Whether you pursue them close to home or all over the continent, hunting turkeys is a magical experience.

It’s March, spring is in the air, and a hunter’s fancy turns to turkeys! Spring gobblers are probably North America’s second most popular hunting pursuit, following fall deer seasons. This is a recent phenomenon; the wild turkey’s continent-wide recovery and expansion is an amazing conservation story, and brought one of the greatest changes in American hunting culture, and it all happened in my lifetime.

I’ve often written that I grew up in a Kansas with no deer season, but I often fail to mention that, when I started hunting, there might not have been a single wild turkey in Kansas! Kansas is now an important turkey state, with Eastern birds near Missouri, and Rio Grande in the rest of the state. Two wet springs have been hard on our birds, so we’re hoping for a good nesting season.

At moments like this spring turkey hunting is as exciting as it gets! A big gobbler is there and in range, but you must wait until he’s clear.

I admit that I’m no great shakes as a turkey caller, but I’m getting better. It was the last day of the season last year when, shortly after dawn, two big gobblers flew down on the far side of a big food plot. Somehow or other, I managed to call them across the field, and I shot one in my decoys at 15 yards.

According to the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) distribution map, my farm is within Eastern gobbler range but, according to the Kansas wildlife department, I’m in the “hybrid zone” between Eastern and Rio Grande turkeys. Honest, it doesn’t matter to me; we don’t sell turkey hunts and for sure I wouldn’t guide a turkey hunt. My birds—whatever they are—are my “down home” birds. I hunt them myself, often by myself, and when I take one it’s a major victory, as it is for millions of hunters every spring.

Whatever your local turkeys happen to be, there are others. Whether my turkeys are Easterns or hybrids, I don’t have to go far to hunt Eastern or Rio Grande birds, and I have. Today, many turkey hunters travel from one side of the continent to the other (east to west and north to south) to hunt our various turkeys. It’s a big deal; hundreds of hunters have registered “grand slams” of turkeys with NWTF, comprised of Eastern, Rio Grande, Osceola (central and south Florida only), and Merriam’s (primarily Rocky Mountain region).

A “world slam” of turkeys includes the big and gorgeous Gould’s turkey, primarily in northwestern Mexico, with limited range (and opportunity) on the U.S. side. And then there’s the “royal slam,” which adds the smaller, much different, and gorgeous ocellated turkey of southernmost Mexico and adjacent Central America. Any of the turkey slams are very doable achievements, but they require planning, effort, a bit of luck, and will probably incorporate some frustration.

Kendall Kelso and Boddington with a nice Rio Grande gobbler, taken near Hutchison, Kansas. About the western three-fourths of Kansas has Rio Grande turkeys, with Eastern turkeys close to Missouri.

Few things in the hunting world are more exciting than a big gobbler coming to the call, so I’m not throwing a wet blanket on turkey hunting. However, I’ve already admitted that I’m not an expert turkey hunter; turkey hunting has been an occasional spring pastime, but never an obsession. Heck, I hunted the entire 29 varieties of North American big game before I (finally) took the last of the six turkeys, a Gould’s gobbler, in northeastern Sonora in May 2017.

None of us can live long enough to hunt everything, so we all hunt in accordance with our interests, time, and budget. In retrospect, it’s worth mentioning that, even when you must travel far and spring for a guided hunt, turkey hunting in the best camps is a lot cheaper than most big-game hunting. And, when the birds are working right, a spring turkey hunt is a magical experience, as exciting as anything in our hunting world.

As with so much hunting, time and place count for much. Wherever you live, your backyard turkeys, whatever they are, are probably the easiest and most accessible. With a base in Kansas, for me the Rio Grande turkey has long been easy and accessible. I’ve hunted them close to home in Kansas, and also in Oklahoma and Texas. For the largest number of American hunters, Eastern gobblers are the “hometown” turkeys. This makes them the most call-shy and hunter-wary. I’ve probably hunted Eastern gobblers more than the rest, in Kansas and Missouri, and in a half-dozen Southern states. 

 For me, the Osceola turkey was the most difficult. On my first attempt I spent ten days, failed utterly, and realized these tropical birds don’t talk much. A couple years later I did a tour at U.S. Central Command in Tampa; in the spring I hunted turkeys almost every weekend, but never got a shot. Of course, when it finally happened, it happened quickly and easily: Time and place!

The colorful ocellated turkey is also a different deal; these turkeys don’t gobble, but they do “sing” on the roost, and are hunted quite differently, typically by stalking or ambush rather than calling. The Yucatan jungle is an amazing place, much different from any other North American habitat, and these smaller turkeys are shockingly beautiful.

The ocellated turkey of southern Mexico and adjacent Central America is the most unique of the wild turkeys, with feathers reminiscent of the peacock. Males do not “gobble” so they are often hunted by ambush rather than calling.

However, my two most memorable turkey hunting experiences were a Merriam’s turkey in the shadow of the Rockies and a Gould’s turkey in northern Mexico.

Years ago, I hunted Merriam’s turkey during fall deer/elk hunts, and did another spring hunt that was snowed out (which can happen) so it wasn’t a new experience, but until spring 2017 I’d never done a “proper” spring hunt for Merriam’s gobbler. We hunted southeast Colorado with Fred and Michele Eichler’s Full Draw Outfitters. Weather and timing were perfect. We hunted high plains country east of Trinidad, and in the shadow of the Rockies to the west. There were lots of birds; Donna shot a gorgeous gobbler near the mountains with magnificent white tail tips. A couple of days later, off to the east along the Arkansas River, I shot a huge gobbler. Every day, we saw elk, mule deer, whitetails, and pronghorns–a wonderful hunt in an awesome area.

Funny how these things work; just a month later I went on my first hunt for Gould’s turkeys. I’d seen them on numerous Coues deer hunts in northern Mexico, but had never hunted them. Gould’s turkey is not the heaviest North American turkey. However, they are considered the largest, and are by far the tallest, a huge, imposing bird with white tail-fan tips similar to Merriam’s turkey.

I joined a Mossberg group on Rancho Mababi in northeastern Sonora with Ted Jaycox’s Tall Tine Outfitters, little more than an hour south of Douglas, Arizona. As with all turkey hunting, time and place are critical, but on this week in May we were in the right place at the right time. Hunted little, it’s probable that Gould’s turkeys are susceptible to calling, certainly more gullible than most Eastern birds, but there’s also luck in being there at the right time. In good places I’ve occasionally seen more Rio Grande birds, but I’ve never seen gobblers respond as well. It was an amazing experience, and every member of our party took two fine gobblers with little difficulty.

Success is great, but good hunting isn’t just about game; it’s also about experience and circumstance. I cherish every gobbler I’ve taken on my place! In every hunter’s book of memories, there’s probably no replacing the animals and birds we’ve taken on our own, with our own tactics, techniques, and mistakes. Continent-wide, most of the many thousands of gobblers harvested annually are taken by DIY hunters doing it their way, as I hunt my own Kansas gobblers. 

A diaphragm mouth call is probably the best type of call, but for those who have trouble with them, slate calls work great.

However, if you decide you want to hunt all of our North American turkeys you will probably need some help. Mexico’s current system essentially requires an outfitter. If you want to hunt one of the races that lives hundreds of miles from your home, it might be practical to do the planning and do it on your own, but, considering the low price of outfitted turkey hunts, it could be just as sensible (and not much more expensive) to set up a hunt with an outfitter who has the right place and can recommend an ideal time. Or, equally good, maybe you’re perfectly happy with the turkey hunting you have in your own backyard. 

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Depending on where you go in Africa, it might be an impala, springbok, reedbuck, gazelle, or kob.

Thanks to Chevrolet, the impala is probably the best known and most recognizable African antelope. An attractive reddish-gold in color, highly acrobatic, and topped with black, heavily ringed, lyre-shaped horns, the impala occupies a broad range across most of Southern Africa, and on up through East Africa into Uganda. The impala is a gregarious, highly prolific creature of thornbush and open forest. 

Across most of his range he is usually the most common medium-size antelope. Few hunters will put the impala on top of their wish list, but most will hunt him, and well they should. As camp meat, impala is as good as it gets. Fresh impala liver is mild and delicious, a real treat! As the most available antelope, often with the most liberal quota, impala is a preferred leopard bait for many PHs. A shoulder-mounted impala is a classic piece of Africana and, unlike many African antelopes, will be readily recognized.

As I’ve often said, common game isn’t always so common. Impala are usually plentiful and highly visible. However, all predators love impala, so they are extremely nervous, constantly alert, and usually difficult to approach. And, like exceptional specimens of most plentiful animals, really good impalas are few and far between.

