Gana River Part 2

OutdoorsMD · 2025-09-10T20:41:50-0600

I was fortunate enough to hunt with Gana River in the NWT in 2022 after two years of covid delays and truly had the hunt of a lifetime. Something about the Mackenzie Mountains gets in your blood. On my prior trip I harvested a unique 33 inch wide dall sheep and a velvet caribou. Before I left in 2022 I had put a deposit down for a 12 day mixed bag backpack hunt with the focus being sheep still but hoping for a chance at a moose and less so caribou (though I had a tag in my pocket). Knowing what to expect helped my preparation, and I trained hard for the hunt, while also as I get older knowing I have to listen to my body and not overtrain having had multiple knee and hip surgeries. As many have said before me prepare for the suck and be mentally tough. My brother in law traveled with me as a non hunter guest and if you ever get a chance to experience the NWT with someone do it. He had the time of his life as well.

Travel was uneventful. Gear and luggage all made it intact. I always pack my own food making sure I have what I need and am ready to go quickly when we get in. The weather during the trip overall was fantastic. It rained a couple nights and got a few hours of snow and two cold days but otherwise only lost a few hours of lost glassing/hunting time due to visibility or weather in 12.5 days. At Gana they only use supercubs or horses so you do have to prepared to walk. A lot. It typically takes the better part of a day or two to ascend into sheep country. As a flatlander using a stability board and doing balance lunges for training helped. Side hilling boulder fields for for hours on end is probably the most fatiguing. Tracking via my brother in laws Garmin watch we hiked 77 miles and total vertical elevation change was over 17,000 foot.

The first 6 days we covered a lot of ground looking for a good ram, packing up our tents and moving several miles each day. Many of the rams, even the younger rams seemed to be solo or in pairs and only turned up one band that had 6 rams in it but were all younger. There were a couple solo rams that seemed to have a bit of age a couple miles off but not enough so to want to take a closer look. At the very end of the range there was a giant moose but probably 5 or 6 miles from the nearest exfil point and a small double broomed ram but still not quite what I was looking for with that much time left. The next day we hiked out had an evening to restock, shower, and head to a different area to continue the adventure.

The next morning we were dropped off along the river and the mountain in that area had a totally different feel to it. It was a long 8 mile hike back up a very long creek back into sheep country but a much more gradual elevation gain than where we were before. Had a close encounter bumping a sow griz and cubs but they behaved well and exited without incident up the mountain. By evening we made it up to about 7000 foot elevation, found a great place to set up tents, and enjoyed some Peak Refuel Chicken Pesto (my favorite because it uses the least amount of water). We found a band of 10 rams in a nice sheepy grassy bowl across from us around 1200 yards away and watched them bed on the steep grassy side in the evening. Three seemed very nice all full lamb tipped, heavy bodied, and past full curl. We just needed to confirm age from a bit closer.

With renewed hope we got up early before the rams were even moving. The rams came over to our side but disappeared under some steep cliffs on our side of the canyon. We closed the distance and got to a very cliffy snipers hid and were around 200 yards from where we thought the rams beded below us. We found two of the three big full curl rams when they moved beds mid day with three other small rams but couldn’t find the third. The largest bodied ram appeared to be 10 or 11 and was a great looking ram. His body and neck size actually had me underestimate how good he actually was. The other full curl ram was truly magnificent. Probably 14-14.5 bases at least and likely well over 40. Unfortunately he didn’t have the age at only 8 but is one of those rams that has 170 potential. A couple truly magnificent rams bedded at 330 yards but didn’t want to shoot without getting a look at the third missing ram.

We waited the sheep out 6 hours before they started moving back over to the grass to feed for the evening. While waiting a grizzly came around the top of the cliff we were on but fortunately winded us and took off down the mountain incredibly not busting the rams. It was incredible watching an animal that size run sidehill at a near full sprint through rough terrain in minutes that would have taken us hours to cover.

I had a fairly solid but someone tenuous position shooting steeply downhill. My options were to shoot seated off my pack around 250 yards or let the rams get closer to 350 in front order to get prone. I had practiced shooting in awkward positions a lot and have to say the Molinator bag with a couple carabiners clipped to my back I found to be infinitely more versatile and lighter than a bipod. I chose to wait for the prone shot giving us more time to confirm which ram was which and get an age on each one.

