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