Alaska Caribou adventure 8/24

[PRO MO]

Here's my day by day adventure of a trip we booked with Arrowhead Outfitters. Sorry if it's wordy, had quite a bit of time up there to write down daily thoughts. Recap of the lead-in to the start, we landed in Fairbanks, picked up a Turo Truck, grabbed our rental camp gear (tents, cots, cooking stuff, etc), grabbed some last minute things, and headed for Cold foot. The haul road is beautiful, not near as bad as we'd heard, but the amount of road construction added about 2 1/2 hours to our trip.

We arrived late in Coldfoot, got a room for the 4 of us to sleep. Very, very cozy. 2 cots and two twin beds in a room left no room to walk. the place to sleep in cold foot is retrofitted single wide trailers, not the cleanest place in the world, but it was a roof over the head. Great buffet in the morning.

Next morning we head up north to deadhorse. All through the Brooks range was just beautiful. My pictures don't do it justice, so i'll spare you with most of them. Of note, i was glassing for sheep while driving through with my Sig Zulu6 16x binos, and these things are amazing. While bouncing down the road, i'm able to look through the binos perfectly still. We did spot some dall sheep, a black bear, a bunch of caribou, and closer to Deadhorse - Muskox. Awesome animals.


We fueled up in Deadhorse, got another great buffet - this time at the Aurora - which was Sunday night Prime rib. What a last meal before our hunt. Head a little south to the Arrowhead Outfitters basecamp, and get a good nights sleep before heading out the next morning.

 

[cgasner1]

Ow yay more ak stuff

 

[Gr8bawana]

Looking forward to reading about your adventure.

 

[PRO MO]

Day 1 8/12
Flight day-
Orientation in the morning. They like to overwhelm you with paperwork, making sure inreaches/zoleos are in working order - which left me with 3 of my groups devices getting them working - and tell you all the important field notes at the same time. Very frustrating start to our morning.
First group of 4 to fly out for the day weighs and takes off right after. When we weigh (they not wouldn’t let us pre weigh to see what we needed to do) we still somehow came under weight. This was my biggest worry leading up to the hunt. Ended up 15lbs under weight. Wished we’d have known that! Could've definitely used the 15lbs.
We get a short flight to camp, set up tents, get water filtered, glass a few caribou, a curious porcupine wandered right up to us, and get settled into camp. Sight in 6.5prc, two shots at 100, touching same hole 2” high of bullseye. Excited for tomorrow, we stay up until 11:30 BS’ing and drinking whiskey. hunt starts at 3:00am. Decide we’ll check for caribou through the night in shifts.

 

[PRO MO]

Day 2 – 8/13

Up at 4:00 see big bull way off in the distance. Too far. Up again at 6:00, same thing, plus one other smaller bull a lot closer. Go back to sleep for another hour. Big bull hasn’t moved, the smaller bull met up with some cows. Not worth chasing. Drink some good coffee, aero press is worth the weight. Spot some ptarmigan, chase them with bow, I get one, dad gets one with .22 revolver (but I also finished it). Turns out these were babies, but the first ones we saw, so didn't know any better at the moment. Still delicous.

Caribou have all disappeared, see float plane drop off another group probably 5 miles away to the south - and directly in line with where the big bou was. See a super cub land probably 7-10 miles away and set up camp to the southeast. Sure seems crowded way up here in the middle of nowhere.

Other guys decide to check their rifles. 7prc is fine after a little adjustment. 300prc… uh I guess hitting paper is fine, after numerous adjustments. Don’t think he knows how to sight in a rifle, or is stressed out by trying to do it with us watching. Going to be pushing dad to use the 6.5 if possible, since he didn’t bring a gun.

Bored, decide to try out hiking in the Tundra to chase ptarmigan with my bow and see if I could unearth any caribou. Hiking is as bad as I’ve heard. Did about 1 mile from camp and turned back soaking wet with sweat. Tussock is no joke. Missed one ptarmigan, and almost lost my arrow in the bog. Found it right as I mentally said stop wasting time. Even judo points bury in this stuff.

Got back to camp, 7prc had spotted some caribou - 5 miles away on the hill the super cub landed on. Counted 39 of them, so far away couldn’t make anything out other than black dots. It would be a hell of a thing to bring a mosquito tent if you do the extra gear flight. Wind dies down and the mosquitoes are ridiculous even at 45 degrees.

After dinner, we decided to play some trivia to pass the time, and apparently that was the lucky charm - one nice bull popped out at 1.5 miles away.

