We went up on the 9th and back on the 22nd of August. The road wasn't in too bad of shape with the last 50 miles or so to deadhorse as new asphalt. We timed our trip completely wrong for this year (migration hadn't started). Around Happy Valley area there were many camps that had nice bou racks and meat on the poles (apparently those were the resident bou).
We met Ryan and his wife from Northstar at the boat ramp for the first part of our hunt up the river and they were AMAZING. I wont name names but the "other guy" that was there would never get my business.
7 days of hiking tundra netted 0 caribou, the migration had not started moving as of that time. Ryan even moved us over to the Echooka for a few days and still nada. The few that were found and taken were VERY small.
Back to the haul road and this was the disappointing part. There were so few caribou that people seemed to just loose any sense of ethics and courtesy. We would pull over and glass a herd way off in the distance and other trucks would race up and literally pull right in front of our truck spot and then take off after them. Seemed like it was a free for all everybody seemed frantic. Last day on the way out I finally had a big bull closing in at less than 60 yards only to have a truck skid to a halt up on the road and it bolted. I was several hundred yards off the road and spent several hours working that bull just to finally be in the right spot. It didn't matter that our truck was parked there to let people know I was hunting it. By the time I made it back to the road 3 other vehicles had dropped people off in pursuit of it.
Despite the lack of ethics, I really loved the hunting portion of the area and will go back when I have a more flexible schedule and can extend time if needed.
We met Ryan and his wife from Northstar at the boat ramp for the first part of our hunt up the river and they were AMAZING. I wont name names but the "other guy" that was there would never get my business.
7 days of hiking tundra netted 0 caribou, the migration had not started moving as of that time. Ryan even moved us over to the Echooka for a few days and still nada. The few that were found and taken were VERY small.
Back to the haul road and this was the disappointing part. There were so few caribou that people seemed to just loose any sense of ethics and courtesy. We would pull over and glass a herd way off in the distance and other trucks would race up and literally pull right in front of our truck spot and then take off after them. Seemed like it was a free for all everybody seemed frantic. Last day on the way out I finally had a big bull closing in at less than 60 yards only to have a truck skid to a halt up on the road and it bolted. I was several hundred yards off the road and spent several hours working that bull just to finally be in the right spot. It didn't matter that our truck was parked there to let people know I was hunting it. By the time I made it back to the road 3 other vehicles had dropped people off in pursuit of it.
Despite the lack of ethics, I really loved the hunting portion of the area and will go back when I have a more flexible schedule and can extend time if needed.
