Sheep hunts are one-on-one fully guided, fair chase backpack hunts. Our focus is to travel by foot to remote drainages within the hunt area, targeting older rams (+10yrs). This ensures low impact, high success rates, and a world-class experience in a remote wilderness unaltered by humans.

We take pride in our true backpack sheep hunts traveling long-range, no trace, expedition, progressive, almost never sleeping in the same spot for more than one night. You and your guide will determine the path of least resistance!

We specialize in the “Arctic Slam”, a multiple species hunt, where you can backpack a watershed hunting trophy Dall Sheep while also having an excellent opportunity at Barren Ground Caribou and Arctic Grizzly. With sights set on an “Arctic Grand Slam” consisting of the addition of a wolf.

You and your guide will be strategically placed in an area that gives you the best chance for obtaining your primary species hunted. Your guide is a licensed professional and your partner on the hunt. He is a woodsman helping with all facets of the hunt including but not limited to glassing, knowledge of species hunted, knowledge of the area, judging trophies, strategies of stalking, shooting, butchering, and preparation of your trophy.

Each individual on the hunt rests their soul and restores their energy in a quality Hilliberg Soulo. Nourishment will be a combination of freeze dried meals and precooked vacuum sealed meats along with the high protein foods expected on a remote backpack hunt such as jerky, trail mix, cheese and dried fruit. The plan is to pack for 1 1/2 lbs. of food per person per day.

Below is a short synopsis of an average sheep hunt and what a client should experience with Big Game Backcountry Guides.

After arriving at Shublik and meeting the crew, the hunter will be teamed up with their guide and together they will come up with a plan for the hunt. The entire hunt is a team effort that actively involves the hunter. Together, the hunter and guide, will go through gear, food, maps and discuss what is expected. Things considered while making the plan are personal goals, the status of access strips in the current conditions, weather, physical ability, water crossings, animal movements, and options of extraction.

While at Shublik guides and clients will enjoy a sit-down full-course family-style meal. Wild game meat from the field will be the staple of most meals. After eating good food, a solid plan is formed, and all paperwork is done (hunt records and tags), the hunt begins! The guide and client will fly out of Shublik in the back seat of a Super Cub.

When out in the field weather is always at the forefront of our minds and is the wild card. It is a great time of year to travel through the Brooks Range but we have to be prepared for anything. Weather is always unpredictable therefore our hunts will be flexible. Acts of nature are logistically made easier with patient people. Hunters should expect weather delays at least on one end of their trip and two or three days of poor visibility in the course of a 10-day hunt. With that being said, hunters should allow extra time before and after hunts for flight delays.

Our packs will be approximately 60lbs each. This will allow the guide to carry an additional 100lbs of game meat out and the hunter 50lbs of cape and horns. If needed loads can be shuttled by foot or carried in one big push depending on the distance. Air support will be utilized for pick up on a braided gravel bar when possible. Airplanes can drop a packer in to help shuttle depending on availability, weather, and location.

From the strip, you will head on foot for a drainage running perpendicular with the main valley and make a climb with full packs. It is usually necessary to get above 5,000 feet in elevation at the first of the season to find bands of older rams. These older rams favor rock outcroppings that allow good visibility with “salad bowls” close by for feeding.

We travel slow and steady, stopping at most small creeks to take packs off, glass for animals, and drink water. Usually, we pick a route where we can gain elevation and hold it traversing our way through high passes and looking into upper bowls. We should cover approximately 5 air miles a day depending on the terrain.

We should expect to see grizzly and caribou in our course of travel. Caribou can be abundant but are unpredictable. There will be signs of wolves, wolverines, foxes, and other smaller animals. We will occasionally see muskox. At the lower elevations where green food is abundant, we should see nursery herds of sheep, consisting mostly of lambs and ewes. The general rule of thumb is rams are located 1,000 vertical feet up above ewes and lambs. This is a great way to travel and experience this wilderness unchanged and an ecosystem unaltered over thousands of years.

