall sheep tag. I had one of six non-resident tags given out. My dad and I flew to Anchorage, and after the flight, we stayed at the Lakefront Hotel where we got to see all the bush planes fly in and out of Lake Hood.
The next day, we drove six hours to Tok, and once we got there, we started the hike in. After about three hours and just before dark, we set up camp and ate a nice Mountain House dinner. We hiked the remaining 17 miles the next day. After we got to our camping spot, we started to glass for rams and spotted three males. We set up camp and went to sleep.
The next day was the day before the season opened, so our guide, Brandon, and packer, Charlie, went to another spot to glass for rams while my dad and I glassed for sheep close to camp. We determined that one of the rams that we glassed the evening prior was a 9.5-year-old mature ram. We found him very close to the same place where my dad and my sister, Kenia, got a ram just three years prior. We made a plan for the next morning and then had dinner and went to sleep.
Early on opening morning, we walked up the mountain that overlooked the sheep and stayed up there in the clouds and fog for eight hours. However, we could not get a shot because the three rams kept disappearing. We got really cold and decided to head back down the mountain to our campsite just before dark. When we reached camp, we glassed back up the mountain and the three rams were in the exact spot where we had been sitting for eight hours. We decided to have dinner and get some sleep and then we planned to get up super early the next day and take a different approach to them in the morning.
On day two, we walked up a much steeper mountain. Once we reached the top, we eased up on our bellies to look over the edge where we thought the rams were likely to be. They were right there at 275 yards! I got the Gunwerks 7mm lined up, and it was no problem shooting the sheep. I hit both lungs with one shot, and the ram did not go 20 yards before he fell over stone dead. My guide, Brandon from Freelance Outfitters, was the packer on my sister Kenia’s ram hunt three years prior, and since we both took super rams in almost the same spot, he named the valley/drainage “Link Creek.”
By the time we had the ram all skinned out and we had taken pictures, it was 1:00 p.m. We then made the pack down to spike camp. We had a relaxing evening around camp and stayed another night in the tent. When the morning came, we packed up our backpacks and started our 17-mile hike out. At around noon, we started through the thickest part of the hike out and I stepped on a ground hornet nest and got stung four times in the face! I am allergic to bees, but luckily, we had allergy medicine.
After we got to the truck back at the Alaska Highway, I had a little snack. We were just 15 miles from Tok, so we did not have a long car ride. We stayed the night at a small hotel and then drove back to Anchorage. We stopped at Lance Kronberger’s house and unpacked all of the gear and took care of the meat and trophy. Due to Coronavirus, the restaurants had closed while we were in the mountains, so we had to have a celebration dinner with all the guides and the other hunter (Josh Martello from Wyoming) in the lobby of the Lakefront Hotel.
I am very lucky to have drawn this tag and that my dad took me on this hunt. Huntin’ Fool really treats us kids great because they put us in for all the applications my dad puts in for, and they do it for free! Freelance Outdoor Adventures did a great job guiding me to my first ram, a Dall sheep. I have always chosen hunting over video games and have grown up in a hunting family. In my opinion, it is very important to take your kids hunting.
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