Harp’s Adventure

[Catchfish]

My daughter this February drew a tag for a local caribou herd. She’s has been shooting small rifles for awhile but this was going to be her first hunt. We decided to approach this with a base camp at a fly in lake with the ability to spike out from there. Plan was to fly in the day before the season, get set up and then go spike out in the direction we determined would be best success depending on the conditions of the valleys.

We got delayed right off the back, flight service called and said we would not get out in am show up early evening. We were blowing locally but the mountains were looking nice until about noon the next day (opening morning). We were looking at a pretty nasty wet blow calling for 1” of rain. Plans changed to probably just get our base camp set and hunker in for the storm. This was my first base camp set up normally I fly light and hunt off my back so the amenities were hard to believe (arctic oven, cots)

 

[Catchfish]

We flew in saw a small group of bulls from the air which was exciting but also had to deal with setting up camp at the other end of the lake due to another camp where we were planning to set up. Got camp set up by 8:00 ran up the hill behind camp and glassed up some bulls walking downwind of us but in our direction. We figured they would wind us and head the other direction.

We knew we had about 6 hrs in the am before the weather was suppose to get bad so our plan was to climb our hill and glass and when it started to rain probably head for the tent.

Got up at 5:30 ate breakfast and headed up to glass. Right away I saw 3 bulls up the valley where we saw caribou the night before. Quick plan was to dump spotter, any unnecessary gear and get after them. They looked to be about 1 mile away hanging near a screw slope.

Crosses the creek by camp and starting walking around the lake towards the bulls. After putting eyes on them again after we closed the distance the approach seemed easy enough but the shooting was going to be kind of hard due to the willows. There were now 5 bulls and we decided to cross the valley and see if we could come down on top of them.

 

[Catchfish]

We ended up sneaking up on them and had them at 57 yds bedded but the willows were too tall. We crawled around and were trying to get her situated off my pack when they busted us. They jumped up and I thought they would run up a small rise and look back at us but instead they hit a small gulley and must have hauled butt because they popped up 200 yds above us. I had Harper set up on a rock and we were both talking through the shot about which one we were looking at letting it clear the others and when she was ready she fired. What I did not account for was the wind it pushed the shot back. We watched the caribou bed on the inside edge of a runoff. All we could see was the head, we debated giving it time, or close in and finish it. We ended up walking up to it and finished the job.

Then the rain started to fall, so we got some pics, went gutless method which helped out a lot. I wanted to get her involved in the cutting a bit more but with the incoming weather she got stuck with meat bag duties and holding legs up.


We loaded her little pack with any extra clothing, water pump, knives and we loaded the meat on our bags we each took 2 quarters, loose meat bag and I got the head. Made it about .5 mile when we decided to lighten our loads and 2 trip it. So we left the head and 2 front quarters under a tarp on a boulder and boogied back to camp to make a meat cache. Ended up being a little over a mile from our camp which was pretty slow due to the wet rocks. After some quick snacks we headed back for the rest at some point the rain stopped but it was still blowing and we dried out nice until we grabbed the meat again and it started to rain all the way back.

 

[HuntHarder]

Awesome, thanks for the write up!

 

[Catchfish]

The storm blew pretty good heard from a friend on the other side of the mountain from us he broke 2 poles on a hilleberg. Our arctic oven did great, pulled a couple of stakes and that was it. We had brought a buddy heater with a couple of small green bottles and we used a partial one for 3-4 hrs and were able to dry all of our gear out. We were stuck to the tent for the next 18 hrs pretty much a couple rain breaks we went out and check and rotated meat around under a tarp.

We spent one good day just fishing the two lakes we were between and the small creek connecting them. Lots of beautiful grayling I think my daughter stopped counting at 60 something. We had 2 small spinning outfits and a small fly pole.

 

[YellCoAR]

Congratulations! What a first hunt for the young lady.

 

[Jkr61]

Thanks for sharing and tell her congratulations!!

 

[Catag94]

SO awesome for her and for dad. Good for you both. Congrats, and thanks for sharing with us.

 

[johnnycake]

That's too cool! Can't wait to do something similar with my daughter!

 

[FAAFO]

Great right up and congrats!I haven’t been on that lake in 15 years. Used to be thick with black bears. Lots of blueberries there too.

 

[Bearded Bowhunter]

Awesome. Can't wait for my kids to get a little older and do trips like this.

 

[Renegade14]

Great adventure! Making memories!

 

[CC11]

Looks like a great time congrats!

 

[Mtncowboy]

Way to go! I am so happy when I hear stories like this, and hope that one day I get to write a similar one!