7prc and I decided to go after him, I’ll bring the bow and he’ll shoot if I miss or can’t get close enough. We haul ass as fast as we can, covering most the ground in about 1/2 hr, relocate the bull and finalize plans. Not much of a choice but to just walk right at him and hope he’s uninterested. We were right - we sneak all the way to within 200 yds and 7prc sits back and sets up as backup, while I keep walking towards him. With perfect wind I get to about 120 yds and he finally looks at me and starts to investigate. Im thinking about 80yds is my max, been shooting it every day at home, and feel confident out there. The bull comes towards me a few paces then decides to start circling around, trying to get my wind. He did a full 180 degree loop around me and gets my wind, still unsure what to make of me. He never came closer than 112 yards, and he finally got into a direct crossfire situation between myself and 7prc. I decide it’s time for me to bail and let him do his thing, and the bull cooperated perfectly. He kind of trotted away into a clear safe spot to get shot. Boom. One bull down. 9:24 at night and it’s still not even dusk.

Now the work begins. We get a few pictures, get him cut up in two hours, and start heading for the camp. Unfortunately, we did not make a track with onX on our way out, which would’ve been very handy - we made a wide arc back to camp, probably adding a 1/2 mile to our trek. Instead of the nice easy way we found the way to the bull, we got sucked into a bog and were constantly slopping through water mud and muck, with tussock mixed in for good measure. Of course, it was by far the darkest night with all the heavy cloud cover, almost actual night time. It was brutal. We got back to camp at 2:30am, wet, exhausted and dehydrated. Get the meat spread out to cool and head to bed. Muscles too tense to fall asleep right away, but still pretty quickly asleep.

 

[PRO MO]

Day 3 8/14

Yayyyy, up at 8. Thinking I’ll eat some breakfast, drink some water and get back to another nap. Nope, decide I need coffee with breakfast. Then go chase ptarmigan, no luck - mature birds flush way out of range. Get back start glassing, not much new for caribou. Clean up the mess from when we got back to camp, and just keep eating food and drinking water. Overdid it on that pack out.

Around noon the sun comes out, the distant caribou disappear and it gets warm. Chase some ptarmigan, somehow miss with the .22. Get back to camp, time for more trivia. It doesn’t work quite as well for luck, but it does pull a couple small bulls out into the distant open for a minute. Dad and 300prc go nap around 1-1:30, 7prc keeps tending to his meat, doing his best to keep it cool in the warmth. I finally get a long nap in. Evening is uneventful, but a group of 5 caribou cows come pass us by from the south. Hopeful that’s the start of the movement to us.

 

[PRO MO]

Day 4 – 8/15

It isn’t the start of the movement. Saw 4 bulls about 4 miles south first thing in the morning, too far to even make out size. Went on a fishing side quest - got two bites but no catches. Also went on a ptarmigan side quest. Pretty good walk, no luck though. Good caribou trails along the creek make for easier walking but the Muskeg tussock to get there is terrible. 7prc got his caribou finished trimmed up and dug out the side of the lake bank into permafrost and made a cold storage mud hut. 7prc sent a message to arrowhead requesting move tomorrow to greener pastures. Not sure if that’s a good idea or not, I can put pros and cons to each situation and neither sounds particularly better.

Finally after 8:00, we spot what looks like a decent bull. One mile away, stalk in and check him out. Decent beam length, little back scratchers, one shovel, nothing on top - not a shooter for me. But he’s following us back to camp. If he gets close enough, we’ll wake up dad and have him whack it.

Day 5 – 8/16

rain drizzled down all morning, the bull from last night disappeared, 9 “new” caribou showed up on the south horizon, then disappeared in the mist. Shot one ptarmigan on a little walk about that was the most exciting thing all day. Big wind and rain storm came in.

 

[PRO MO]

Day 6 -8/17

fog until 11 kept things shuttered. Fog lifts, and two decent bulls are close. Get dad to go after them, got to about 375 and they walked off. Not as curious as the other others. 7prc and I chased after them through the marsh. Got in position, and start getting ranges of 400,430,340,280… we’ll start at 400. Boom boom nothing. High? reset back to zero and boom. Low. Raise up to account for 30" drop, boom - low still. go higher yet, and one more boom. Low, but got his attention. He takes off. Get another range now saying 570. Dont know what the hell is going on with rangefinders, but thinking the mist in the air is messing with them. Only one that’s working consistently is 300prc's Leupold and it’s back at camp with him. You’d think between a set of leicas, swarovskis and vortex we’d have something that works.


