Tundra's First Sheep Hunt

Sorry everyone, there isn't much of a public version again this year. In summary, it was an amazing and successful sheep hunt. The success wasn't based off of dropping a sheep (that didn't happen), the success was determined by the memories I made with one my best buddies. 

Here are a few tidbits related to hunting with Tundra:

My sheep hunt this year was going to be a little different. I didn’t want a hunting partner because I missed the solidarity of a solo hunt, not depending on anyone, and making all the decisions. On top of this, I have been wanting to take Tundra on a sheep hunt with me for quite a while. Not committing to a sheep hunt with anyone and Tundra’s growing age made this the perfect time to take him on his first sheep hunt. So that was the plan… me and Tundra heading after sheep in the mountains come fall 2020.

On top of me getting in shape, I now needed to get Tundra ready for a mountain hunt. He needed to get in appropriate mountain hiking shape, used to a heavy pack on his back, quiet when he saw animals, and completely obedient at all times.

Tundra is 10 years old, so he isn’t a young pup anymore. I worked hard with Tundra over the summer to prepare him (actually both of us) for the challenge. Getting him in shape was easy. The most difficult part was getting him used to the weight on his back and hiking long distances with it. Tundra suffered a rear, right leg injury in late spring after chasing a tennis ball. This injury had the tendency to flare up and result in a limp after a good session of fetch or a long weighted hike where he started running at some point. I couldn’t put weight on his back when he was hurt, and I had to make sure he was healed before I reintroduced it. I also had to work extra hard to prevent him from running when he had the pack on his back.

The training paid off well. He was physically fit, at a great weight, wasn’t barking when he saw wildlife, and followed commands perfectly. Tundra was trained to follow directly behind or in front of me, depending on the situation. He would also sit/lay and stay for as long as I wanted him to, even if I left his sight. We had hand signals for all of these commands too. This obedience was key for the sheep hunt.

A couple weeks before the hunt, it was unknown if Tundra would be up to tagging along on the hunt due to his nagging leg limp. It wasn’t until a couple days prior to leaving that I felt comfortable taking him with. I was confident his health was in the right place and his presence wouldn’t impact the hunt’s outcome.

Challenges of Hunting with Tundra (A Reflection)

Hunting for sheep is the ultimate hunting challenge in Alaska. Doing it as a walk-in, solo, without any intel makes a successful sheep hunt even more challenging. Add a dog to the mix and the difficulty raises to another level. Below is a list of challenges I experienced adding Tundra in the mix of sheep hunting.

-    I had to pack a bigger tent to fit both of us. A bigger tent meant more weight to pack. Normally if a bigger tent is packed for a pair of hunters, they can share the weight; that wasn’t possible with Tundra.

-    Tundra had no way of staying dry if it rained, he crossed a creek, or brushed up against wet foliage. Knowing this, Tundra could have been soaked at night before getting in the tent. As a result, I had to pack a small towel to assist in drying him off (extra weight). I also had to take a synthetic sleeping bag in case his wet body got my sleeping bag wet. Not being able to take my down sleeping bag meant more weight on my back from using the synthetic bag.

-    To make sure I kept control of Tundra the entire time, he wore his shock collar while hiking. Although I only used it once, it was a necessary item to ensure I had control over him and could correct his impulsiveness (don't worry, I don't electrocute him, it makes audible noises too). Wearing the transmitter around my neck the entire time was both awkward and added extra weight.

-    You can’t tell a dog to drink extra water and prepare for an extended time without it. I could hydrate and load up on water when I knew the upcoming conditions needed it, but communicating this need to Tundra was not possible. To encourage it, I would stop at a creek or drinking puddle for an extended period of time and Tundra would drink more as he settled down and grew tired of me keeping him in one area.

-    Tundra’s pack was bright red! This was an eyesore, and I probably should have tried to spray paint it a different color.

-    Tundra’s hair is light blonde. This made him extremely visible and stuck out among the mountain. If the sun was out, his hair shined and reflected the rays to make him look like a moving beacon.

