First Alaskan Caribou Hunt Booked

[VenaticOppidan]

Myself and 2 hunt partners just booked our first Caribou hunt in the Brooks Range through Golden Eagle Air for the 2nd week of September 2022, only 632 days, but whos counting anyways??? Just like all hunts we plan, it seems like forever but will be here in the blink of an eye.

This will be all of our first time in Alaska, but my hunt partners are pretty experienced back country hunting in the contiguous US, I am just getting into it.

My question to all you grizzled veterans is this:

What is something you didn't , or wouldn't, think to bring initially that will prove to be extremely useful, valuable, or make the trip that much more comfortable? Or something you learned on your trip(s) that could be extremely useful for a first timer?

Thanks in Advance for any advice!

 

[TSAMP]

A butt pad. Youll be sitting and glassing often. Two guys got dropped in my location, neither had one and I left them mine. I swear I saw fists flying as we took off.

There are A TON of threads about caribou drop hunts as well.

 

[Gunnersdad49]

Bug net
Pre cooked bacon
Imodium (never eating Chicken Vindaloo again!)
Fishing gear and spices for char and grayling if you are anywhere near water.

 

[OnDeco]

Check out the DIY caribou podcast on the site.

 

[AKBorn]

A fly-in hunt is different than a western backpacking trip, since you don’t have to hump everything to your camping spot (unless you camp a long way from where the plane drops you off – we try not to do this whenever possible). So, there is room for some minor luxuries and items that help the hunt along! Here are several lightweight additions we have made to our camp over the past 2 decades of remote AK trips:

Cheap, lightweight silk long underwear top and bottom – to sleep in only. It’s refreshing to change out of your hunting clothes when you go to bed, and sleep in clothes that don’t smell.

Lightweight camp shoes or crocs – to change out of your boots or waders when the day is done, and for those late-night bathroom runs.

Cut-resistant gloves – to wear over your nitrile gloves when field dressing game – protects against cutting fingers. Keeping cuts clean in the field is a pain in the ass.

Trekking poles – a HUGE help when navigating uneven terrain with a pack full of meat.

8-10 Rings (1.5 to 2” diameter) used to partition game bags when you put multiple pieces of meat in the same game bag. Put a piece of meat (neck meat, backstrap, etc.) in the game bag, slide a ring over the bag to create a separate section that holds only that piece of meat. Put another piece of meat in, and repeat. Helps keep meet cleaner and dryer, which helps reduce any spoilage in the field. I used to just tie knots between the separate sections of a bag, but knots take up a LOT of the bag’s usable space.

Tyvek Meat Tarps – Cut an 8’x8’ Tyvek sheet, and soak it in the clothes washer for a few hours. Then run it through one wash and rinse cycle, the soaking and wash/rinse will remove the annoyingly loud crinkly noise. You will be left with a cheap lightweight tarp that can be used to lay quarters and other pieces of meat on when you are field dressing an animal, helping to keep it clean and dry. We have each hunter take one tarp in their backpack; that way if we shoot a caribou a couple of miles away from camp, we can use the multiple tarps to set game bags on as we shuttle the animal back to camp in half mile increments or so.

We also use one Tyvek tarp under the tent, and one inside the tent, as support to the thin groundcloth that comes with most tents these days.

Empty 32-oz Gatorade Bottles – 1 for each hunter to use as a nighttime piss bottle. Beats getting up in the middle of the night to pee outside when it’s raining and the wind is blowing!

Large Unscented Trach Bags – We use these when we are packing meat, to keep blood and meat off of our packs to the extent possible.

Newspaper – Take a full sheet of newspaper, compress it just enough to shove inside your boots at night. In the morning, your boots will be dry when you put them on.

Hand Sanitizer – Who doesn’t have hand sanitizer these days? Use before preparing food and eating, or after field dressing or deboning animals.

Baby Wipes – An 80-120 pack should work for 3 hunters. Nice to wipe hands after a restroom visit, and also nice to wake up and give yourself a quick once over with 1-2 baby wipes before getting dressed in the morning.

Electric Tape – To place over your rifle muzzle, lots of little twigs and leaves in the AK backcountry.

Glow Sticks – 1 per night. If an animal happens to wake you from a deep sleep, it’s nice to have your bearings within the tent as opposed to waking up in the pitch dark. They don’t give off enough light to disrupt sleep in our experience.

Pocket Shears – To help clear away small branches and bushes as you are clearing a spot for your tent.

 

[VenaticOppidan]

A fly-in hunt is different than a western backpacking trip, since you don’t have to hump everything to your camping spot (unless you camp a long way from where the plane drops you off – we try not to do this whenever possible). So, there is room for some minor luxuries and items that help the hunt along! Here are several lightweight additions we have made to our camp over the past 2 decades of remote AK trips:

Cheap, lightweight silk long underwear top and bottom – to sleep in only. It’s refreshing to change out of your hunting clothes when you go to bed, and sleep in clothes that don’t smell.