A big ram may be found as the patriarch of a large harem, making the approach difficult because you must stalk past sharp-eyed ewes. Older rams are also found in bachelor groups, often of like age, so now you must sort him out through a shifting forest of similar horns. Most of the time it takes multiple stalks to get a shot.

The legend that African game is somehow “tougher” than other game is mostly malarkey. However, pound for pound, the little impala, maximum 150 pounds, is one of the tough ones. Perhaps it’s because they are always keyed up, but an impala must be hit properly, or else you’re in for a long tracking job. It was on one of those long tracks on a hot day in the Zambezi Valley, following an impala hit just a bit far back, that Tim Danklef commented, “It’s a good thing impala aren’t as big as buffalo, otherwise we’d all be dead!” African professional hunters consistently exhort their clients to forget the behind-the-shoulder lung shot and go for the shoulder. Regardless of what you’re shooting, an impala ram needs to be shot on the center of the shoulder, unless you like tracking with uncertain conclusion.

If a good impala ram is desired (and one should be), then most hunters will be successful. Length of horn is all you have to go on, but shape is important. Ideally, you want the bottom half of the horns to flare out, then end with long tips that are more or less straight up and parallel. Not all impalas achieve this shape, but a ram with tips that curve inward usually has some growing to do. 

We identify three races of impala. Most widespread and plentiful is the southern impala. The East African impala is larger in body with much longer horns. Most limited is the Angolan or black-faced impala, found from Etosha Park north into Angola. A bit smaller in both body and horn, the black-faced impala is distinguished by a prominent black stripe down the nose. Regrettably, this impala in not importable into the U.S., a fact that greatly hampers management.

Impalas are generally not found in deserts, nor in marshy habitat. In the deserts of southern Africa, the springbok takes over as the most common medium-size antelope. The national animal of South Africa, the springbok is technically a pseudo-gazelle, while in arid country in East and North Africa his place is taken by one of the several true gazelles, ranging in size from very small, like Thomson and Dorcas gazelles, to the various races of Grant gazelle, which are similar to the impala in size. All these desert antelopes are hunted much like we hunt our pronghorns; they are sharp-eyed open-country animals that are difficult to stalk. They’re also small targets that require longer and more precise shooting than many African antelopes.

In grasslands, and on floodplains near marshy areas, the reedbucks often take over as the most common antelopes. From Natal up through coastal Mozambique, the common reedbuck is far and away the most plentiful medium-size antelope. In the big Coutadas near the mouth of the Zambezi impalas occur, but they are uncommon, while hundreds of reedbucks might be seen daily. The common reedbuck varies from tan to gray. A blocky, robust antelope, he is heavier in the body than the impala, with straight, ringed horns that curve outward and tilt usually tilt forward into sharp tips. All the reedbucks have soft, pulpy bases, incipient horn growth that is difficult to preserve. The common reedbuck is widespread in northeastern South Africa, and extends northward into Tanzania. By the way, reedbuck are even tastier than impala.

There is just one common reedbuck, but there are two other species, the mountain reedbuck and bohor reedbuck, both with multiple races. Bohor reedbuck are much smaller, a typically a brighter, yellowish tan, with short, thick horns, rarely with much spread and a radical forward curve. We divide them into regional groupings, to me visually indistinguishable. The East African bohor reedbuck starts in Tanzania and is common in Uganda. The Sudan bohor reedbuck is found to the northwest; the Abyssinian bohor reedbuck in Ethiopia. Farther west lies the Nigerian bohor reedbuck; and in West Africa the Nagor reedbuck. Typically, the bohor reedbucks are found in pairs and small groups in grasslands, often near riverine cover or marshy habitats.

Smaller still and gray in color are the mountain reedbucks, typically found on grassy slopes at higher elevations. Most numerous and widespread is the southern mountain reedbuck, found in most of South Africa’s ranges. Even smaller, the Chanler mountain reedbuck is found on some mountains in Masailand, on north through Kenya into Ethiopia, and on west into Uganda. Smallest and rarest is the western mountain reedbuck, known to occur in just a couple of spots in northern Cameroon. Long protected, I actually saw one while hunting eland in the Mayo N’Duell block. It was unmistakable small and gray, definitely not a bohor reedbuck.  

When disturbed, the reedbucks give a shrill and distinctive alarm call, which is one way of locating them. Unless badly spooked, all the reedbucks are likely to run a short distance and then go to ground in the long grass they love. Mark the spot well! That’s an opportunity for a stalk, but it’s likely to result in a running shot when the animal jumps up at your feet.

In western Uganda we run out of the impala’s range, but there’s a lot of great hunting country to the west, north of the forest and south of the Sahara, all the way across the huge bulge of West Africa. In proper habitat there are bohor reedbuck throughout, but across this huge region the kobs usually take over as the most plentiful and widespread medium-sized antelope, and become the “common game.”

The waterbucks, kobs, lechwes, and reedbucks are related, and are all associated with well-watered areas with lots of grass. The puku, also known as Vardon’s kob, is discontinuous from Angola across Zambia and into southwestern Tanzania. The white-eared kob, though common in South Sudan’s East Equatoria, hasn’t been hunted since the early 1980s. Just this year, a white-eared kob was seen in Uganda’s Karamoja, not far from the Sudan, the first known sighting in decades. Uganda’s national animal, the Uganda kob, is plentiful in northwestern Uganda, and probably is the most common antelope. The smaller western kob is found north of the forest in C.A.R. and Cameroon, and extends westward across the Sahel to Guinea.

The Uganda kob and white-eared kob are about the same size, up to 200 pounds, with thick, ringed, lyre-shaped horns up to about 24 inches. Mature white-eared kob have distinctive white ears, white facial markings and white underparts, and are the darkest, with some males almost black. The Uganda kob has more muted white markings with reddish body color. The western kob is smaller, up to 150 pounds, with smaller horns and a lighter, more golden body color. Farther west, both body and horn size declines, and to my eye body color keeps getting lighter. Because they are smaller, some references separate the kob from Nigeria westward as West African kob. In the few hunting areas in the Sahel—northern C.A.R., northern Cameroon, northern Benin, and eastern Burkina Faso—the kob is definitely the most plentiful antelope. It is a handsome animal, and, like all of our “most common” antelopes, it is very tasty.

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A unique pro-hunting curriculum is teaching outdoor skills to tens of thousands of public school students every year.

Above: Students in the Outdoor Adventures program at Mount Pleasant Junior High School work on their fire-building skills.

School sure has changed a lot since most of us in the older generation went through it. I often reminisce with hunters who remember when it was no big deal to stash a .22 rifle in their locker for an after-school small-game hunt. In my Pennsylvania school district, the first day of buck season and the first day of doe season were both school holidays. As my dad, a history teacher, once told me, that wasn’t because the administration worried the kids wouldn’t show up. It was because they knew the teachers wouldn’t. 

Things sure have changed in schools today, especially middle and high schools in urban areas. Most teachers have little or no knowledge of the role hunting plays in wildlife conservation, and many pass on an anti-hunting message to their students, intentionally or not. Many kids have never had the chance to learn outdoor skills, and far too many spend their leisure hours glued to a phone or computer screen instead of exploring woods and fields.

But what if we could teach outdoor skills—including hunting, shooting, and fishing—in schools? What if such a course also explained sustainable use and the North American Model of Conservation? Amazingly, there is exactly such a curriculum, right now, in more than 500 middle and high schools in 35 states across the country—and I’m not talking about just rural schools. Tens of thousands of kids in big-city schools are getting a full-fledged education in the great outdoors, thanks to the work of the Outdoors Tomorrow Foundation (OTF).

The nonprofit OTF, based in Dallas, Texas, has reached more than 250,000 participants through its Outdoor Adventures curriculum since its inception. The foundation started in 1981 as a regional entity called the Dallas Ecological Foundation. In 2014 it received an infusion of new funding, renamed itself, and went national. Since then, participation in the Outdoor Adventures program has skyrocketed, netting an average of 30 percent more participants and schools every year. Students get a PE credit for taking the class, and in nearly every school where it’s offered, demand to get into the class is high. This year there are 50,000 students enrolled.

OTF education coordinator Scot McClure noted that 90 percent of the participating schools are found in urban areas. “The outdoors has no bias,” he said. “Everyone can enjoy the outdoors as long as someone shows you how to do it. That’s what we do.” 

