2016 Caribou Hunt

[e300winmag]

Julie and I were lucky enough to draw several tags in Alaska this past drawing season. The first tag to open was our Caribou tag. After many phone calls, online research and local research by a close resident friend of mine we booked a transport flight with Wright air. I was skeptical if we were going to be in the right place once hunting start but I am very happy with our choice. Not minutes after we landed on the remote air strip we were seeing caribou. Albeit they were cows and a small bull but the action was already starting and we had not yet set up camp or been on the ground for more than15 minutes.

 

[MinnesotaHunter]

I have been waiting for this thread.....

 

[MThuntr]

I have been waiting for this thread.....

Yes I've been wanting to hear the full story for weeks!

 

[brownbear932008]

Logging in for this one love bou hunts

 

[e300winmag]

The Helio took off and we waved our goodbyes and off we went to find a camp location. We were told by the pilot that the prevailing winds in this area were out of the west and therefore we went to the east of the knife ridge on which we were dropped. After descending a few hundred feet we found a beautiful flat section and set up our camp. After the Tipi and fence were erected and the inside rearranged with all the comforts the back country of Alaska could provide, we took off to find water. We had brought in a little over a liter a piece and we figured with the many named creeks on the map we would not have any trouble filling our several large water bags.

 

[j.erickson]

Ethan and I definitely won the Alaskan lottery when we both drew moose, caribou, and spring Prince of Wales black bear.
Our honeymoon Alaska hunting trip was surely one for the books. Our trip began with a fly in Caribou hunt.
The weather was perfect the day that we flew in.

These hills don't look too big, until you reach the bottom of one and start hiking up the other side.

View attachment 63498

Immediately upon landing at our new home in the vast Alaskan wilderness we were greeted by some caribou.

Ethan with all of our gear for the next week.

The first day was spent setting up camp. We ended up having to hike a little ways to find water. We also found a few sheds on our water and firewood search.


It is amazing how small you feel when you are in the wilderness. Look closely and you can see our SeekOutside tipi tent of the side of the hill.

 

[MT_elk]

Lovn' it so far!

 

[duckhunt]

Looks great

 

[mdunc8]

Awesome country! Let's go, don't drag this out.

 

[j.erickson]

Day 1
We were greeted by this gorgeous sunrise as we crawled from the tent and got our stuff together for the day. Not a bad view while enjoying morning coffee

The day started off with low cloud ceilings. We had decided that we would head further up the hill to see what kind of caribou we could find.

By mid morning we had found ourselves in close distance to this fella. To be exact we got 50 yards from him. But after some discussion we decided that since it was the first morning of our hunt and not knowing what kind of bulls were in the unit yet that we would let him pass.

By the afternoon the clouds had lifted and the sun was shining bright. We were able to see a further distance now and started spotting caribou up higher. We hiked through the sponge like tundra to get closer. Again we found ourselves in the situation of seeing nice bulls but we were not ready to pull the trigger just yet. Then I spotted what I thought was a nice bull through the spotting scope. I showed him to Ethan and his response was "that's a shooter bull, lets go!!!" Off we go. The bull was over 2 miles away when we spotted him so we knew we had a lot of distance to cover to get close to him. We dropped down a little to cover some distance without him or his cows spotting us. When we came back up to glass we had lost sight of him. However, Ethan had a plan. We started working all of the finger ridges that were off the side of the hill that we had last saw him on. I thought we had lost him for good when Ethan spotted his main beams sticking out of some bushes in the valley of one of those ridges. He was 70 yards away from us bedded down. I told Ethan to take his bow and put a stalk on him, he was in the perfect spot. So the plan was for Ethan to attempt to get him with his bow and I would be ready with the rifle if he ran away. Then we noticed he was shaking his head and getting antsy, we could see the flies were bothering him and just at that moment he got up and ran away. Quickly we grabbed my rifle and up we went to cut him off, we knew we couldn't let this one get away, he was the biggest bull we had seen all day. Finally a few ridges later I was able to get a shot on him and sealed the deal on this awesome bull.

Sunset was quickly approaching so we knew we had to work fast to get him broken down. We were 2.5 miles away from camp as the crow flies and had over 1000 feet of elevation to go down and climb back up. We filled our packs with as much as we could carry and off we went. Darkness came and we found ourselves following the GPS back to camp with full packs hiking through the sponge tundra. I couldn't wait to be back at our tent. It was late when we finally made it back. That mountain house meal and crystal light have never tasted so good.
Day 2
In the morning we hiked back to where we left the remainder of the animal. We were happy to see that it was just how we left it and that nothing had bothered it. Once again we loaded our packs and made the grueling pack back to camp.

After getting the meat situated and out of the sun so that it would cool we decided we would take it easy the rest of the day and not hike too far from the camp. We didn't see any shooter bulls so we headed back to camp. Throughout the day the wind had picked up drastically. The wind gusts were 40-50 mph. We were hoping that it would lay down with the darkness but that was not the case. We spent all night laying in the tent wide awake praying that our tent would hold up to the winds.
Day 3 Morning came and we knew we had to move camp and get out of the wind or we wouldn't have a tent soon. We packed our things and moved camp to the other side of the hill. We left the bear fence and meat. We found a nice spot out of the wind. By the time we got camp set up again it was late afternoon and since we didn't sleep much the night before we had decided to take it easy for the day. We went back over to check on the meat from my caribou and as we crested the top of the hill we spotted a group of caribou directly across the canyon from our old camp. We glassed them and saw three nice bulls in the group. It didn't take Ethan long to decide that he was going to take one of them. We closed in the distance, Ethan fired, connecting with another amazing caribou.


Again, the sun was quickly setting. We quickly got the bull broken down, our packs filled and headed back to our base camp. We slept like babies that night knowing we had filled our tags, there was no wind, and of course from exhaustion.
Day 4 We finished packing out the rest of Ethan's caribou. We had messaged the transporter from our Delorme and received confirmation that they could pick us up early. We knew we had to get the meat back to town and taken care of. The warm weather and sunshine was not going to be good for it if we stayed too long. We got busy packing and moving everything us to the landing area of the hill. We had some time to kill while we waited for the transporter so were figured it was a good time for a photo op with our bulls.

This hunt with my husband was absolutely amazing. It was physically and mentally challenging but I wouldn't change a thing about it.

 

[1_pointer]

Super job you two!! Well done! Great that you guys share a common passion/past time...

 

[Muskeez]

Great write-up and an amazing adventure, congratulations, enjoy the many blessings

 

[Art Vandeley]

Awesome! Great pictures. Congrats on a successful trip. Your pack looks super heavy packing out your bull.

 

[LCH]

Those looks like some monster 'bou. I bet that was an awesome experience, thanks for sharing.

 

[----]

You two kicked that hunt's ass.

That looks like some amazing country.

 

[OpenCountry]

Looks like a very successful hunt. Congrats on a couple of awesome bulls!

 

[brownbear932008]

Great looking bou nothing like the wilds of Alaska. If you have never done POW your really gonna enjoy that one also.

 

[Festus]

Awesome hunt! Incredible bous, Congrats!!
Great pics and story to go with.

 

[JColony]

Congrats on the great bulls!!! Awesome right up and pics too! Looking forward to the moose and black bear stories!

 

[Hunting Wife]

Julie, you killed my dream caribou! Awesome story and photos. Congrats to you both on what looks like a very memorable trip!