Chase the bulls but they keep a safe distance, finally we’re too far and they’re farther still, have to turn back.

Around 3:30 I decided I needed to get out of camp and go for a walk, like a real hunt. My plan is to just walk the caribou trails along the creek that runs southeast, maybe a mile or so, then head to high ground and glass. Nice easy walking for the most part. I get right to a mile on onX go to a hill check to the south west, nothing new, and the only bulls in sight were still a long ways off. So I turn and hike up a hill to the southwest to hopefully glass new country. I get near the top and stop and glass and see caribou everywhere, all around me, all a good distance off though still. Then I see a set of antlers in the tall brush maybe 450-500yards away. Bedded bull. Pretty nice too, has everything I want in a bull. So I sneak in to 300, hasn’t moved. Ok, just make it 100 more paces and set up. 98… 99. Shit he’s standing up. I’m so unprepared for only being one pace off my goal. Throw trekking poles down, rip backpack off, set rifle, lay down on my trekking pole, get him in my sights, head on. Wait for him to turn, aaaaaaand whap. He spins to run, I sit up - snap! there goes a trekking pole. Shit. Oh he’s down and dead. Sweet. Such a roller coaster.

Get him all broke down, into game bags, and decided I was going to just carry it all to the creek, then stash it and just take one load back to camp. Decided about 50 steps in with a full caribou on my back that I’m going to change direction from where I came up the hill and instead head straight for the creek. Very heavy carrying an entire caribou. Ended up carrying it probably 500yards and called it good. Covered the meat and the antlers, and figured since I already carried the whole thing, half shouldn’t be so bad to walk what is now two miles back to camp. Easy to get off course and add unnecessary distance when you can't see camp and it's just flat with no marks to use as bearing. One hind quarter, one shoulder, backstraps, and tendies on my back I make long long slow trek back. Shot him at 5:30, got back to camp at 11:00. Good night

 

[PRO MO]

Day 7 8/18

Wanting to sleep in a little today, so naturally there’s bulls outside our camp at 6:30, dad wakes me up to come look, but the close ones disappear before I can get out of the tent, but the caribou are everywhere. Finally made it into our valley. New plan - glass, make breakfast (realized I skipped dinner and was starving), glass a little more and nap. Ended up being more glassing less napping, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

At noon, dad and I decide to get out of camp and go set up on the knoll 700yds to the south. Multiple Caribou have passed through here today, and as soon as we get set up, there’s bulls as close as 450yards away. But he wants them real close. 250max. Rain starts, and we set up a shelter to wait it out. I leave dad behind at the “cabana” and take off about an hour later when the rain stops. Inreach 7prc as he says he’ll help pack the rest of my bull. We meet up about 1/2 mile from my bull.

We make it about 300 yards before another bull comes wandering to us, oh and 7prc just so happened to be packing his bow, so he asks (one of those instances when he was just asking to be polite, he wanted to go hunt not pack meat) and I say of course. So he goes and whacks this nice bull, it runs about 1.5 miles back to camp and he chases it all the way. Here I go again packing out way too much meat. A quarter, rib meat, neck meat, other loose meat, bloodshot meat (which seems asinine) and the head this time.

FML this two miles sucks. In the distance I think I hear a couple gunshots, but couldn’t be sure. Who would that have been, anyways? Keep on trucking, and see 7prc chasing his bull past me and on the way I bump another bull and he runs in front of dad.

I hear one soft crack from the 6.5prc. Boom, twenty minutes later I come around the corner and there’s one wounded bull running to camp with 7prc in pursuit, and dad standing over a carcass. Too far to go admire, I need to get this meat back to camp. I drag my feet to camp - very much exhausted - and chug some water, go to the lake and purify camp waters, realize I lost my water bottle somewhere about 3/4 mile back, grab some snacks and turn around to go help dad.

By the time I get there, I’m surprised to see he’s just about got it licked. Help him snap some hooves off the quarters, skin the head, and try the fat behind the eyeballs. Yes, it smells and tastes like dough, but dough is gross and the texture feels like raw fat. No need for either of us to try that again. Grab a single quarter each and head for the barn. Man, a single quarter feels like nothing at this point.

Get back to camp around 7:30, make some dinner and try to get ahold of the other guys via Inreach. 7prc notifies us he’s just a few hundred yards behind camp finishing cutting up his archery bull. No word from 300prc, who evidently went on a little adventure as well today. Must’ve been those distant gunshots.