He also cited several examples of how these classes are especially effective at reaching many troubled and non-engaged students, giving them a newfound confidence.  “They’re not afraid to admit ‘I’ve never caught a fish. I don’t know how to hold a rod and reel,’ because the curriculum is designed to teach you the basics and build you up,” he said. “It gives them all a chance to see success. Now you have a bunch of students who want to be in class, who want to be in school, and behavior improves.”

The program is not only a potential game-changer for the teens, but also for wildlife conservation. The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is a primary focus in the Outdoor Adventures curriculum.  Nowhere in public school education is this strategic model presented except in Outdoor Adventures. Not only that, every student comes out of the course having completed his or her hunter education certification, even though most of them didn’t know anything about hunting when they enrolled.

“We’re teaching students to have an appreciation for wildlife,” he said. “We have wildlife today because we have folks out there that will spend extra money on licenses and extra money on gear and ammo. All those extra taxes go back towards saving wildlife.” 

School may have changed a lot since I was there, but I envy today’s kids who have the chance to take an Outdoor Adventures class. To learn more about this great program, and to find out if the curriculum is offered in schools in your neck of the woods (and to help get it started if it isn’t), go to GoOTF.com.

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Sports Afield Jake & Hen Turkey Decoy Combo

Just in time for spring turkey hunts across the country, Sports Afield Products has introduced its new Jake & Hen Combo set of turkey decoys. This set of two decoys, one jake and one hen, are made of a foldable, rubberlike material that is easy to transport yet snaps back into shape easily. Both come with two-piece metal stakes for easy setup. The hen comes with two stake holes to allow it to be set up in two different body positions, upright or relaxed. Both decoys feature realistic paint and natural, taxidermy-quality eyes. These realistic and attractive decoys will help you punch your turkey tag this season. Available at select Costco Wholesale locations.

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Beat the cold-weather blues with these off-season adventures.

Here in North America, the winter doldrums are here. I’m writing this on the eve of the New Year, with major interstates blocked by blizzards on both coasts. There are still some late deer and elk seasons ongoing, and January can be a great month for waterfowl and upland birds. But for most of us, our favorite hunting seasons are past. However, scattered here and there, it’s prime time for some great hunts. As we look ahead into a brand-new decade, here are some mid-winter getaway hunts worth planning!

Deer in Mexico

The snowbirds are heading south to Mexico’s famous beaches, but this is a perfect time to enjoy a great hunt in the desert mountains of northern Mexico, where the scenery is fantastic and the winter weather is (usually) sunny, cool, and pleasant. I’m generally thinking Coues whitetail, a beautiful little deer that offers a postgraduate course in serious glassing. For both quantity and quality, western Chihuahua and northern Sonora are, in my experience, the best places to hunt Coues deer. Prices have gone up (what hasn’t!), but Coues deer are widespread and available, and numerous competitive (and competent) outfitters keep the prices reasonable.

That said, hunting Coues whitetail isn’t the only great hunt in northern Mexico. Mid-winter is the perfect time for desert mule deer, also a great experience. With better management, desert sheep have increased dramatically in recent years, and although costs remain high, there are more sheep and more opportunity right now than ever before.

A fine Coues whitetail, taken on a January hunt in northern Mexico. This is a wonderful time to be in the arid mountains.

And there’s more. Mexico holds several lesser-known races of both mule deer and whitetail, and new opportunities are opening up. January 2020, as you read these lines, I’ll be hunting Mexico’s Central Plateau whitetail out of Zacatecas, northwest of Mexico City, with Armando Klein’s Sierra Madre Hunting. This is a medium-sized whitetail subspecies only recently available to outsiders, so something different…but I’m sure it will be another excellent northern Mexico experience.

Mountain Lions

Winter is the best time to hunt many of our predators, from foxes, coyotes, and bobcats on up to cougars and wolves. They’re hungry and hunting hard, thus are more visible during the coldest months. Late December through early February is an especially good time to hunt cougars because snow conditions are most likely to be favorable.

Donna Boddington and houndswoman Katy Kern with a fine Idaho tom, taken on Donna’s fourth attempt to find a good male cougar. It was late December, and we finally caught perfect snow conditions.

Without question there are many very good and successful dry-ground packs of hounds, but it is easier to find and hold tracks in soft snow. So, too early and you can have bare ground when snow is anticipated. Too late and snow that is either too deep or heavily crusted can make conditions too difficult. “Perfect” is thus a fairly narrow window. Hitting it right takes a bit of luck, but it’s a hunt that’s best to plan for the very best time, which is now.

The legend is that, with good hounds, a cougar hunt is a slam-dunk. Maybe, with a lot of luck, but it doesn’t always go that way. Forty years ago, I got a big tom in Arizona, dry-ground hunting with the famous Glenn family. That worked but, much more recently, Donna wanted a mountain lion. We did three hunts in good places with good people, and there was not enough snow…or too much snow! She passed on females, but never had a chance at a male. A couple years ago we went to northern Idaho with Bruce Duncan’s Selkirk Outfitters and finally hit the jackpot. Donna passed a big female on the first day and took a big tom on the third day. On the fourth day, while looking for bobcat tracks with snow falling fast, we hit another big cougar track. I went to town and got a license, and we got the cat just before sundown.

If you want a big mountain lion, right now is the best time of year to try for one!

Lone Star Aoudad

Between native game and a host of introduced species, Texas offers good hunting opportunities in every month of the year. A lot of whitetail hunting remains open after the first of the year, and January still catches some rutting activity. Of course, all the non-natives are available, although many of the deer species may have dropped their antlers. But if I had to pick a perfect New Year hunt in Texas, I’d pick aoudad.

Hunter Ross and Boddington with a very large free-range aoudad, taken in the Davis Mountains of Far West Texas.

With its flowing mane and matching chaps, the Barbary sheep is a gorgeous animal and offers a fantastic hunting experience. Big-bodied, tough, and extremely wary, the aoudad is never easy to hunt. However, in the desert mountains of Far West Texas the aoudad offers a real sheep hunt! Ranges like the Chinati, Davis, and Glass Mountains are straight out of a John Ford western, and the hunt is a lot like hunting desert sheep. Except you’ll see a lot more animals and it won’t break your bank account.

Over the last decade I’ve done several aoudad hunts in Far West Texas with Hunter Ross of Desert Safaris. I like to go this time of year, in part because the weather is great and because it doesn’t interfere with fall hunting seasons. However, Ross tells me that late fall is also very good and may be even better because that’s when he tends to see large bachelor groups. You can’t prove it by me because I’ve always hunted them in late winter and have seen lots of aoudad! Take your pick, but the desert mountains are harsh, so it’s important to hunt in cooler months. Just make sure you put an aoudad hunt on your bucket list! I seriously doubt I’ll hunt another desert sheep, but I will do more aoudad hunting

Central Africa

In the Southern Hemisphere it’s the height of summer, and in many southern climes it’s also the rainy season. Remember: The Equator passes through Africa from Kenya to Gabon. So, two-thirds of Africa’s vast land mass lies north of Equator, thus in the Northern Hemisphere…with the same seasons we have.

The sub-Saharan areas of Benin, Burkina Faso; and northern CAR and Cameroon are called “savanna,” but it’s really savanna woodland or terminalia forest. This is all very wild country that’s marvelous to hunt.

Realistically, you have be quite a bit north before you see the temperate effect. And in most areas rainy seasons should be avoided. However, you can take advantage of the short (and very mild) winter in several great hunting areas. Without question, right now is the best time to hunt in northern Cameroon and the northern savannas of Central African Republic; and this is also an ideal time in both Benin and Burkina Faso. These areas are all about 10 degrees north of the Equator, with a short, pleasant winter!

It’s still Equatorial Africa. It gets hot during the day, but from late December through February mornings and evenings are perfect and nights are cool…much cooler than in March and April, when the heat is brutal!

In northern CAR and Cameroon the Derby eland is the premier species, and among Africa’s great prizes. The distinctive black collar is winter coat, available from late December into early March; late in the season the colors fade to a uniform tawny.

This is also the time when the Derby eland bulls are in their glorious winter coats, with that luxurious black collar. Some bulls will keep the colors deep into March, but by April they’ve gone tawny. For me the Derby eland is the premier species in northern CAR and Cameroon, and Africa’s greatest antelope prize. It is a premium animal, but these two areas plus Benin and Burkina Faso are all excellent mixed-bag destinations, with good numbers of buffalo and a wide assortment of desirable antelopes, including the big western roan, kob, hartebeest, harnessed bushbuck, reedbuck, and more. Absent Derby eland, costs are reasonable, and this region is truly wild Africa, where lions roam. Just, trust me on this, go early in the year if you can…by March it’s hot, and April is an oven!