Lightweight camp shoes or crocs – to change out of your boots or waders when the day is done, and for those late-night bathroom runs.

Cut-resistant gloves – to wear over your nitrile gloves when field dressing game – protects against cutting fingers. Keeping cuts clean in the field is a pain in the ass.

Trekking poles – a HUGE help when navigating uneven terrain with a pack full of meat.

8-10 Rings (1.5 to 2” diameter) used to partition game bags when you put multiple pieces of meat in the same game bag. Put a piece of meat (neck meat, backstrap, etc.) in the game bag, slide a ring over the bag to create a separate section that holds only that piece of meat. Put another piece of meat in, and repeat. Helps keep meet cleaner and dryer, which helps reduce any spoilage in the field. I used to just tie knots between the separate sections of a bag, but knots take up a LOT of the bag’s usable space.

Tyvek Meat Tarps – Cut an 8’x8’ Tyvek sheet, and soak it in the clothes washer for a few hours. Then run it through one wash and rinse cycle, the soaking and wash/rinse will remove the annoyingly loud crinkly noise. You will be left with a cheap lightweight tarp that can be used to lay quarters and other pieces of meat on when you are field dressing an animal, helping to keep it clean and dry. We have each hunter take one tarp in their backpack; that way if we shoot a caribou a couple of miles away from camp, we can use the multiple tarps to set game bags on as we shuttle the animal back to camp in half mile increments or so.

We also use one Tyvek tarp under the tent, and one inside the tent, as support to the thin groundcloth that comes with most tents these days.

Empty 32-oz Gatorade Bottles – 1 for each hunter to use as a nighttime piss bottle. Beats getting up in the middle of the night to pee outside when it’s raining and the wind is blowing!

Large Unscented Trach Bags – We use these when we are packing meat, to keep blood and meat off of our packs to the extent possible.

Newspaper – Take a full sheet of newspaper, compress it just enough to shove inside your boots at night. In the morning, your boots will be dry when you put them on.

Hand Sanitizer – Who doesn’t have hand sanitizer these days? Use before preparing food and eating, or after field dressing or deboning animals.

Baby Wipes – An 80-120 pack should work for 3 hunters. Nice to wipe hands after a restroom visit, and also nice to wake up and give yourself a quick once over with 1-2 baby wipes before getting dressed in the morning.

Electric Tape – To place over your rifle muzzle, lots of little twigs and leaves in the AK backcountry.

Glow Sticks – 1 per night. If an animal happens to wake you from a deep sleep, it’s nice to have your bearings within the tent as opposed to waking up in the pitch dark. They don’t give off enough light to disrupt sleep in our experience.

Pocket Shears – To help clear away small branches and bushes as you are clearing a spot for your tent.

Thanks for taking the time to write all that out. Definitely a few pro tips in there i will be sure to take advantage of. Really liked the camp shoes, glow stick, piss bottle, and ring ideas!


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[Jboogg]

Not trying to hijack the thread, but where would people recommend staying in Kotz before and after their hunt? I've heard mixed reviews about Bibber's B&B and Sunny Willow B&B. Thanks! Any other places worth looking at?

 

[VenaticOppidan]

Interested as well. Hopefully they don’t close the units like they are currently talking about...


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[KChunter71]

@mcseal2 has stayed in Kotz

 

[TSAMP]

I stayed in the Nullagvik hotel. It appeared to be the nicest place in town and I was happy with it. It is a dry establishment so be aware. It did have a deep freezer available which was the main reason I chose it.

 

[Brick]

I know it's a long ways off, but keep us posted on how this hunt goes. Narrowing down 2023 outfitters currently for a caribou hunt.

 

[VenaticOppidan]

Will do. I’m hoping that we don’t have to deal with another attempted closure next year, but it looks like they have kicked the can down the road. I listened to the whole hearing, and read a lot of the report. From my perspective it seems the deferral was essentially saying “there isnt any evidence the season needs to be closed to any user groups, and you have a year to come up with hard evidence it does, and the burden of prof is on you”

That’s my interpretation anyway. Hopefully the unit stays open!


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[Brick]

I listened to it in it's entirety as well. At one point one of the council members said that this move essential makes it impossible to impose the temporary changes until 2024. Basically saying that unless some unforeseen bylaw change occurs, we are safe through 2023. After speaking with a Kotz outfitter, they agreed, but who knows. I'm just a hillbilly that likes to hunt. At the end of the day, there's just no biological backing for any of the temporary restrictions. None.
It also doesn't help their case that sustenance hunters can kill 5 bou a day, year round with atv's and snowmobiles.