-    Dogs stink, especially when wet. Scent is one thing you try to control when hunting, but I couldn’t control Tundra’s stench. I bathed him before we left, but his added smell could pose a problem trying to sneak up on game.

-    I had to ensure I knew where he was at all times and had him completely under control the entire time. This got difficult when I was staring in my binoculars or spotting scope, or I was concentrating on hiking safely, or my attention was on sheep.

-    A house dog’s paws are not made for hiking countless miles in the high mountains on scree, shale, and sharp mountain rocks. His paws and pads held up well, but I can only imagine how it felt having those rocks jam into his webbing and pads. I packed dog booties (extra weight) but was only going to use them his paws needed added protection because they would likely reduce traction.

-    Tundra isn’t used to being active for the entire day. Tundra typically sleeps and rests most of the day. Although we went on some long hikes when we trained, there really wasn’t a way to prepare him for consecutive days of never sleeping during the day. This contributed to his fatigue after a long day of hiking.

-    A young pup would have completed the hunt with ease compared to a decade old dog. Tundra already had a bummed, rear, right leg. Although he was in good enough shape to complete the hunt, his nagging injury didn’t help and made several appearances.

-    Dog food is heavy. For me, I have a variety of food I can chose from, and as a result, I take very dense food for efficient weight to calorie ratios. This isn’t possible with dogs. They have sensitive stomachs and changing their food, especially on a demanding trip, is a stomach disaster waiting to happen. We were stuck with his typical food. This food is heavy, bulky, and is not calorie dense.

-    Hiking on steep mountain sides was difficult. If he was below me, I would kick rocks at him that could potentially hit him. I actually have no idea how he didn’t get clobbered a handful of times. I preferred him walking on the upside of the mountain. Although he couldn’t warn me about rocks he kicked lose, at least I knew to try and dive out of the way.

-    You can’t tell a dog to hold their pee or poop. Dogs go to the bathroom whenever and wherever. This can be difficult when scent control is needed for not spooking game.

-    Tundra loves to bark and chase things, especially marmots. Marmots and animals were everywhere but he displayed amazing control.

-    Last, taking care of the dog is an added task that isn’t needed during a typical hunt. The assistance isn’t reciprocated; Tundra never helped around camp!

Hunting with Tundra was amazing. Yes we didn’t bring home a ram, but the hunt was a success. I wanted to make memories with my buddy in the mountains before he got too old to hike and explore with me. For this goal, we succeeded; bringing home a ram would have been icing on the cake. The hunt was rough on him, so I’m not sure we will do another mountain hunt together. Regardless, I will keep taking him with me to do as much as possible until it isn’t possible any longer. 

We Aren’t in the Midwest Anymore

 Danielle constantly tells me I’m too trustworthy, and she is right. We are opposite with how much she locks things and secures items. She rightfully gets upset when I don’t lock things. I don’t think this is because I’m lazy or don’t care about my things, I blame it on my Midwest roots being difficult to part with.  I always said it will likely bite me in the butt one day, and that day finally came.

Our garage door recently broke and it was a pain in the booty to open and shut manually. Danielle couldn’t do it herself so only I was able to move it. We had the garage door guy scheduled to come out and fix the door the following Monday morning.

On Saturday, I moved my work office from the garage to our room. I also started packing for my upcoming sheep hunt. After dinner, I was planning on packing more and tidying up the garage, however, that didn’t happen. Ashton LOVES to cuddle and he convinced me to engage in an extended cuddling session, AKA, lay and hold him all night while he sleeps.

Danielle woke me up and asked if I was going back in the garage, to which I told her, YES. She said she would shut the door, but didn’t know how. Well, I never made it back to the garage that night and slept all night on the couch with Ashton.

The next morning, I went to work in the garage. While packing for my sheep hunt, I couldn’t find Kevin’s spotting scope I borrowed for the caribou hunt. I also couldn’t find my binoculars. I was sure I placed both of these things on the table in the garage, but I couldn’t find them anywhere. Luckily, I have a security camera in the garage so I decided to check the footage.