England’s “Other Deer”

The British Isles offer fantastic hunting for a wide variety of deer: Scotland is famous for red stag and roebuck. Ireland is “the place” for free-range sika deer, and England offers a long and luxurious roebuck season, plus has scattered populations of red deer and lots of fallow deer.

Most of this hunting is in summer and autumn, but there are a couple of interesting animals that are best-hunted in the dead of winter. The little Asian muntjac, with small antlers and fangs, was introduced in the 19th Century and is well-established and widely dispersed in central England and Wales. In fact, the muntjac is now believed to be the most numerous wild deer in England! The Chinese water deer, absent antlers but with very large fangs, is neither numerous nor widespread, but is established free range in several counties in central England.

Muntjacs are often encountered while stalking roe deer and can usually be taken if desired. The challenge, however, is that they’re tiny and it doesn’t take much cover to hide them completely. Like many tropical deer, some muntjac bucks are in hard antler throughout the year. Mid-winter is considered an ideal time to hunt them because the cover is down, so they’re much more visible—and it’s a lot easier to judge them. Chinese water deer keep their fangs year-around, but January is a prime mating month, so this is also an ideal time to hunt them.

A Chinese water deer with impressive fangs!

I will not suggest that England’s weather is perfect at this time of year. When I did it, we caught a lot of rain, but it was still a marvelous hunt! We stayed in small country inns—really pubs—and stalked when the weather allowed. We hunted muntjac down in Wales, and then hunted Chinese water deer free-range near the famous Woburn Abbey, the Duke of Bedford’s estate, where most of the United Kingdom’s non-native species were first introduced.

Although a bit soggy, it was all good, but one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen in was watching Chinese water deer bucks sparring for mating rights. It was like a ballet; absent antlers, the bucks jump over each other and strike downward with their fangs…many of the bucks carrying tattered ears as a result! My Chinese water deer was like a hundred-pound tusker, but my muntjac wasn’t big. This is a hunt I want to do again…including great English “pub grub.”

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California’s Proposition 117, a ban on mountain lion hunting, passed in 1990 and inspired similar anti-hunting ballot initiatives in other states. Photo by GaryKramer.net

Wildlife management decisions must be based on the best available science–not on the whims of public opinion.

I was browsing the craft booths at a summer festival in my Colorado town when a young woman bounded after me with a clipboard.

“You look like a nature lover! Don’t you love wolves?” she asked.

At first I looked at her blankly, and then I saw the sign on her booth: The Rocky Mountain Wolf Project. She wanted me to sign a petition that would place a measure on the statewide ballot in 2020 forcing Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW) to reintroduce gray wolves to the state. I declined–politely but firmly–and moved on.

But the encounter stuck with me. Not so much because of the particular issue, but because it was the perfect example of a decision that should be made by wildlife managers after extensive study–not decided by voters, most of whom are well-meaning but have little knowledge about the issues involved or the ultimate effects of their vote.

In this particular instance, the issue of wolf reintroduction was studied in detail several years ago by CPW, which determined it was not a good idea for a number of compelling reasons–including, believe it or not, the potentially devastating effects gray wolves could have on a fragile population of reintroduced Mexican wolves to the south. (The wolf-loving petition-promoter returned my blank stare when I mentioned this to her.) The ballot measure aims to force CPW to go ahead with wolf reintroduction anyway, overruling the scientific consensus.

Ballot initiatives that meddle with scientific wildlife management are nothing new, of course. They have been tried–with varying success–in many states. The trend really started in 1990 with California’s Proposition 117, when voters put in place a ban on mountain lion hunting that still stands. Emboldened by that success, anti-hunting groups led the charge on many other public initiatives in various states, most of them focused on restricting predator hunting and trapping. Maine has twice voted down a proposition to ban baiting and hound hunting for bears, first in 2004 and again in 2014.

Wildlife and habitat management decisions are not supposed to be made this way. They should be made by professionals using sound, supportable, peer-reviewed, published science. This is one of the seven core tenets of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, and in this age of diverging opinions and social change, it is one of the most crucial. Each state has its own agency, staffed with professional biologists, charged with managing its wildlife. While these agencies are far from perfect, they have, historically, done a good job studying, understanding, and balancing wildlife issues in an increasingly complex world.

The other side of the coin is that hunters, too, have an obligation to abide by the science, even when we don’t like what it tells us. For example, if studies show certain harvest regulations are having a detrimental effect on a species, hunters should be supporting appropriate changes to those regulations.

Hunters and non-hunters alike need to agree that wildlife management decisions must always be based on the best available science. Spread the word that ballots are not the right venue for making these determinations. At the same time, support the efforts of state wildlife agencies and their biologists, and examine the research behind their decisions, keeping in mind what is best for the resource. In the end, both hunting and wildlife will be on the losing end if we allow the scientific process to be bypassed by public opinion and ballot-box biology.

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Many famous caribou-hunting regions are now closed, but in other areas there are still good opportunities for success.

On the final morning of a caribou hunt in Quebec many years ago we awoke to a blustery, threatening dawn. I was still in my sleeping bag when one of the guys ran into the cabin saying, “Hey, you gotta see this!” Several of us stumbled out to the porch and gazed across the lake at a scene straight from a John Ford western. However, instead of angry Apaches lining the horizon, the ridge on the far side of the lake was rimmed with caribou, on the move and headed our way!

The week had been fairly slow, at least as Quebec caribou hunting was in those days, but there were singles and small groups moving around, and we’d hauled some good bulls into camp. By evening of the next-to-last day most everybody was “tagged out” with two bulls. Except gunmaker Lex Webernick (of Rifles, Inc.) had managed to hold out and hadn’t fired a shot…and I had one tag left. You could say that our camp-mates had been too hasty but, after all, there was no guarantee a mass of caribou would show up! However, it worked, and Lex and I were in the driver’s seat. We grabbed our gear, jumped in a canoe, dashed across the lake, and had our pick of exceptional bulls.

A very fine Quebec-Labrador caribou taken in 2001, toward the tail end of the golden era for caribou hunting.

It’s easy to recall exactly when that memorable hunt occurred, because we got home just a few days before the dire events of 9/11/2001. That, of course, changed our world forever, but since then, the caribou world has also changed. Twenty years ago—and even ten—caribou hunting was affordable and available across much of North America. Woodland caribou—or moose and caribou combo hunts—were readily available in Newfoundland. Quebec was wide open, with options between the George River and Leaf River herds, both hundreds of thousands strong. In Northwest Territories the Courageous Lake herd of Central Canada barren ground caribou was wide open, with good numbers of mountain caribou in the far west McKenzie District. Yukon had mountain caribou in the south and barren ground caribou in the north. The mountain caribou of northern British Columbia were in decline, but strong enough—in enough areas—that numerous great bulls were taken in the 1990s and early 2000s. Alaska’s wildlife managers figure there are thirty-two separate caribou herds in that vast state, so at any given time some will be up and some down, but back then many herds were up.

It’s a far different picture in 2019. Newfoundland’s woodland caribou declined drastically, with much discussion of a complete closure. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed; instead of a precipitous shutdown the number of permits was seriously reduced. Although it isn’t at all clear that overhunting was a factor, the downhill slide seems to have stopped. Calf survival is up, and some great bulls are being taken. However, outfitters in caribou country now get a very small permit allocation, and, of course, are charging accordingly.

Continent-wide, the worst news comes from northern Quebec. First the George River herd collapsed, with hunting closed in 2013. Then the Leaf River herd went into a steep decline, with the last nonresident permits issued in 2018. At the time of the closure the Leaf River herd was still estimated at 150,000, plenty enough caribou to support the relatively small (but financially important) nonresident harvest. The fact that almost nothing has been done to reduce subsistence harvest says all that needs to be said about the politics of the issue. At this writing it is not clear if the Leaf River herd will stabilize or continue to crash, but nonresident caribou hunting, long an important industry in northern Quebec, is now closed. This means that dozens of camps are moldering on the tundra, along with the infrastructure that supported them. If there should be a reopening it won’t be as simple as turning on a switch.

Central Northwest Territories is similarly closed, with northern Manitoba now the only option to hunt Central Canada barren ground caribou. To the east, Nunavut is open for Central Canada barren ground caribou on the mainland; and the small Arctic Island caribou to the north, primarily on Victoria Island. In the west, the McKenzie Mountains still hold good numbers of mountain caribou, as do some of the guide territories in southern Yukon. That’s good news, because opportunities for mountain caribou are very slim in British Columbia. I was a youngster when I shot my one and only mountain caribou in northern B.C. back in 1973. I’ve long wanted a bigger bull but, in recent years, I’ve tried twice in northern B.C. Both times I saw caribou, but nothing legal or shootable. Yukon and the McKenzies have appeal, but having priced those caribou hunts, my ardor has cooled somewhat.