We will utilize maps to set goals for overnights, looking for places that are good glassing points with a good water source. We look for small level and hard surface benches that are dry and that drain surface water well (gravelly). These benches are great to set up camp on. They usually provide shelter from the wind and are out of direct view from animals.

We set camp in the evening while the light is still good for glassing. We boil water that has been stored in platypus bladders collected from springs throughout the climb for meals and a hot drink.

We spend a lot of time behind binoculars and a spotting scope glassing from camp. While glassing we will be talking about situations (bear safety, sheep stalks, and shot placement) that we will be expecting to encounter so that we are prepared for what lies ahead. All the while teaching animal traits and sharing old stories, mentally readying the hunter for the quest they have begun.

We will be surveying everything; I call it “taking inventory”, a mental note of our surroundings. Camping high has a lot of advantages. The dew settles lower in the drainages and air movement up high keeps gear dry. We have great visibility for spotting animals and a lookout for traveling bears. At higher elevations, the morning sun hits earlier, warming and drying things out. Morning light is generally best for glassing far distances because dust particles have settled overnight and the sun is low on the horizon giving an alpenglow, illuminating animals. Being high also allows glassing at first and last light while animals are up and moving. On foul weather days with poor visibility, we might spend time looking for grizzlies and caribou to hunt at lower elevations.

If you can carry a pack, climb, and shoot you will have an excellent hunt “Let the hunt Unfold!”

In the morning after glassing, eating, and drinking something warm, we’ll gather all of our gear and head out for the day with no reason to return to that spot. We will continue hunting like this until we find the ram we are looking for. We average 3 days of hunting in this way and look at many rams before finding the one we are after.

The key to hunting large old rams is to pass on the 8-year-old sheep, travel further, and hunt harder. Large rams are not always by a large population of sheep; many times they are loaners. With this attitude, it is just a matter of time before we will break into new drainage holding the ram we have been looking for. In the meanwhile, we will be experiencing everything the arctic has to offer and throw at us.

After locating a mature ram to harvest we will plan a stock. With patience and a carefully planned and executed stalk, we aim to be within 200 yards of the ram for the shot.

After the successful harvest of the ram, time is then spent taking photos, field dressing the animal, prepping the cape, and putting meat in game bags. This is an integral part of the hunt.

While in the field we will keep the meat in game bags stored out of the sun on big flat rocks. The rocks stay cold and are clean. If the temperatures are very warm, we can cover it with tundra moss and put it in the shade.

We will come up with our best extraction plan and then descend down from the kill. Most commonly we will pack down the valley back to the drop-off point for pick up. Another option includes calling in a pick-up by air if there is a land-able gravel bar in the vicinity. If there is no safe strip and we have a freed up packer, we can have an extra hand meet us to help pack out.

Communication will be through InReach between the guide and Shublik Camp.

At Shublik Lodge we will work on capes, horns, skulls, and meat. Now it is time to enjoy sitting around the kitchen table in a warm dry cabin and enjoy the fruits of our labor feasting on backstraps or ribs while sharing the memories of the hunt.

We have an excellent team of professionals that will help you accomplish your goals. We are looking forward to all of our future hunts.

Statistics & Multiple Species

We have been blessed with excellent hunting opportunities. We have had many seasons with 100% success rates on Sheep and close to 90% overall average. Our average ram is 38” on the long side while having the other horn broken. We have harvested many 40+ inch rams with average bases at 13”. We specialize in harvesting old rams with an average age above 10 years old. We have taken many real old rams including a ram that is tied for the oldest ram on record in Alaska and might possibly break that record at 17 or 18 years of age, verdict is still out! We have had many 13 and 14-year-old sheep harvested.

Grizzly hunting has been excellent and we take an average 7’ grizzly while holding a 50% success rate while sheep hunting. Many of these bears are very old they just do not grow big due to their environment.

Caribou numbers are doing excellent and a majority of our clients harvest mature bulls. Most clients harvest two animals.

You have a great opportunity to take a  “BGBG Arctic Slam” which is the harvest of a sheep, caribou and grizzly! Also an opportunity of a “BGBG Arctic Grand Slam” which is the addition of wolf.

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