Sure enough, the spotting scope and binoculars were right where I left them the day prior. As I fast forwarded through the footage, a cat was seen snooping in the garage. At 4AM, a group of guys on bikes were seen in the street, and one of them entered the garage! My stomach dropped when I realized I was watching my garage get robbed.

This guy was masked so there was nothing to identify him with. He entered the garage and helped himself to the ala cart of hunting and fishing items I had on display after unpacking from our recent outing and packing for the upcoming hunt. He quickly found the spotting scope, binoculars, my fishing tackle, a revolver, my camera, GPS, and many other items. He was in our garage less than 5 minutes, but in that time, we swiped over $6k worth of items. Luckily, he was the only one in the gang that picked through the garage and since he was on a bike, he couldn’t take carry too much.

I immediately called the police and showed them the footage. We found the places he touched, but they were unable to pull any prints. The police report was filed and an investigator was assigned the case since the value of items was over $5k and a felony occurred (stolen gun).

After the police stopped by, I filed a claim with my Home Owners insurance and completed those tedious steps. After a $1k deductible and $1k in depreciation, insurance will help replace the missing items by writing a $4k check.

Luckily we were able to recover the tackle box back pack. I write our phone number on most things, and when the thieves decided they couldn’t sell any of the fishing tackle, they dumped the pack next to a trail. A random guy found the pack, called my cell, and we set up a time to recover the pack. Although the pack may not have been the most expensive item, it was the one item I was the happiest to get back simply because of all the tackle I have accumulated over the years and how specific the inserts were for certain species.  

Here's the video of the crime:

Family Caribou Hunt

I have been looking forward to this hunt for many months. The 2020 caribou season was the first time the Harris family would go on a hunt together, with nobody else. I was excited about the opportunity to get away from work, go camping in the cab-over camper, expose Ashton and Josie to harvesting a caribou, hunt for ptarmigan, fish for grayling, putting meat in our freezer, help our neighbor fill their freezer, and most of all… spend some good quality family time together.

August 10 marked the start of caribou season. We would only have a couple days to hunt due to the need to get home to open Kinder Ready Kids for the start of the school year on the 13^th. This limited our hunting time drastically, but it was plenty of time to get the job done.

We decided to get to the hunting area on the 7^th to setup and get acclimated prior to opening day on the 10^th. We got to our camping spot late on the first night so we only had time to watch a movie and go to sleep.

We gladly slept in the next morning since we didn’t have anything we truly needed to do by any certain time. We eventually got around and started our day outside. We packed a lunch for the day, the fishing gear, and headed out on the ATVs to explore the area and get a feel for our hunting day options. During our ride, I gazed up at the mountain and saw a couple caribou hiking the ridge… this was a great sign for the upcoming hunt opener. The trail was in great condition and easy to ride. Unfortunately, a silly beaver decided to dam up a creek which flooded the trail and prevented us from exploring about 5 miles of it. Ashton was curious about the beaver lodge and dam so we explored this area a bit and decided to have lunch here as well.

If you know Ashton, you are likely aware of his obsession with catching “baby fish”. He could spend his entire summer trying to catch fish with his net, putting them in a bucket, and just playing with them (Josie is starting to catch that obsession too). Of course, that’s what he wanted to do at some point. We couldn’t find a pool of water with minnows, so we stopped at a lake and tried our hand at fishing. I hooked into a couple grayling and gave Ashton one to keep in his bucket; the plan was to cook it over the fire later.

Rain looked like it was moving in so we decided to pack up and head back to the camper. After about 30 minutes of riding, a cold blast of air hit us, signaling inevitable rain. We sped up as the skies started dumping on us. We got back to the camper 10 minutes later and were glad to have a comfortable place to warm up and dry off in. This was the first time we took a camper with us hunting and we admit that we are now spoiled by the luxury!