Northern Yukon also has good barren ground caribou, with Alaska’s Porcupine herd, estimated at 170,000, shared between northeast Alaska and northwest Yukon. All of Alaska’s caribou are considered barren ground caribou, estimated at 950,000. Her numerous regional herds vary from remnants of a few dozen to the huge Western Arctic herd at 325,000. Collectively, Alaska holds lots of caribou and plenty of opportunity.

Aside from those two blank attempts for a mountain caribou in B.C. and a frosty hunt for an Arctic Island caribou in 2012, I did almost all of my caribou hunting before 2000, in a time when caribou hunting was affordable, available, and routinely successful. I didn’t always punch both tags, but In N.W.T. and Quebec, two caribou were generally on license. Much Quebec hunting was what I’d call “semi-guided,” meaning we’d go into an established camp with logistical support and hunt on our own, a wonderful way to hunt caribou, especially when there are lots of them moving through.

There was one exception to that “routinely successful” business. Between 1975 and 2000 I hunted Alaska numerous times, both guided and DIY. I’m not sure how many caribou tags I purchased, and for sure I wasn’t always hunting caribou exclusively (or specifically)—but I never had a chance at a decent caribou in Alaska. I can’t really call it a bucket list thing, since I took a nice barren ground caribou in north-central Yukon back in 1999, but I’d long felt it was a gap in my experience.

So it was that in September 2019, I hied myself (as my old friend Colonel Charlie Askins might have said) to the Alaskan Peninsula for a caribou hunt. Now, if I were you, and hankering for an Alaskan caribou, I’d consider the North Slope of the Brooks Range, where four large herds come together and more than half of Alaska’s caribou reside. Fortunately for you, you aren’t me, and there was both method and circular thinking in my madness. On hunts for both moose and bear, the southern Alaskan Peninsula out of Cold Bay was one of the places where, back in the 1980s I’d carried (and eaten) caribou tags. So, there was some unfinished business involved. Occupying a small area with limited habitat, the Southern Peninsula caribou herd isn’t large, today estimated at just a thousand. However, these are big-bodied caribou and antler quality is excellent.

Guide Jordan Wallace and Boddington with a very nice caribou from the Alaskan Peninsula. Amazingly, this was one of the smaller bulls taken in the author’s camp.

Back in the day I saw a lot of caribou, just nothing I wanted. Then the herd declined, and for some years there was no hunting, reopened just two years ago. My buddy Dave Leonard of Mountain Monarchs of Alaska was able to add a couple of weeks of caribou hunting before his alternate-year bear season.

Hunting from his David River base camp and fly-in spike camps I had a wonderful caribou hunt, and took a very nice bull. That said, it was a lot different from so many caribou hunts in years gone by. The area does allow two bulls, but it’s not a big herd and Leonard discourages a second tag. At the current cost of nonresident Alaskan tags, that’s perfectly fine with me. Come to think of it, my friend Mr. Leonard’s fee was more than I ever thought I’d pay for a caribou hunt, but that’s the way of caribou hunting today. Alaska remains the only option where DIY caribou hunting remains possible, but, realistically, by the time you do the flying and all the freight I’m not convinced there’s much savings. Bottom line: Caribou hunting is pricier than ever before!

According to my experience this was not an easy hunt. It wasn’t like northern Quebec or N.W.T.’s barrens in years gone by. There was no sitting at a known crossing and waiting for a nice bull to amble by. It was more like hunting pronghorn on foot in big country, except with miles of spongy tundra tussocks to traverse. We glassed caribou from a couple miles; sometimes we caught up, and sometimes not. Leonard’s two groups for the last two weeks of the season were not 100 percent. Obviously, that has been my experience with caribou in Alaska, and recently for mountain caribou, but failure was unusual in the halcyon days of caribou hunting! That said, success depended on tough hiking, fairly long shooting, reasonable expectations, and luck. I saw plenty of caribou and shot a reasonable bull on my next-to-last day. I was happy; I got my Alaskan caribou. Four of my camp-mates were even happier: I saw four bulls carrying over 400 inches of antler brought into camp. The big ones were there!

Mountain Monarchs’ David River Camp, near Nelson Lagoon on the Bering Sea side of the Peninsula, is famous for big brown bears. The caribou herd here is small, but after several years of closure the area is again producing very big caribou.

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Gain confidence and extend your ethical field-shooting range at an Outdoor Solutions Long-Range School.

The sun was beating down out of a clear sky, but a cool breeze against my left cheek kept the heat down. It had been a wet spring, and tall bunches of bright green, tasseled grass dotted the steep mountainside. My eye was pressed against the lens of the spotting scope, staring intently at one particular tuft of grass. It was stirring and bending slightly to the left, which didn’t compute with the breeze I was feeling on my face. I twisted the dial to widen my field of view and studied the ravine running at an angle right to left just in front of the square steel target.

“Shooter ready,” said Hillary Dyer. She was locked in a comfortable seated position, her rifle resting on sticks, and had already dialed her scope for the range I had given her: 560 yards.

“Spotter ready,” I said, and paused briefly, considering. “Hold half a minute right. Send it!”

I saw the bullet strike the steel target before the satisfying clang came back to us. “Impact! Nice shot!”

“Nice wind call,” Hillary responded.

We had been working together for two days, alternating shooting and calling each other’s wind first on the range and now in the field, and we had become a good team. As students at the Outdoor Solutions Long Range School near Coalville, Utah, our shared goal was to sharpen our shooting skills under the watchful eyes of expert instructors. Head instructor Erik Lund had been standing close by, watching our approach to the 560-yard target. Now he spoke up.

“Excellent work,” he said. “The wind on this one is tricky, with that ravine in front of the target funneling the breeze from right to left. Were you able to see the trace on the bullet through the spotter?”

As we discussed the shot and the various factors at play, Erik reminded us that every long-range shot is a process. It’s crucial to work through every step of that process: Determining the range. Determining the drop, in MOA. Adjusting for the range, whether dialing a scope turret or using holdover. Judging, and adjusting for, any wind. And, of course, the basics of making any shot, long or short: building a solid shooting position, controlling your breathing, and pressing the trigger smoothly without putting any extra “energy” into the rifle. Erik had guided us through this process the day before, as we shot from benchrests on a thousand-yard rifle range, and now that we had moved into the field to engage targets at unknown distances, he had stepped back to let us work through it on our own. We found that it was becoming second nature.

Taking long-range shots at game animals is a contentious and controversial subject, but shooting an accurate rifle with good optics at steel targets out to 1,000 yards is, quite simply, a blast. Even so, I was here for more than just the fun factor—I wanted to improve my field-shooting skills with hunting in mind. While I have no intention of ever attempting a thousand-yard shot at a game animal, I knew from previous experience that the more trigger time I could log on long-range targets, the more confident and accurate I would be at normal hunting ranges, and, in addition, I would likely extend my personal range envelope, at least slightly.

This was exactly what founder Greg Ray had in mind when he founded Outdoor Solutions Long Range Schools in 2012. As a longtime hunt booking agent, Greg saw a need for practical, hands-on training with factory rifles and gear, an approachable and affordable class for the average hunter, and he developed his curriculum with that in mind.

“We would often book hunters from the East Coast or Midwest who were avid whitetail hunters and wanted to experience the West and the game it has to offer,“ he explained.  “When we would prepare clients for their hunts and explain that they needed to be prepared to shoot out to 400 yards, they would respond with disappointment because they did not have the knowledge to shoot that far.”

But why train all the way out to 1,000 yards if you never intend to shoot that far at game? “We don’t advocate shooting animals at that distance, even though there are shooters and equipment that have the ability to hit targets consistently at that distance,” Greg said. “Ethical distances vary from shooter to shooter, depending on the conditions and equipment being used. Our goal is to teach hunters not only to shoot to 1,000 yards and beyond but to understand how they did it, so they can repeat the process on their own. Once they are confident at the longer ranges, when a 300- to 400-yard shot presents itself, they will know exactly what to do and have the ability to make an ethical shot. When they take that knowledge to the field, it will result in fewer wounded animals, more meat in the freezer, and happier hunters.

“We get a lot of students preparing for big hunting trips, such as Africa,” he added. “Many families and parent-child teams attend our courses in preparation for hunts they’ve booked.”

