Update on Happy Valley Caribou

[Frosty82]

Sorry to hear all the issues gents.

I just got back this afternoon from a road hunt up there. The caribou were thick 5-10 miles north of Toolik Lake. I didn't go any further north than that. I was up there from Sat until today and the weather was crap, low clouds, fog, rain, sleet, and snowing pretty good when I left this morning.

Good luck to anyone venturing that way.

 

[Larry Bartlett]

I just got off the North West side of the Brooks for 2 weeks. Got hammered by front after front of weather. Saw maybe 1000 caribou in 26A, though I started my drag in GMU 23 and ended at Umiat.

I heard weather was shit on the east side near Happy, but always in this time of year. if caribou aint there now they wont be likely in 10 days...more like three weeks.

Go west young man, haven;t you been told???? Toby sings it best, but it fit so I used it...

LB

 

[SJ-AK]

I flew around 1500 miles between Happy Valley and the Canadian border on the north side last week. Like many have said caribou were very scarce and usually singles or small groups. I only saw a couple shooter bulls as well.

 

[Randy11]

So what's the idea on where they are? I'm not really familiar with their migration patterns, if they aren't where guys have been talking about, what other areas are possibilities?

 

[SJ-AK]

"Nobody knows the way of the caribou other than the wind and the wolves"

Sounds like west is a better option, but I didn't see many between Happy Valley and Anaktuvuk Pass.

 

[Larry Bartlett]

The central arctic herd is still moving off the northern coastal plains slowly south and west. It might be slim pickins or feat or famine where you plan to go...

The western Arctic herd caribou were pretty scattered too last week for the previous two weeks at least. Saw maybe 1000 animals in 250 river miles. Between Howard Pass and the Killik River on the North side, spread out from 2700 feet to 500 feet elevation...so lots of real estate.

Plan to fish a lot and keep moving slow to nil. Spot long hours from elevation when not exploring on foot or fishing. make the most of it and hope they show up...my best advice.

plan for cold snaps with wind and rain/snow at least 25% of the time.

 

[Okbow87]

We are supposed to fly out the 6th with 70 North. Haven't heard anything from them. Suppose I better make a phone call.

 

[Stid2677]

Just heard all is Happy at Happy Valley, caribou are both east and west of the haul road and hunters are doing well.

Fair weather and heavy packs to all.

Steve

 

[colonel00]

That's good to hear and reports from AOD seem to be positive as well. Good luck and safe travels to all those heading north.

Sure sucks for realunlucky and anyone else that scrambled to change their plans based upon what appears to be premature speculation and recommendations though.

 

[Throc]

We're in Fairbanks now after tagging out on two bou in the first two days of an 8 day planned trip. We flew with Arrowhead but we were put at their most southern point and saw Happy Valley planes everyday we were on the tundra. About 30 miles east of the haul road. There's definitely bou around but they're in extremely small groups. We were seeing groups of two, four, seven, etc. Even seeing some singles milling about on a couple of occasions.

First kill was 6 miles from camp. I got mine (very lucky) 0.3 miles from camp. As of our fly in date (20th), Arrowhead (about 40 miles north of Happy Valley) had only had two hunters not fill their tags this season.

The bou are there, you just have to work a little harder for them this year unless you get lucky like I did.

By the way, we dropped our bou on the 21st and 22nd.

 

[colonel00]

Good stuff Throc! Was your bou the second one? As I think Stid pointed out earlier in the thread, shoot one 5 miles away and they will be walking through camp after that.

 

[Stid2677]

We're in Fairbanks now after tagging out on two bou in the first two days of an 8 day planned trip. We flew with Arrowhead but we were put at their most southern point and saw Happy Valley planes everyday we were on the tundra. About 30 miles east of the haul road. There's definitely bou around but they're in extremely small groups. We were seeing groups of two, four, seven, etc. Even seeing some singles milling about on a couple of occasions.

First kill was 6 miles from camp. I got mine (very lucky) 0.3 miles from camp. As of our fly in date (20th), Arrowhead (about 40 miles north of Happy Valley) had only had two hunters not fill their tags this season.

The bou are there, you just have to work a little harder for them this year unless you get lucky like I did.

By the way, we dropped our bou on the 21st and 22nd.

If you need help while in Fairbanks, I can help after my wife leaves tomorrow night. Congrats!!

 

[Throc]

Yes, mine was the second. I actually hiked 3.5 miles out but could see a storm coming through the mountains. Was trying to outrun it to camp and was only 1/2 mile away and looked to the west and two bulls were walking to camp. I cut them off and dropped the double shovel at about 350. Was a fun hunt.

Stid,

We're set in Fairbanks for the moment. Dropped the antlers off at the tannery to preserve the velvet and are flying out tomorrow (5 days early!) I'm happy, wife is happy, been an amazing first trip to AK.

 

[aggieland]

Just returned from the 40 mile area. Hunting was rough for an Alaskan newby. I Was able to get a bull on the next to last day, we were there 9 days and only saw decent bulls on landing day and the day I shot one.. Very few bulls all boo were moving randomly east to west.

 

[aggieland]

Boo

40 mile area.

 

[160andup]

40 mile area.

Worth the lack of bulls! thats a good one.

 

[Gznokes]

aggieland! Beautiful bull! Thanks for posting. I'm so glad to hear from the others about the success that is starting to pick up. If anyone else has pics, please put them up.

 

[Nick Muche]

Just returned as well, our group did great. Weather was shitty and great, bou sightings the same. We saw quite a few the last couple days but we had shots at bulls or killed bulls each day we were able to leave the tent.

Good luck all!

 

[bourbon]

Congrats to all! Throc i saw the post on BCUSA. Sounded like an epic trip.

 

[Gznokes]

Thanks to everyone who offered encouragement and advice on this hunt. I started this thread, and wanted to share how my hunt turned out. After our original plan to fly out of Happy Valley got canceled, I ended up flying into the White Mountains with a friend to hunt the Fortymile Caribou herd.

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I really liked the area we were hunting. The tussock fields were rare enough, that I took a picture of this one, just to prove that we did have to hike through a few.

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The day we landed (and couldn't hunt) we saw about 20 caribou. The next day we saw 13 (including this mature bull that we passed on at 350 yards). From there the sightings went south and we only sawy saw 1 cow the next 3 days

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If it is any evidence we were glassing hard and covering a lot of country, we did find 5 deadheads and lots of shed antlers

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On day 3 we ran into this bull about 1.5 miles from camp. My friend had a moose tag in his pocket, but we decided to pass on it.

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We ran into ptarmigan a few times. There was some idea that these might be Rock Ptarmigan, which are a little less common than Willow ptarmigan.

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These rocks were cool to glass from.

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On the last day of the hunt we walked into camp at 8PM after hoofing it around the hills for 9 miles and this bull was walking toward us through the trees. My friend patiently let it walk toward camp and it fell 150 yards from the airstrip. It had a 57" spread.

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Even though we didn't get into the caribou like we would have liked, we had an incredible adventure and it was awesome that my buddy got a moose. We hiked over 40 miles during the days we hunted and really glassed the area hard. I'd love to come back and hunt the 40 mile herd another time when the caribou are in there thick.