One by one the rams filed out and down out of the cliffs. After all the rams but the last three large ones had exited I got in position ready to shoot. The next two rams that came out were truly magnificent full curl rams but both not having enough age. I knew the last ram out would be the old one I had seen early and sure enough the old heavy bodies ram emerged last waddling along like an old man with a beer gut. He walked straight away leaving me no shot but at 350 yards my guide let out a wail stopping and turning the ram perfectly broadside while my brother in law was capturing everything via phonescope video.

The first shot hit perfectly through the top of the heart, but prepared for a second follow up shot. He did look like in hindsight he was about to tip but not wanting to take a chance put a second round through the lungs. He dropped rolled a bit and on day 9 had a beautiful 11.5 year old ram.

After some photos, we got to work deboning. The pack out back to the tent was a grind and after 4 hours of extremely vertical ascending we made back to the tent around 2:30am and crashed.

PXL_20250828_050654372.NIGHT_Original.jpeg

OutdoorsMD · 2025-09-10T20:47:54-0600

The next day began the long pack out back down to the river to get picked up by the supercub. We made it back to camp that night in time for another hot camp meal and shower and got ready to head back out for moose or caribou with only a couple hunting days left.

The weather was hot and we decided a raft hunt was our best bet to cover some country and see what we could turn up. We got dropped off along the lower Fritz, inflated the rafts, covered a few miles until we found some cliffs with a good vantage of a willow flat on the opposite side. We set up camp along the river, and hiked up to glass for the evening as we couldn’t shoot until the next day. We found some great caribou up high moving quickly along and a couple cow moose but no bull moose that evening. The next morning we headed up to our glassing point and before even getting there spotted a good bull a couple miles down river in a willow flat. We quickly headed back, packed the tents, and headed down in the rafts after him.

After rafting to where we thought he was, we beached the rafts and climbed a ridge on the opposite side of the river to see if he was within range. We quickly found him but at 550 yards, that was farther than I care to shoot a moose at though confident at that distance. All jokes aside, I do enjoy and have taken many animals with my 6.5 CM. I had Proof Research build a Glacier TI with a shortening length of pull and 22 inch barrel that I enjoy shooting and am confident in. At 5”2 125 lbs I don’t shoot hard recoiling rifles well especially needed to shoot unsuppressed in Canada.

We dropped down, waded across the river getting a bit wetter than I expected in waist deep water, and made a stalk in on the moose. We got to 200 yards but all I could see were his tops and he busted us and headed into the timber. We went back, got the rafts, made a fire to dry off our boots and pants, and made a plan for the afternoon. After drying out a bit we rafted another mile or 2 down the river, found a great glassing nob, and headed up in the afternoon to glass. The movement was slow given the warm weather. After studying the terrain and glassing hard for a couple hours, I took a quick nap, woke up, and immediately noticed a brown spot I didn’t think I had seen before. I panned the binos on the tripod over to have a closer look and there was the moose from early in the morning. He had just popped up from his bed for minute but that was all it took as he lay back down we had a good fix on him. We rafted over to his side of the river, and found a perfect hill around 300 yards from where he was bedded. We spotted his pans and I set up for a few different shots depending on where he came out. He popped in to a small clearing around 300 yards and I made a good first shot and put two follow up shots into him even though the first one was likely fatal. The third dropped him.

The rest of the evening was beautiful weather as was the next day and we worked into the evening and most of the last day of the hunt taken care of the 550 pounds of meat, cape, and horns. Fortunately it was a nice easy flat pack out around a half mile each way to the river where we fashioned a good landing strip for the super cub. We made it back to camp for one final hot meal and shower before flying back to Norman Wells the next day.

The Mackenzie Mountains are hard to describe. Remote, rugged, but inviting at the same time. This was my fourth sheep hunt, (two dall, a stone and a desert), along with an Alaskan mountain goat hunts and have three more booked (dall, rocky, and Marco Polo) but so far my two trips with Gana River have been the best two hunts of my life. Thanks to Harold and his whole crew for a world class experience. Thank you for my brother in law for helping film, photo, pack etc and being my travel companion. This was his first hunting trip ever and a memory we will share together for a lifetime.

The sheep green scored right at 160. 39 inches on the long side and around 13 1/4 bases.

I have no idea what the moose scored as I am more of a sheep nut than a moose nut but he was just under 60 inches wide. They all look big to me.