“Our goal is simple: To make you a better shooter,” Erik had told us when we first arrived. “We aren’t trying to make you into a sniper or competitor; we just want to start from wherever you are now and help you improve your skills.”

Hitting a steel target at 1,000 yards is a great confidence-builder for any shooter.

Classroom time was kept to a minimum—only a couple of hours of introductory material on the first evening. At the range on the first day, the instructors gave us hands-on training in basic zeroing, using ballistic apps, the use of riflescopes (both dialing turrets and holding over), wind and mirage, proper benchrest position, and trigger management. On day two, we applied all of these skills in the field, refined our field positions, and learned proper methods for shooting off sticks, packs, and improvised rests.

The team of Outdoor Solutions instructors includes, in addition to Erik, Director of Training Steve Aryan and Lead Instructor Ryan Long. “There are a ton of good shooters out there, but that does not necessarily translate into a good instructor,” Greg said when I asked him what he looks for in a great shooting instructor. “We look at temperament and attitude; you will not find attitudes or egos with our instructors—they love teaching as much as our students love learning. They are great with beginner students who haven’t even purchased their first rifle yet, or they can go down the rabbit hole of the most technical aspects of long-range shooting if that’s what a more experienced student wants.”

Outdoor Solutions runs schools in three locations: Texas, Utah, and Michigan. I attended the Utah school on a sprawling ranch situated at an elevation of some 7,000 feet. The six students in my class paired up and spent the first day on the ranch’s 1,000-yard range, first getting sighted-in and comfortable shooting paper targets from benchrests at 100 and 200 yards, watched closely and assisted by Erik, Greg, and Ryan.  Once we were dialed in, we began engaging steel targets at 100-yard intervals, gradually gaining confidence and increasing the range by working through Erik’s “process.” In late afternoon of the first day, all six of us—including one student who had no previous rifle-shooting experience—had hit the thousand-yard target several times.

Day two was even more fun. I enjoy shooting from field positions far more than shooting from the bench, and early on the second morning we climbed into four-wheel-drive pickups and headed into the ranch’s backcountry, where steel targets had been set up a various ranges, sometimes in devious locations with tricky thermals or steep angles. Our shooting positions sometimes had downed logs or brush that could be used for a rest, but just as likely we’d be forced to shoot from prone off a bipod or sticks, or improvise a rest with packs and jackets. It was excellent practice for the realities of Western hunting.

When a brief thunderstorm temporarily chased us off the mountaintop and back to the range, Erik gave us another challenge. First we’d shoot at a target at 400 yards by dialing our scope turrets to account for the drop. Once we made a hit, he would call out a different target—say, 600—and we were required to find and hit the target using the reticle to hold over instead of dialing the scope. The drill entailed some on-the-fly math and helped ensure we understood, and could use, both methods.

As we wrapped up our second day of shooting, I mentioned to Greg that I had a Wyoming antelope hunt booked for the fall, and I was feeling a lot more confident about my shooting. He smiled and asked me to drop him a note after the hunt to let him know how it went. “That is truly the reward for what we do,” he said, “hearing back from hunters who go through our training and who later go on a big-game hunt and have a great success story to tell us when they return.”

Going Long

The rifles we used for this course were Remington 700 Magpul Enhanced in 6mm Creedmoor, equipped with bipods and Jaeger 30 suppressors, and loaded with Barnes Precision Match 112-grain rounds. The rifles were topped with Zeiss 6-24×50 Conquest V4 scopes. The use of the Zeiss Hunting App to set up a ballistic profile was an integral part of the course. I had no previous experience with a ballistic app, but I found it remarkably easy to use after downloading it for free on my iPhone. Integral to this system is the very impressive Zeiss Victory RF binocular, which actually syncs with the smartphone app. Once you have loaded your ballistic profile into the bino, a touch of the button on the binocular tells you not just the range, but your holdover in MOA. I’ve used several brands of rangefinding binoculars in recent years, and the Zeiss is fastest and most responsive I’ve used. The binos also have a built-in weather station, which will automatically update your MOA, if necessary, based on the barometric pressure at your location.

You can bring your own rifle and optics to Outdoor Solutions courses, and the instructors will help you set up your system and fine-tune it. But most students opt to learn on the rigs provided by the school, which are always factory hunting rifles using factory ammo.

“Many people think you have to have an expensive $10,000 custom rifle setup to consistently shoot precise shots out to 1,000 yards,” Greg said. “Each one of our students will hit the 1,000-yard target during the first day using standard factory rifles, optics, and ammunition. It’s great to see their smiles when they hear the ringing of steel.”

Outdoor Solutions offers their two-day, three-night Long Range Schools in three locations around the country: Texas, Utah, and Michigan. Overnight accommodations and meals are included, as well rifles, ammo, optics, and expert instruction in both the fundamentals of shooting and more advanced skills. The basic course costs $2,500. Visit www.outdoorsolutionscorp.com for details or call 918/258-7817.—D.R.

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A backpack hunt in a region so remote the sheep have never seen a human.

Ten yards. It sounds so close, but when you’re trying to slide on your back down a noisy talus slope in plain view of five bedded rams, it seemed like miles. I put my pack on my chest and my rifle on my pack and slowly began inching my way down to the small trough that would give me the view and rest I’d need for the three-hundred-yard shot. I willed myself to be invisible, but that didn’t take away the noise of the rough, hollow-sounding talus I was sliding over. Each time a stone would move with a loud clank, I’d freeze and look at the rams bedded below me. I was almost there when I looked down and one of the big full-curl rams was staring directly at me. All I could think was that I had just blown it.

I had met Lyle Becker years ago at one of the numerous conventions we both attend. We became great friends and I was excited for him when he bought his own outfitting territory and started Alaska Skookum Guides. It was about two years ago when I ran into Lyle at a show and asked him, “Do you have any Dall sheep?”

His response was, “No. Yes. Well, maybe . . . ”

Lyle explained the area he was hunting in the Brooks Range had not had any sheep tags in fourteen years, but he knew there were sheep in the area and was trying to get the state to allocate some tags. The thought of hunting rams that had most likely never been hunted in their lifetime was intriguing, an opportunity I didn’t think still existed. Moreover,  I love going on exploratory hunts and I told Lyle I would love to be the “guinea pig” on his first sheep hunt to help him gauge the possibility of offering successful hunts to clients. More than a year later I finally heard from him.

“I got the tags,” he said. “Let’s do this.”

I knew from talking to Lyle and from previous experience that this was going to be a backpack hunt and a major undertaking. I would need the best gear and need to be in the best shape for this adventure. From the nearest landing strip we would be many miles on foot with only what we could carry on our backs. I gathered gear, checked my list, gathered more, weighed, tested, and as the hunt approached, I even ordered an HS Precision PHL rifle in 6.5 Creedmoor to shave three pounds off of what I normally carry. I had done everything–everything except the most important thing. Between work and family responsibilities, I had completely failed to work out, a cardinal sin in the world of mountain hunting. But I wanted this badly, and I prepared myself mentally for the challenge ahead.

After three days of travel I landed in Fort Yukon, Alaska, and was met by Lyle. A welcome sight, except that he was supposed to already be out in the field where I would fly in to meet him. Several days of bad weather had the bush planes all stacked up trying to get hunters out of the field. We were still a few days before season opener so though a small setback we enjoyed a little extra time to sort our gear and rest. At last we were flown out to a midway point where we were to be shuttled to a remote strip via Super Cub. It was here that I met our nineteen-year-old packer, Hunter Beiler. It didn’t take long to realize what an asset he would be on this adventure.

Our Cub pilot was still running behind so we had to spend an extra day at this midway point. Now we were starting to get concerned as we were losing hunting days. We passed the time glassing caribou and were visited by an almost pure white grizzly bear.

In one of our conversations, I asked Lyle, “So why the name Skookum Guides?”

He replied, “Up here it is a common term meaning larger, better, or exceptional.“

“I get it,” I said. “So we are looking for a skookum ram.”

“Exactly!” Lyle said.

After two days stuck in limbo, we heard a plane and out of the sky came Daniel Hayden of the TV show The Last Alaskans fame. Daniel flies for Wright Air Service and had heard we were stranded. He and Lyle hatched a plan B to get us where we needed to go. Instead of flying in with the Super Cub and walking up a valley to the hunting area, we would fly into a neighboring valley with an airstrip, walk over a low pass, and drop into the area from a different direction. It was too late to fly that night and the weather was sketchy, so he decided to spend the night there with us and fly us out the next day.

