2019 Caribou Hunt Recap

Arctic_Beaver

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Jan 21, 2017
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173
Location
Anchorage, AK
Now that I'm settling back into "winter mode" I thought I'd share a hunt recap my girlfriend and I did back over Labor Day weekend this fall. She had never been hunting before, or done much shooting even for that matter prior to this experience. Around 2 years ago, we went on a hiking date and looked for grouse. I later discovered her fear of birds a few months after this. She did not mention it to me at the time when I said we should go hike and shoot some grouse for dinner. She happily tagged along, and might have cringed a bit when I did the "step on their feet, pull on their wings" trick to clean them. Anyways, hunting was a new activity for her, but one in which she would be willing to experience with me, as long as no close bird encounters were involved.

During the summer as the hunting season got closer, we started going to the Birchwood range frequently and she practiced shooting quite a bit. After our first range session, she was consistently shooting about 1MOA prone from 300 yards (max distance at Birchwood). I was stoked for her! Plenty capable if we could get in decent position for a caribou. She also took the required DF&G Hunters Ed. Other preparations included watching a lot of hunting youtube videos, talked about shot placement, talked about cleaning a caribou, went on a few training hikes, etc.

We finished our hike back into the desired area about 9-10pm along a riverbed. I glassed some with the binos on the tripod as we were eating dinner after camp was setup, didn't see any caribou. She later told me that in her mind, she was thinking along the lines of why the heck are we hiking so far if we haven't seen jack squat yet...
 
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We woke up on Saturday morning and hiked back another 1.5 or so miles to a small hill that would give us a vantage to glass the riverbed. I quickly spotted some cows/calves. I realized that due to the brush on the riverbed down low, you'd pretty much have to shoot standing to get above it for any shot on an animal. We didn't hike this far back to glass and go after cows, so I turned my attention to the mountain sides. Before pulling up my binos to glass an area a ways in the distance, I thought to myself that is a nice higher platueau and with some adjacent peaks. I would be willing to bet caribou move from the plateau and traverse across the mountain range at that same elevation. As soon as I pulled my binos up, I spotted multiple caribou including bulls. They were a good 3-4 hour hike away from us in the bottom of the riverbed. I turned to her, "Dear, if we go up there you will shoot a bull, maybe a nice one, but it's going to suck, lots of alder busting." Again, she was down.
 
Halfway up our hike to get above the brush, I spotted a group of 8-10 caribou, with one medium sized bull. We started to do our best to stay out of sight and work our way up and away to direct our scent from blowing directly to them. Once we reached a similar elevation with a clear sight line, I range them around 450-500. She was pretty accurate dialing to 300 like I mentioned earlier, but it still wouldn't hurt to attempt to get closer. That group moved several times, and we tried to get a little closer but could not close much further than 450-500. We discussed it and did not want to keep pursuing them further up the valley away from where we intended to set-up camp. We headed back to an area just below the plateau and since it was getting a little later I said we should find a good spot to set up camp and just wait for another group to move in front of us. We walked a few hundred yards to a flat-ish spot and I immediately spotted another group of caribou moving away from the plateau we were just under and then traversing across the mountains in front of us. No obvious shooters, but she got set-up in the prone. All of a sudden, behind that group she spots a lone white mane of an animal traversing in front of us, well behind this group we were observing. I turn my binos towards that direction, and it is a nice bull. I ranged him about 500 and he was still working our way on a game trail towards our direction. At this point we were laying prone in a wide open clearing, just below his elevation. He kept working his way towards us. She was still set-up pronce and I was laying right next to her, continuously ranging and tracking his distance and reaching over to dial down the scope so she could hold dead on him and wait for a shot opportunity.

At around 300 yards, this bull turned quartering towards us. I'm pretty sure I said, "drop him." But she wasn't comfortable with that shot, and told me to shut-up. He kept closing that distance and I kept ranging him and dialing the Nightforce scope down for her. Around 190 yards, the bull stopped and turned enough broadside where she felt comfortable and let it rip from the 6.5 Barrett Fieldcraft Creedmoor. He stopped his forward movement after the shot but i was still trying to confirm she made a vital hit. He stumbled a bit, then reared back and fell back over himself. Then I saw his opposite side and the exit wound in the vital area. After about a minute, he expired.
 
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Honestly, I was super stoked for her! Extremely stoked! Proud of her for being adamant with taking the shot when she felt comfortable. And placing a perfect shot. We headed back to that flat-ish area and set-up camp first before heading back up to the downed bull. By around 2am, we we had broken down the majority of the bull and decided to come back to finish the neck and the ribs.
 
On Sunday morning, we hiked back up to the kill site and finished cleaning the bull. I figured we still had enough daylight to both haul a load of meat down and then hike back up on the mountain to our camp. We started the hike down with a more direct approach. This turned almost into about 3 straight hours of alder busting, total suckfest. That would be cutting it close for making it back to camp before dark. We made it back up to camp right before dark, I was fully prepared to navigate via headlamp and Garmin Inreach though which would have totally sucked.
 
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I'll finish the story later tonight, there's a bit more left to it. Had to take a break for a break the Thanksgiving caribou and sheep roast dinner!
 
The next day we finished hiking out the last bit of meat, skull/antlers and our camp. I know many others find their caribou in easier ways this year, but this is one trip we will both proudly remember for a long time. Some of my friends are already offering for us to hunt with them on their ATV's or boats next year, I think we'll stick with this option again.
 
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