It rained for the rest of the night and we just watched movies, wrestled, played dinosaurs, and snacked.

The next day was more of the same… no real plan except have fun and prepare for opening day. I spent a good part of the day looking through the binoculars and spotting scope at the mountain side. Of the many hours I was glassing, I only saw one caribou. I was able to center it in the spotting scope and show Ashton. He was very excited to see his first caribou!

I took a .22 pellet, pump action rifle with to introduce Ashton to shooting a more realistic gun. We reviewed gun safety and expectations. He understands to always act like the gun is loaded and to never point it at anything he doesn’t plan to shoot.  This was his first experience with a rifle type gun so we spent some time going over the proper way to hold a rifle, where to place it on the shoulder, how to use the safety, trigger finger placement, using the sights, breathing, and aiming. HE ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT! He was a good little shooter too. I have a feeling he will be reminding me about this shooting session many times, and likely convince me to set it up in the backyard (which I will gladly oversee).

Our task at hand for the day… find baby fish to catch. We jumped on the ATVs and headed down to the creek. We quickly found a couple slack water creeks with minnows in them. The minnows were FAST and smart. Any time Ashton would get close to them, they would hide under rocks. If he took a net swipe at them, he would always come up empty handed. DAD TO THE RESCUE! I had to be sneaky and hide behind bushes next to the water for a while, but finally got a good swipe at a rising minnow. Dad 1, Minnows 0. I placed the minnow in Ashon’s bucket and he was excited.

The score eventually became Dad 1 Minnows 15 because these things were incredibly elusive. I finally notched a second point in my column eventually but that’s all I could manage with these speedy minnow missiles.

I then turned my focus to bigger fish. We found a couple holes with grayling in them and Ashton gladly landed my fish in his net. He wasn’t able to fly fish but was perfectly happy being the netter.

Once again, rain was moving in and we retreated back to the camper for the night. The plan for opening day was to ride ATVs about 2 miles in, walk about a mile up to a plateau, and hang out there for the day while we look for roaming caribou around us.

Around 7PM a car pulls into the camping area. Two people get out, grab their packs and rifles, and hit the trail on foot. It turns out they went exactly where we were planning on spending opening day as a family. They set up a tent and claimed the area… bummer!

I told Danielle that if it’s raining and the weather is bad, we won’t need go get up early. We were going to be fair weather hunters this trip. The key to getting kids hooked on and enjoy anything outdoors is to make sure they have fun. Kids don’t have fun if they are cold, wet, hungry, or tired. The last thing I wanted to do was push Ashton and Josie to hunt in the rain and cold after waking up early. This would surely drive them to dislike hunting in the future. I would much rather not shoot anything and have them love the experience instead of shooting two caribou and them hating every moment of it.

I woke up at 5AM the next morning and it was pouring rain. Regardless, I spent some time outside glassing the terrain. Around 6AM I spotted a single caribou on a ridge right next to the ATV trail. I told Danielle if saw something in the morning while glassing, I was going to go after it without them… and that is what I did. I could hear a group of people on the road getting ready to go in for the day, so I quickly got everything together that I needed and hit the ATV trail before others could get in front of me.

I was looking everywhere for the caribou as I approached the spot I last saw him. Normally, I would stop well short and then quietly approach the last known spot, but I was not able to do this knowing a group of hunters were close behind me. I rode my ATV all the way to the last known location; I looked hard, but he was nowhere to be seen. This surprised me because typical caribou behavior is for them to spook, run away, and stop many times on different high points to look back and gaze at the thing that spooked them. This guy simply vanished; lucky for him though.

I spent the next hour in the rain looking for the ghost caribou or any others in the area. I came up empty handed and decided to head back to the camper. On my way out I passed a different hunting group on their way in. I gave them the intel on the caribou and they took over the spot I was just at.