I go whack a ptarmigan with my bow, which disappointingly takes two shots, and get back to camp for the sun to come out. It’s been rainy all day so welcome relief. See a silhouette a mile to the west and it’s 300prc, and he is moving SLOW. Like I was when I tried packing that entire bull to the creek. He must have got it done - 3 bulls down today, and all I’ve done is pack meat. oh well, this is what we do. We watch 300prc make his way to the other side of the lake and drop his meat there. They said we could leave meat around the lake and the pilots can taxi over and pick it up. He gets to us around probably 9, exhausted. He did it, not like he wanted sitting in camp, but 2.5 miles away. Yay. So 1/2 of dad’s bull, 3/4 of 7prc’s bull and 3/4 of 300prc’s bull need out. Tomorrow is gonna be fun. But first celebratory whiskey for three of us. 300prc is too tired and goes straight to bed. I go whack a couple more ptarmigan, again needing two shots on of them. Tough birds, of the two I double shot today, one was through the chest then neck, the other through the chest twice - -with judo points, wild. Time for bed - tomorrow is gonna be fun.
sun setting to the NNW

 

[PRO MO]

Day 8 - 8/19

Woke up a little late, had a lite breakfast, tended to my caribou's meat - nice and cold to the touch. Waited for 300prc to get enough energy to go pack his bull out. Dad left at 9:40 to go get the rest of his bull, just planning on shuttling it back nice and easy - and slow. 7prc said his bull was close enough he didn’t need help. 300prc, turns out really did need help. It was 2 miles as the crow flies and it was a hell of a slog. No caribou trails, all either the nastiest tussock I’ve walked or marsh that sinks every step up to the ankles or worse. It was brutal just walking to the carcass. 6 hours to pack the 3/4 of the bull and the head about one mile to the west end of the lake. Sure hope the pilots can pick up the meat over there.

After dropping the meat at the lake, I start mucking back to camp and notice a bull we call “no tops” from day 4. He’s coming right towards me. 350 yards. I range the tents - 800 yards, not too bad. But he’s still just not exactly what I want. I take a good long look at him, get him to within 150 yards, and he’s still wanting to come closer. I say 70 and I’ll shoot. He stops at 126 and he continues to breathe. He’s nice, but the no tops is kind of a deal breaker for me. I try to get 300prc to shoot him but he’s mentally and physically done for the day. Storm moves in as soon as we get back to camp. Spend the evening in the tent.

Day 9 – 8/20

Storms all day. Nasty wind and rain keeps us in camp all day, mostly in the tents. Bad visibility makes for a very boring day. Weather finally lets up around 8:00, and we spot a group 4 bulls to the north of us but too far to chase tonight. A group of ptarmigan come too close to camp. I get three with the bow. Everyone laughed at me when i grabbed a pocketful of butter at the Aurora in Deadhorse, now they've all been enjoying the hell out of it with all this fresh caribou and ptarmigan. The Brooks off in the distance get a good glow at the end of the day with all the fresh snow.

 

[PRO MO]

Day 10 – 8/21

Last day to hunt. Wake up at 6:15, and it was still a little too late. The group of bulls had passed us and were out by where my dad shot his bull. I grab by bow and sling my rifle. I want this nice bull, but want to give it a try with my bow. I sneak in, find a slight stream/marsh bottom that I’m able to sneak in on them. They are in the flat marsh, but they bed down when I’m about 400 out - perfect. Wind is good too. This should be possible, but I’m running out of low land to conceal myself. I drop my pack and take the bow and rifle. My plan is to sneak into bow range, but if I can’t I’m close enough for a slam dunk rifle shot. I’m staying as low as I can, crouching, crab walking and kneeling my way in. 150 yards, 125 yards, all I can see is antler tips. I find enough of a low spot that looks like I can get another 50 yards. Start slowly moving in, trying to minimize the splashing of wading through the calf deep water.

For whatever reason, the farthest bull stands up. Uh-oh, guess I’m dropping the bow. I rack a round into the rifle, try to use my bow to stabilize a shot from my knees (not a great idea, but it was steady enough), and start to get on target where the big bull will be when he stands up. Except it’s just not high enough, all i can see is the top of his rack – he stands, turns and takes off full sprint. All 4 bulls gone and don’t stop until they are well out of rifle range, then keep on running. First time I’ve seen caribou spook like that. I’m guessing I was too close and they aren’t as curious when they’re in a group. I should’ve just set up where I dropped my pack and been patient with the rifle I guess. In the moment, i really wanted to get it done with my bow if i was going to do it, but it was a pretty cool bull, and way bigger the closer i got.