 

[VenaticOppidan]

I must of missed the 2024 date given, but how they set it up it seemed like they wanted multiple years of data. It was a win we needed. As you said, nothing rooted in biology. I had actually spoken to their public relations woman Robin for about 20-30 months week before


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[mooster]

Where we got dropped a packraft would have allowed us to hunt across a river that waders weren’t sufficient to cross. 95% of the animals we saw were on the otherside.

 

[Frontier Mulie]

Have only been once. Some items that I would have really struggled without...
1. Trekking Poles-Used to help cross streams to keep balance and also to help with hauling meat back to camp.
2. Packable waders-Again used to cross streams. I had river trekkers and when not needed just rolled up and attached to pack.
3. 2 more pairs of socks than you think. Stuff was wet most of the time. Nice to have dry socks.
4. We found a grill grate. Really helped with cooking caribou over the open fire. Did not think to take but glad we found one.
5. As mentioned before tarp for meat cache. We used to shade our meat cache. Lots of uses for a tarp.

Good Luck on the hunt. Just typing this gets me excited to plan another trip up to Alaska!

 

[Brick]

Have only been once. Some items that I would have really struggled without...
1. Trekking Poles-Used to help cross streams to keep balance and also to help with hauling meat back to camp.
2. Packable waders-Again used to cross streams. I had river trekkers and when not needed just rolled up and attached to pack.
3. 2 more pairs of socks than you think. Stuff was wet most of the time. Nice to have dry socks.
4. We found a grill grate. Really helped with cooking caribou over the open fire. Did not think to take but glad we found one.
5. As mentioned before tarp for meat cache. We used to shade our meat cache. Lots of uses for a tarp.

Good Luck on the hunt. Just typing this gets me excited to plan another trip up to Alaska!

Thanks for your input Mule. Did you have any trouble with your meat and grizzlies? I think that's my biggest concern. I know it happens, but sure would hate to lose a pile of meat to bears.

 

[Jackal7]

Agree with everyone above. Here are my add ons:

Essentials:

1.Long titanium spoon specifically meant for stirring freeze dried meal packages.
2.Clip knife which goes in your thigh pant pocket ever day. Used my Benchmade griptillian a lot on our trip.
3. Leatherman multi tool.
4. Bear fence - slept like a baby with ours on everyday and night. Never worried about coming back to a wrecked camp.
5. One extra trekking pole for every two hunters. If you have a mechanical failure, you're not going to be happy on the tundra. Costco sells two pairs of carbon ones which are decent and have wrist straps for using as shooting sticks. $75 for four poles delivered to your door. Worked great.
6. A good Pelican locking double gun case. I fit my rifle, trekking poles, pistol, 4 empty mags of two per gun, knives, and extra locks in mine after I cut it custom for each item. Worked great and was heavy but it has wheels.
7. Gorilla tape, black, and clear, and a heavy needle with braided fishing line for repairing straps and packs and other gear. Sewing stuff got used twice which saved some problems for two guys.
8. Each guy has a roll of bright colored paracord - at least a hundred feet. No camo or green or black. Can't see those colors if you are using it to extra rig tents or rain shelters. Trip over them then.
9. 20 Cliff or Rx bars for each guy. No way we could replace the calories we were burning. Those bars kept us going when we needed energy at points in the hunt.
10. Ramen soup packets - not the noodles. Mix a packet with 8 oz of water and you have a Magic Potion to replace electrolytes. National Park Ranger secret recipe for bonking hikers.
11. Wide mouth plastic water bottles - 3 per guy. Nalgeen work great, but expensive and heavier than a reused bottle from a brand like Ph Water. Find them at Walmart online or on Amazon. Carry two and the third is always a backup for clean water in camp, ready to cook with or make tea or coffee.
12. Platypus gravity water filter. Artic ain't no place to get diarrhea. Nuff said.
13. Extra toilet paper.
13. Micro fiber cloths for cleaning scopes, binos and glasses. Bring two. One as a backup that stays in your gear at camp. They weigh nothing.
14. Charger packs. We had two Goal Zeros totalling 140 watt hours of stored charges. Only used about 40 of it for four guys. Use for iphones, sat phone, GPS units if they don't use AA batteries etc. Loved our units.

Wouldn't Bring Again:

1. Big Nikon camera with extra lenses. Carried it one day. Heavy. Not useful. Always buried in your pack. Iphones took almost all of our pics and videos which turned out great. Save the weight unless you are a serious photog guy.
2. Spotting scope and tripod. Same comments as the fancy camera equipment. Good binos will be fully sufficient.

Hope that helps. Good luck.

 

[Frontier Mulie]

Thanks for your input Mule. Did you have any trouble with your meat and grizzlies? I think that's my biggest concern. I know it happens, but sure would hate to lose a pile of meat to bears.

We had meat near/next to camp. We did not ever have any come into camp to the meat cache but they did work over our carcasses pretty good from the kill site.