2023 Caribou hunt with Arctic Air

[Bflores]

Best hunt I've ever been on, everything went smooth guys at Arctic Air were top shelf. pilots were great the arranged to pick you up at the airport and drop you off when you're headed out. you can buy isobutane from them for stoves and i saw a few fishing rods there as well. It was a great experience in amazing country.

 

[Slugz]

This is great to hear! Congrats on a great hunt!

 

[BigD]

This is great to hear! What was the temperature up there. Me and a buddy head out with Gary Aug 16th.

 

[Spaulazzo]

40-60 degrees. Sometimes wind made it Feel colder.

 

[sticks32]

Super pumped for you guys! Congrats on a great hunt!

Unfortunately, we had an experience similar to past complaints. Hunt canceled sub 10 hours from when we were scheduled to depart. Overbooked hunters were hung up waiting to get out after a "weather" delay. Anyone else experience this?

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[Idaho_Sasquatch]

Glad to hear good feedback on Gary and Arctic Air. We're headed into the field in a few days (18th).

Just got off the phone with Gary, sounds like it's gotten worse since your trip. Weather turned nasty and the smoke shut down the air for 3 days. A lot of delays and cancelations but Gary seems to be doing everything he can. That's Alaska I guess.

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

 

[Nick Muche]

Super pumped for you guys! Congrats on a great hunt!

Unfortunately, we had an experience similar to past complaints. Hunt canceled sub 10 hours from when we were scheduled to depart. Overbooked hunters were hung up waiting to get out after a "weather" delay. Anyone else experience this?

Sent from my SM-S906U using Tapatalk

This year??

 

[Twaite]

Glad to hear good feedback on Gary and Arctic Air. We're headed into the field in a few days (18th).

Just got off the phone with Gary, sounds like it's gotten worse since your trip. Weather turned nasty and the smoke shut down the air for 3 days. A lot of delays and cancelations but Gary seems to be doing everything he can. That's Alaska I guess.

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

Got the phone call couple days ago asking if we wanted to cancel or hope things get better. Sounded like 40% chance we would get out. Heading out 9/1. We are going to play it out and see how it goes. Not much else to do. Sounded like the smoke and fog has everything pushed back but they are doing everything possible to catch up.

 

[Mev002]

Very nice! I will be looking into Arctic Air for a caribou hunt in 2025 or 2026.

 

[Subliminal1]

Congrats!

 

[sticks32]

This year??

Yes. We were scheduled to fly to Kotz on 8/12. Our trip was canceled the evening before we were flying out.

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[Plowboy85]

I am looking into this type of trip into the coming years, can anyone provide some budgetary costs for after you land in anchorage. I understand there are a few subjective differences but I would think there is a somewhat average costs after anchorage.

 

[alaskalund]

Congrats. Nice recap. Dd the closures consolidate hunters flying out of there?

 

[2hunde]

Congrats and thanks for the report

 

[helidriver72]

Nice hunt, I haven’t found a scenario yet that I liked the tipi tents.

 

[hoodb]

Just got back from Kotzebue AK hunting caribou using Arctic Air as our transporter.

Cliff notes
10/10 experience
3 for 3 on caribou tags
Highly recommend. New owners are awesome.

With all the closures, negative reviews and new owners, our group was quite nervous on what to expect this year. We did not want to bail on a hunt that we booked back in 2021, we highly considered canceling and ultimately decided to go.

Upon showing up in Kotzebue we were able to get from airport to hotel seamlessly. We made contact with Gary to meet later that day for an orientation. We then repacked our bags preparing for bush fight. We had meeting and made a plan on when we were going to get picked up to go to hanger.

Next day we got picked up. All our gear weighed. Got in planes and were dropped in the field. As we were flying into our spot we saw about 20 caribou. Landed and dropped us off. Immediately we were seeing caribou everywhere.

We set up camp and had to wait til 0300 the following day. We headed out around 0200 to start hiking. Upon 0900 we had found a nice group. Planned a stalk. By 1000 my buddy and I doubled up on caribou. We took photos, cut up and packed all meat. Got back to camp around 1700. We had one more for caribou tag to fill. That was my brother who was hunting with a recurve.

My brother was about to get it done with a 22 yard stick bow shot a few days later.

Pilot was able to come in and pick up our meat for us. The following day he picked my brother and then 2 days later he picked my buddy and I up.

During the hunt we say 1000s of caribou. They would walk by our camp everyday. Saw a few grizzly’s, one wolf (season didn’t open til 8/10), fox and a dall sheep. This is one of the best hunts I have ever been on.

Arctic air was very helpful in every way. The had fish boxes for our meat. And bigger boxes to put your antlers in (had to modify box). Arctic air also picked us up from hotel to bring us back to airport on day we left.

If you have any questions feel free to PM me.

High recommend flying with these guys. We will be back again if there are no more unit closures.

Very helpful, Congrats

 

[PlumberED]

Nice report, thank you for sharing.

 

[Spaulazzo]

Euro update

I had a few people reach out asking about how a euro mount would turnout after an antler was cut off.

My brother had his caribou euroed without an issue. We cut antler off in the field to fit it in the plane. Here are photos of final result.

 

[CC11]

Looks like it turned out just fine! Is that an after market skull or did you bring the skull out as well?

 

[Spaulazzo]

He brought out the skull. Just cut off the antler in the field to fit in plane. It is not a reproduction skull.