The next day we woke to low clouds that blocked our ability to fly through the passes to our destination. We impatiently waited as it was now opening day, and even if we got out we wouldn’t be able to hunt due to Alaska’s “no hunting on the same day you fly” rule. At last the clouds began to lift and we were in the air. Daniel flew us up a few different valleys before finding a pass open enough to allow safe passage. Safely at the strip, we mustered our gear, donned our heavy packs, and headed out.

Being more than a hundred miles above the Arctic Circle, we had 24-hour daylight, so even though we were getting a late start we trudged our way through a few miles of boot-sucking swamp and aggravating tussocks and made our way over the pass into the hunting area we had been trying to reach for days. Tomorrow we would finally be sheep hunting! We scouted out a dry knoll above the swamp, set up camp, ate supper, and crashed for the night.

The morning greeted us with fairly clear skies so we immediately began glassing. The recent spate of bad weather had a blanket of snow on the peaks, so while spotting white sheep would normally be easy on the dark mountains, now it was like trying to make out a Bev Doolittle painting. After breakfast we made a loop up a valley behind camp and began glassing at every vantage point for our quarry. Seeing neither sheep nor sheep sign, we decided to push on deeper into our target area.

Sheep camp in the Brooks Range.

We broke camp and headed toward another pass a few miles off. Once out of the tundra, the walking wasn’t bad and the grades were gradual for the most part, for which I was grateful. I was doing far better than I had figured considering my workout regimen, or lack thereof. Taking the opportunity to glass at each new vantage point, we spotted several very promising- looking white rocks and some for-sure trophy snow patches, but no real rams had yet filled our glass.

We hit the main river drainage and turned down the valley. The views in every direction were breathtaking. We were now close to the area Lyle had originally desired to hunt before the flight complications had led to our detour. Finally, after a trek of probably six or seven miles, we arrived at a nice flat, dry spot between two drainages. We set up camp and glassed for a bit, spotting caribou bulls scattered here and there on high ridges, and after a warm meal of Mountain House settled in for an early start.

The next morning we worked our way down the main valley then up the next drainage downstream from camp. About halfway up the drainage we spotted a rock point that looked like a great vantage point to glass from, so we made our way there. Upon reaching the rocks it began to rain so we set up a makeshift awning tied to the rock face to ride out the shower and eat some lunch. We enjoyed this comfy out of the wind and rain spot but only spotted a lone caribou bull lazing the day away from his bed on a high ridge across from us.

Our next destination was a high peak on the south side of the top of the drainage. We slowly worked our way up the talus ridge leading to the peak. The view from the top was awe-inspiring. Faint trails could be seen in the talus and scree and we were now seeing droppings. There was a ridge leading from the peak we were on that arced in a circle about three or four miles and ended right above our camp. We decided to walk this ridge and this would give us a good look into numerous drainages along the way.

We glassed a couple of drainages as we made our way along the ridge, each one teasing us with what might lie just out of sight. Upon reaching the next point I dropped my pack and was glassing across and down the valley when Lyle took a few steps past me, then spun, wide-eyed, dropping to a low crouch. He pointed and mouthed, “Sheep right here!”

He came back to where Hunter and I were and told us there were five rams bedded a few hundred yards below us. Grabbing his spotting scope, he crept back out to where he could get a better look at the rams without spooking them. Moving slowly, he got in position, set up his spotting scope, and began to look over the rams. In Alaska a ram has to be more than eight years old, over full curl, or broomed to be legal. Lyle then motioned me to come down to his position. He whispered that of the five rams, two looked good but we needed to get a different angle to get a better look at them. I took a look through the scope and immediately two rams stood out from the rest, one a beautiful over-full-curl ram with lamb tips and the other a Roman-nosed, heavy broomed ram. I ranged the rams at 396 yards, steeply downhill. Doable, but I preferred to get closer. We backed up to where we had dropped our packs to formulate a new plan.

There was a saddle about a hundred yards below us that we thought might give us a better look at the rams, plus close the distance a bit and lessen the angle. The only way to get to the saddle was to back out and walk around a large point, then sidehill across a steep talus slope to our destination. We made our way as quickly and as quietly as possible on the plate-size rocks that sounded like ceramic when you stepped on them. Upon reaching the saddle we dropped our packs and Hunter and I waited while Lyle crept forward to have a look at the rams. This approach gave us no cover other than we were above the bedded rams and hopefully they wouldn’t look up. Lyle glassed the rams for a bit then motioned Hunter and I over to his position. He said two of the rams had disappeared but the two biggest ones were still bedded and he was pretty sure they were both legal, although they were sound asleep and not giving him multiple angles to judge by. There was a small trough in the talus about fifteen yards below us that would offer the best rest. Unfortunately to get there would require crawling across the noisy talus, completely exposed to the rams.

It was decided I would crawl down first while Lyle watched the rams, then Lyle would crawl down behind me while I watched them. I got on my back with my pack and rifle on my chest and began painstakingly inching down the hill. Every move was almost painful from the tension of trying to be quiet on the noisy talus. Each time a rock would move it sounded as if two china plates were rubbing together. I tried to keep an eye on the rams and also listen for Lyle. At one point the lamb-tip ram looked straight up at my position and I froze. The ram stared for a few minutes and then thankfully went back to chewing his cud. I finally reached the trough and wormed my way around until I was on my side. I placed my pack on the small crest of the trough for a rest then my rifle on top. The position was perfect and steady. I then motioned for Lyle to come down.

The three rams were still relaxed and chewing their cuds when Lyle reached my position. He took another look at the rams and said, “James, they are both legal. I like the lamb tips on the one ram but the broomed ram is definitely heavier and looks to be older. It is your choice.”

I was drawn to the broomed ram from the moment I set eyes on him. He was everything I had hoped for on this hunt. An old Roman-nosed warrior,  broomed on both sides. I ranged the rams–exactly 300 yards. I quietly chambered a round and settled into the rifle. It seemed the rams were completely comfortable so even though I could have easily taken the shot on the bedded ram I chose to wait for him to stand. We were discussing the rams in quiet tones and all the while Hunter, our eager young packer, was fifteen yards behind us,nearly dying from anticipation.

After a half hour or so, the lamb tip ram stood and stretched. He was beautiful, but I still was convinced the broomed ram was the one to take. A few moments later he rose from his bed and stretched his head to his chest, then to his back. After his stretch he turned directly broadside and I settled the cross hairs on his shoulder. At the shot, the big ram instantly lifted and curled his front leg, a sign of a perfect heart shot. I chambered another round just in case, but before I even got back on him, Lyle said, “He’s going down!”

The ram staggered just enough to fall off of the cliff he was bedded on. I said, “And he’s still going down!”

He cartwheeled once then fortunately caught on a rock and stopped right in the middle of the slide. I kept the cross hairs on him until finally I could hear Lyle saying, “Oh, James. James! Great job, buddy!”

At that point the gravity of emotion overwhelmed me. I had dreamed of an old white ram since I was a child and never thought it was a possibility. I was awestruck.

James Reed with his “skookum” ram.

I sat watching the other rams as they simply stared down the hill at their fallen comrade. Only after we stood and began making our way down the slope did they slowly move over a hundred yards or so and began feeding again. Obviously, we were the first humans these rams had ever encountered.

Upon reaching the ram I just stood and admired him for a bit before finally reaching down and touching his great horns. He was truly magnificent. I counted his age rings on his battle-scarred horns and he seemed to be 11½ years old. This is what we had come for: an old mountain monarch that had likely never been hunted by humans in his lifetime. I was humbled and honored just to be in his presence, in his world.

After pictures and processing the ram we donned our now extremely heavy packs and began making our way back up to the ridge top then back to camp. We reached camp about 1 a.m. and devoured a round of Mountain House each, then fell into our tents. The next day we fleshed the hide, packed up, and began our arduous pack out.

With packs weighing 80 to 90 pounds each, we trudged more than twenty miles over two mountain passes and through leg-killing tussocks and swamp. At times we could go only 20 or 30 yards before taking a break. I think each of us reached our breaking point a few times, but took turns encouraging each other to trudge on.

Upon finally reaching the landing strip a day a half later, we were seriously exhausted, but so joyful for experiencing the adventure and our success. All the hard work and unknowns made this hunt all the more rewarding. We had a beautiful  ram, a dream ram of a lifetime, a true skookum ram.

Author’s note: Lyle Becker’s Alaska Skookum Guides will be now offering two sheep hunts a year in this area along with his grizzly, moose, caribou, and peninsula brown bear hunts. Learn more at alaskaskookumguides.com.

