First Caribou

[JVigue90]

Not the monster I've heard about that live in the Central Alaska Range but Im beyond stoked to harvest my first caribou on my first fly-in hunt on my first trip to Fairbanks. Now time to plan the next one.

 

[Razz]

Congrats! Who flew you in? Tells us a story!

 

[AKBorn]

Congrats! And +1 for the story and more pics when you have time.

 

[Jackal7]

Well done.

 

[stvnshnn]

Good work! Congrats on your first bou!

 

[Lvthntitall]

Congrats

 

[Ownthewest]

Congrats man!

 

[Lrs183]

Congratulations

 

[bigbertha]

Congrats! Can’t complain about that at all!

Did you fly directly out of Fairbanks with a charter? Who’d ya use? Would love to hear more about your trip.

 

[JVigue90]

Sorry all I meant to get back on here and just haven’t had time. I flew with Wrights in Fairbanks. I called and booked 14 days on the only available strip they had. I then proceeded to stare at Topo maps for the next few months. I was originally going solo on the hunt but my uncle offered to come up from Oregon to hunt with me and I accepted the offer, figuring some company in a completely new area would be nice. I ended up changing my plans to 10 days because of the vacation time available at work. I met my uncle up in Fairbanks and was able to get a ride around town with some co-workers family. If you’re in Fairbanks and need gear go to Frontier Outfitters it’s the best store I’ve been too yet. The next day we flew to our strip in a Helio courier. The staff at Wrights was awesome, they were all super helpful to a couple of newbies I would fly with them again for sure. Our first evening there was really nice, some overcast but no wind and no bugs. We set up camp and glassed for 3 hours or so but only found a few moose and a cow/calf caribou. The next morning we started hiking, it was a bit drizzly but not terrible. We quickly found out that tundra is not as nice as it looks to walk in. We planned on hiking to the top of a ridge and glassing the backside, but it started to downpour. We huddled under a tarp for about an hour and ate breakfast. Once the rain cleared and the clouds lifted we glassed a drainage that we hadn’t been able to see all the way into. Near the top was a group of 8 Caribou they were about a mile away. There were 2 bulls in the group or so we thought, it’s hard to tell from that distance especially when they all have horns. We decided to go after them. We crossed the drainage between us and up the other side to a point we thought we could see from. That was not the case, so we climbed up the hill to the next spot where we could also not see anything.so we climbed up some more. This hillside was no joke, it was super steep and all boulders for about 600 feet, it took the better part of 45 min to get up there, but once we reached the top I could see one cow up and feeding out to the right about 400 yards. I got set up with my 7mm STW. After about 5 min the rest of the group emerged. Including my bull, once we confirmed it was a bull any way, we ranged him at 375. I touched off on him, and down he went. I was so damned excited, I don’t think I’ve had “Buck Fever” that bad since my first black tail in Oregon. We quartered him up and got back to camp about 3 hours later, just in time for it to start pouring again. Once the meat was laid out and protected I crawled in my tent and messaged Wright’s. They were unsure when they could get us as they had not planned for us to be done the first day of the hunt, no big deal we had 10 days’ worth of food and water so we were good. I fell asleep pretty quick and slept through the night. When I woke up it was raining, or so I thought anyway, turned out that it was actually snowing. So we spent the day in our tents listening to music and reading books. Until 630 pm when I got a message saying that the pilot was going to try and come get us, with an ETA of 20 min. We very quickly got dresses and stuffed everything in our packs, it was an absolute mess later. The pilot was able to land and we loaded up everything. Our return flight was a bit bumpy but I didn’t care, those two 30 min flights had me rethinking my career choice. Back in Fairbanks, my friends let me store the meat at their house and my uncle and I stayed at a hotel to re pack our stuff, he rebooked his flight and left the next day. I’m already planning my next caribou hunt.

 

[bigbertha]

Thanks for the update! Much appreciated!

 

[twdjr]

Congrats