The rest of the family eventually woke up. I told them my story and we decided to simply hang out at the camper until is stopped raining. Well, it never stopped raining; it was wet and gloomy the entire day! On top of the bad weather, the clouds were low and made looking for caribou extremely difficult too. Despite the conditions, we witnessed 6 different parties with a total of 15 people that entered the area to hunt for caribou. That was a bunch of people in such a small area, with little to no signs of caribou.

With no end in sight for the rain, we simply hung out at the camper. At one point, I looked up at the mountain side and noticed the couple on the plateau had a bunch of white objects laying on the ground… those were game bags! The pair bagged a caribou in the rain. I would later find out it was the caribou I saw earlier that morning, and the only one they likely saw. Apparently, my ATV ride to intercept the morning caribou resulted in me driving it directly to them. Talk about being in the right place at the right time.

Often times when caribou hunting, straggler caribou are seen running by camp. We were hoping this would happen at some point.

The day ended as it started… wet, windy, cold, and caribou-less.

I was able to get service enough to check the forecast for the next day. Unfortunately, it was going to be colder with more rain throughout the day. Instead of simply staying at the camper, I proposed to Danielle a plan for me and Tundra to head off on foot, in the rain, to find caribou while she hung out at the camper with the kids. She agreed.

I woke up at 5AM again the next morning. There were no caribou in sight so Tundra and I set off on the ATV. We parked a couple miles in and began our hike through the tundra toward the mountains. We made our way over the plateau and to the top of a pass between a couple mountain ranges. There was a fair amount of caribou sign, with droppings and foot prints in many areas.

Tundra and I made ourselves comfortable on top of the pass to watch the vast amount of ground for any movement and caribou in the area. It was still pouring rain and not the most fun sitting still and waiting. We didn’t see anything for a couple hours. This was extremely disappointing, but it was obvious the caribou were far from this area. I then told myself that I would look one last time in my binoculars and if I didn’t see any caribou, we would return to the ridge above the plateau, closer to camp. I didn’t see any caribou on this last gaze, but two white objects caught my eye. Yes, I saw two sheep!

The sheep were too far away to tell if they were legal, but I could tell they were rams by the faint hardware on the white background of their heads. I looked over at Tundra and told him the caribou aren’t here yet, and then asked what he thought about turning this into a sheep hunt? It was about noon at this time. I had close to a three to four hour hike ahead of us to get around the mountain and above them. Considering the possibility that one was legal and I dropped it, I would need to spend an exposed night on the mountain and get out the next morning. I told Danielle that I planned to be back that night and to not worry or send a search team unless she didn’t hear back from me by 7AM the next day… with that time in mind, this mission was possible. The caribou hunt just turned into a sheep hunt.

We made our way toward the valley of the mountain ridge they were in. The plan was to walk the valley down, sidehill a little to not lose too much elevation, circle around the ridge to the bottom of the valley, and approach from the start of the ridge to get above them. As we were close to the base of the valley, we noticed a lone ram through the clouds at the very top of the ridge heading higher on the mounting.

It didn’t take too long to cover the valley, but the hard part was going to be hiking to the top of the mountain. We were now out of site of the rams and the clouds had dropped low enough to cover the entire mountain. It took a while to get to the top of the ridge, but once we got there, the clouds started to periodically clear with patches of visibility every once and a while. I didn’t realize it at first, but it turns out I got fairly disoriented in the clouds. This has never happened to me before, but the ridge I was peaking over was not the ridge I thought it was. Only when I looked at my GPS did I realize I wasn’t where I thought. This was an extremely weird feeling to have, especially since I consider myself a good navigator. If I didn’t have the GPS, I would have likely got lost, or traveled far out of my way before realizing I was off course.

After regaining my bearings, we walked the ridge to get above the rams. Once at the spot I thought the sheep were at, we slowly made our way down the mountain to intercept them. The problem with this plan was… it didn’t work. The sheep were nowhere to be found. I’m not sure if my valley hiking spooked them and the ram that was high on the ridge was one of the two I spotted earlier, if they were in a different spot on the mountain and I pushed them out while hiking in the clouds, or if they just decided to leave for no reason. Either way, there was no way to tell if the rams were legal because there was nothing to judge.