 Serious Mountain Gear

On this hunt I knew every piece of gear I took would be vital not only to my chances of success but even to my survival. I needed everything to be light, tough, and functional because there was no room for extra gear or weight. One essential part of my kit was my pack. I have a hard time finding packs that fit my 29-inch waist and 145-pound frame. For this hunt I chose a Stone Glacier Sky Talus pack and it was truly exceptional. My load on the way out was 80 pounds, and I carried it more than twenty miles.

I used Kryptek’s Altitude series, featuring Schoeller fabrics. These kept me warm and dry even in the daily rain and snow we experienced, plus the numerous river crossings. Every piece from base layers to outer layers to the gloves and gators performed flawlessly.

I used Zeiss’s new Victory RF 10×42 binocular, and their clarity made the hours of glassing every day possible without eye fatigue and with the capability to load my ballistic data into them made a perfect shot possible. For a rifle I cannot speak highly enough of the HS Precision PHL in 6.5 Creedmoor. Topped with a Swarovski 3-18x scope and shooting Hornady Precision Hunter 143-grain ELD-X ammo, this combination was a tackdriver straight out of the box.  And a dream to carry weighing in at only 6 pounds with scope.

The foundation of success was my Kenetrek Mountain Hunter Extreme boots and Kenetrek socks, which have served me well for three years on several mountain hunts.—J.C.R.

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A camp in Texas is helping women learn the skills they need to become successful hunters.

Yes, she hunts! Although hunting remains a male-dominated activity, women are the fastest-growing segment of the hunting community, and they are a much larger minority than when my generation grew up. In a time when declining numbers are the greatest threat to hunting, this is extremely important. We spend much time pontificating—and wringing our hands—over the criticality of recruiting young hunters. This has always been important, but increasingly so as our hunting demographics age.

As our society becomes ever more urbanized, the recruitment and retention challenges increase because of hunter access and ever-escalating costs. The sad reality is that potential young hunters trapped in cities—even those with innate interest—are difficult to reach. The same problem applies to all ages and sexes, but the women within our own extended circles are joining us in unprecedented numbers. From what I hear, there are still a few Neanderthals among us, but I believe (and certainly hope) most of us male hunters are welcoming.

Unlike previous generations, these days many daughters, sisters, and moms grow up with hunting as a normal thing. But unless you grow up with it, suddenly “going hunting” can be intimidating, and even with the best intentions we mentors of the male hunting majority don’t always do things exactly right.

Dani Parris-Exline stalks a “rogue elephant.” We put on a bit of pressure, with the target hidden until the last minute.

Perhaps it was because of my failings that my daughter Brittany established her She Hunts Skills Camps. Britt has been doing this for four years now, hosting groups of up to a dozen—now more than a hundred “graduates”—for busy and intensive, but also fun, four-day sessions. The ladies span all age groups and experience; some are veteran hunters, many new, and some, quite honestly, arrive very undecided about this hunting thing.

The idea is to provide a safe, positive experience, helping women to be safer, more competent, and independenthunters. Recently her camp has been held at Record Buck Ranch near Utopia, Texas, a gorgeous piece of the Hill Country. The food is fantastic, the lodge comfortable and homey, and wildlife on the ranch is amazing, hosting dozens of non-native species, plus white-tailed deer, turkeys, and oceans of wild hogs. Hunting—or “safari style” game viewing drives—are optional early morning and late afternoon activities. Experience has shown that most attendees hunt, even those who initially say they won’t.

Britt obviously can’t do it all by herself. Donna, who has a vested interest in women hunting, usually attends to help out, as does Brittany’s husband, Brad Jannenga. I’ve attended a few, and sponsors, including Krieghoff, Leupold, MGA, and Norma come in to provide expertise for various sessions. In the session just past, in mid-October, shotgunner Kayle Browning interrupted her Olympic training to give the ladies some of the best shotgun instruction I’ve ever seen. Honestly, every time I’ve attended, I’ve learned something. Kayle used some amazingly simple techniques that were absolutely certain to allow new shotgunners to break targets.

So, suppose a lady in your life shows interest in shooting or hunting? How many of us, me included, have taken her to the range, gone through the Ten Commandments of safety, and handed her a firearm ready to shoot? That’s not bad, but it’s not enough. Women are more curious than that, and most want more knowledge, beyond just hitting a target.

Brittany thought this through (without consulting me). Of course, she starts with safety, reinforced throughout, but before shooting they start with functioning and loading, then mounting a scope, then bore-sighting, and then zeroing. It makes me feel pretty stupid because I never taught my girls these things. Those were my chores. Now, there are some great shooting schools out there. She Hunts is not a shooting school, not in four days with all the rest. In military terms it’s a bit more like “familiarization fire,” not in-depth training. But shooting includes off sticks with both .22s and centerfires, shooting off the bench, and at distant targets. Basic archery is included—in this recent session several of the ladies were already bowhunters—as is basic shotgunning with, as I said, exceptional instruction.

Other seminars include conservation and hunting ethics, shot placement on game, stalking, basic gear, survival technique, and firearms maintenance. There’s even a fun thing where, with a “PH,” attendees “stalk” a life-size buffalo or elephant target, and take it on, usually with a double rifle in moderate cartridge.

One of the most confusing things in our male-dominated hunting world is “bullet basics”—cartridges, bullets, how they’re named, how they work, and what various cartridges are for. Many boys grow up reading Guns & Ammo; most girls do not. But, honestly, cartridge nomenclature is so conflicting that even many of my writer colleagues don’t really understand it. Trying to make sense of this arcane and boring stuff was my most daunting task at the last camp. Fortunately, there is no exam, but I found the ladies attentive and interested—and full of very good questions. Knowing song and verse doesn’t matter, but it’s important to know that a .30-06 is larger and more powerful than a 7mm-08 or .270…and why.

Many attendees have never used a shotgun, but Olympic hopeful Kayle Browning is able to get everyone to break clays in just a few shots.

One of the great advantages to doing something like this on a Texas ranch is the year-round hunting opportunity. Those who wish to hunt can, and plentiful wild hogs (no license required) offer an inexpensive opportunity with success highly likely. So, for the field dressing and butchering seminar, it was no great trick to produce two big wild hogs. Last time Brad and I did this together, starting with the traditional field dressing technique, from the belly. Then we did the “Alaskan” method, peeling down from the backbone, finishing with hung quarters and backstraps and tenderloins ready for the table. Field-dressing is another chore that I used to keep for myself. When Britt was a teenager, to my surprise, she begged me to show her how.

Come to think of it, my dad was a bird hunter, and I’m not sure he ever learned how to field dress a deer—that was my job! Ultimately, I suppose it really doesn’t matter who does it, but after all, it’s an essential skill that every hunter should know. As we got to the second pig, I was impressed with how many of the ladies pulled on rubber gloves and pitched in. Although this would be beyond me, the game care seminar is followed by an expert’s spin on game cooking.

Aside from availability of game, Record Buck’s facilities provide a perfect venue. Lodging for attendees is in the main lodge, with rooms off to the side and upstairs, with dining room and after-hours bar downstairs. Strap-hangers like me and “guest lecturers” are housed separately, so it’s a nice combination of privacy and coziness that brings the group together and creates a lot of camaraderie. Let’s face it, guys: Lady hunters enjoy being with other lady hunters now and then!

As for hunting, Record Buck offers plenty of opportunity, and over the course of a half-dozen early morning or late afternoon outings most hunters will have an opportunity at the game they seek. Several opted for wild hogs, which are truly a plague in this area, certainly the most plentiful and available species. One woman shot a beautiful blackbuck, another a fine axis deer, still another a scimitar-horned oryx. One young lady, Lauren, wanted a zebra! Guide Houston Erskine is a good friend and excellent (and patient) guide. Record Buck has a breeding population of zebra, but as Houston and Lauren set out, he mentioned that, as in so much of Africa, a zebra might be the most difficult animal on the ranch. I think it took four outings and several failed stalks, but Lauren took a beautiful zebra with a perfect shot, and I was delighted to be there to see it.

As usual, most of the attendees chose to hunt, and all who did shot well and effectively, with no drama. In my experience, having “created” several female hunters, this is typical. Women haven’t been subjected to macho posturing most of their lives–they start with few bad habits and are interested in listening, learning, and doing it right. And, with good instruction, they tend to do it right. With every one of Brittany’s camps that I attend, I realize I could have been a much better teacher! Brittany has four sessions scheduled at Record Buck in 2020. For information visit www.shehuntsskillscamp.com.

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