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THE JONESBORO SUN
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SUN OUTDOORS
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Sunday, APRIL 22, 2012
www.jonesborosun.com
Local men pursue Grand Slam By Rob Veach Special to The Sun Outdoors
It was September of 2001, and while sitting in a bar in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, having just completed a successful caribou hunt in the Northwest Territories, my brother-in-law and hunting buddy, Michael White of Manila, looked at me and said, “Well, what’s next?� After a little more encouragement from the refreshments at the bar, we decided we weren’t getting any younger and that we needed to go on a Dall sheep hunt. My journey began on that day. By late winter of 2002, we had researched several outfitters, and made the decision to book our Dall sheep hunt. In August of that same year, we headed to the Wrangell Mountains in Eastern Alaska. The Wrangell Mountains include 12 of the 40-plus Alaskan peaks over 13,000 feet in elevation. Alaska, the mountains and the hunt took my breath away, figuratively and literally. It was the most grueling and self-abusive week I ever had in my life! The altitude and climbing on the shell
rock was physically punishing and exhausting. But, as with a lot of physical activities, the mental aspect can separate the men from the boys. When physically spent, you can sit for a period and regroup. When mentally spent, you’re toast. A typical day of hunting began around 6 a.m. with a camp breakfast; then we’d head out around 7:30 a.m. on horseback for a two- to three-hour ride, stopping to glass — using binoculars — to search for sheep. Once we located the rams, we’d dismount and start our ascent up the mountain. On the average day, our climb was a 4-5 hour, physically exhausting excursion to attempt to get a closer look at the rams. Finally, on day three of my hunt, we located a good sheep and I was able to successfully harvest my first ram. Once I returned home and my bodily aches and pains healed, I realized that I had begun what I later learned would be a lifelong endeavor. I was addicted to true mountain hunting. Michael and I were both familiar with PLEASE SEE GRAND SLAM, 9
Rob Veach displays one of the three wild sheep he killed in his pursuit of the Grand Slam of North American Wild Sheep.
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