Bummed, we decided to explore a little more before making the long journey back toward the camper. We walked the ridge a little further before descending the mountain, climbing the valley, and backtracking through the pass.

The clouds started to disappear and the sun was poking through. I decided I would check out one last ridge with a great view of miles of tundra to the east before heading all the way back to the camper. Tundra and I got to the ridge by the pass just as the sun came out in full force. We were both extremely tired, overheating, and needed a break. We stopped at the ridge to look for caribou, get a snack, look for some caribou, and take a break before heading back.

Surprise surprise, there were no caribou anywhere. I did see one caribou from this glassing spot… the dead caribou the couple shot the day prior. It was about 200 yards below us and an eagle was taking advantage of the scraps left behind.

We tucked our tails between our legs and started the final leg back to the ATV. On the way, we noticed a huge wall cloud creeping toward us, dumping heavy rain on everything in its path. We knew we weren’t going to make it back before the weather got bad, so I put on my rain gear and prepared for the added insult to injury from the unsuccessful hunt.

The skies opened on us before we got the ATV. We were instantly soaked from the down pour and brush busting. It didn’t matter though… we would have a warm and dry place to retreat to. With that to look forward to, we pushed on and eventually made it to the ATV. Instead of switching in to my heavy-duty rain, riding clothes, I opted to remain in my wet hiking clothes.

We made it back to the camper a little after dinner time. I changed into dry clothes, had Danielle crank the heater, put Tundra on the fold down, and got our dinner ready. After a warm meal, we were beat and ready for bed.

We weren’t planning to hunt the next day, so after slept in a bit, we started tearing down camp. We were hopeful to see a wondering caribou while preparing to leave, or even on the way out. Again, no luck. That’s OK though, even though we weren’t successful caribou hunting, it was a great time spent camping with family. 

Tundra claimed his spot under the trailer. 

Our accommodations... This cab over camper has been amazing. It was one of the best investments I have made to improve and expand out reach in Alaska.

Glassing for caribou

This dude is too cool

Riding dirty

I'm not sure how she could sleep with how bumpy the riding was.

Mountains overlooking valley of beaver infested streams

Ashton found an old bull caribou skull.

Lunch time

Cheesers

Grayling galore

Josie was obsessed with holding and handling this fish. It was a bad hook so it wasn't going to live anyway. It came back with us to be cooked over the fire. 

Teaching Ashton to shoot the pellet gun. He loved it!

He eventually got the hang of it. The gun shoots a little low. 

Catching baby fish!

Ashton catching grayling. 

There was no shortage of wind!

This was the breakfast routine... donuts, pastries, bacon, and a cartoon show

Pooping with a view

This is the aftermath of Ashton's black eye. He had a nasty fall in the middle of an intersection after holding on to tundra's collar and being pulled straight to the pavement. He got a massive shiner from it. The bruising was going away but you can see how bad it was. 

Ashton doesn't care when Josie climbs all over him.

These birds, I mean mosquitos, were everywhere.

Good form son

Dork

Dinosaurs and coloring

Glassing for caribou. I'm standing on the camper and Josie is focusing on the valley below. 

If the orange doesn't let you know we are in the area, this girls voice will!

The next few pics are from Tundra and I's attempt to find caribou. This is the top of the pass between the mountains looking back toward the road (far in back of the pic). 

Looking down the other side of the pass

A view down the backside of the ridge the rams were on

Tundra was so excited to find snow! He rubbed, rolled, and slid down a snow hill multiple times until I told him we had to go. 

I found the weirdest thing... four of these poles on top of the ridge. 

There certainly was plenty of rain to sustain this waterfall.

Tundra chased a fox on our way back to the camper.

Tundra is watching the fox climb the mountain.

He was pooped!

I found a couple small caribou sheds at the top of the mountain when going for the sheep. They were the perfect size for the kids. 

This could would eat jerky for every meal if he could...

... one minute later