Get back to camp around 8:30am disappointed and tired. The other guys are just getting moving, other than dad who’s been up reading and watching since I left for the failed stalk. We hang out all morning, watch caribou way off in the distance, all of which seem to be coming into our range. Late in the afternoon, We can start to make out the group of bulls that I busted this morning way off to the east. They seem to be making their way to us. One last chance – I take off for them with my rifle. I close the distance as fast as I can, cutting down 800 yards in no time. The 4 bulls have met up with probably 6 cows. Lots of eyes on me as I try to get within range. Every time I sneak 60 yards closer, they move 80 yards away.

Having issues with the range finder again, I need to get close, and they are not letting that happen. I back off a bit, find a low drainage to sneak in where I can only see antler tips when I crouch. Sneak in a lot closer, but still seems like 600-700 yards away. Throw up the range finder – 268. That can’t be right. Sneak closer, 268 again. Sneak closer still – 268. Alright, these caribou aren’t moving near as fast now, so what the hell is going on. Sneak closer one last time, 268 – and a second one at 303. Ok a new range. Gotta be correct. I get the rifle set up, looking through the scope – 303 is not right. I know it, but I shoot anyway holding just a little high. I watch the bullet whip through the grass about 300 yards in front of me – well short of the bull. I knew it. Bull just looks my direction, seems confused. I just sit there, and watch them mosey off over the horizon. Equipment failure is the most frustrating thing that can happen out here. All of my practice shooting, gaining confidence in my rifle was worthless when you can’t get a remotely accurate range. Walk back to camp defeated. I’m done, good trip lets drink some whiskey and call it a day....

Nope, get back to camp and spot a real nice bull off to the north, and a couple smaller bulls closer to the northwest. Smaller bull is coming in on a line. I said I’m done, so I set the rifle up for my dad. Bull walks into 300 yards (verified by the other three rangefinders). Dad waits for him to get broadside, shoots, looks like a good hit at first. Ends up a little low, but the bull was hurt and dad was able to get a quick, perfect follow up. We finally got our “camp” bull – 300 yards from camp. All four of us go out and get him cut up real quick and back to camp in a little over an hour. No longer defeated, now I can happily call it a hunt – and drink some whiskey.

 

[PRO MO]

Day 11 – 8/22

We were originally told the night before that the planes would be there between 10-11:30 then next morning. Got a message around 8:30 that they were taking off. Good thing dad and I pretty much had everything packed and ready. We haul ass getting the camp taken down and get down just in time for the first two flights. I go for a quick dunk in the water while loading up a caribou, nice way to cool off on a 40 degree morning, glad that happened at the end of the trip, no drying clothes off from being that soaked. The other guys scramble as well to be ready just in time for the next flight.

We load up and hit the road by 12:30. Have a real close up with a muskox on the road – one of the highlights of the trip for me, those are amazing animals. Make it to cold foot for a beer and food, get sat down for dinner and another hunter passing through comes in to tells us crows (I think they’re ravens) were all over our antlers. Of all the antlers they could’ve tore up, they chose 7prc’s – the one set that was going to be shoulder mounted. They got them pretty good, but not in my opinion bad enough to not salvage. Gotta be a way a taxidermist can fix them and make them look good. He was sick to his stomach that happened, especially after taking such time to take care of them the whole time we were in the tundra.

We leave coldfoot heading for Fairbanks – should arrive around 12:30-1am depending on construction and such. Hit it perfectly that we had hardly any delays – until the last mile of dirt road, we get a flat tire. But the other two guys are impressively quick, finding the hole and patching it, getting us back on the road in less than ½ hour. Roll into Fairbanks around 1:30 in the morning.

 

[PRO MO]

 

[Sask hunter]

Looks like a good trip! Congrats!

 

[CPAjeff]

Congrats on the adventure and success!

 

[802flyfish]

Nice report. Booked with Arrowhead for 26’ Caribou hunt.

 

[crock239]

Nicely done! Y'all did well. Brings back memories from last year...glad you had a good trip and thanks for sharing here!

The porcupine is cool. Wish we'd have seen muskox that close...they're cool animals for sure.

 

[duckhunt]

Dang that's an awesome trip.

 

[BearFoot]

Tundra Fun! Them Bou are always moving. You guys got er done!

 

[F250]

Thanks for sharing your hunt !!