Alaska Caribou Hunt

**everlast** · 12-29-2015, 10:36 AM

eberlestock pack?

**Phone Man** · 12-29-2015, 10:43 AM

man I wanna do this one day. Hopefully my little girl will want to go and will give me more motivation. I really hope she has a desire to hunt African plains game as well.

**Stripa Swipa** · 12-29-2015, 10:47 AM

Morrison limbs, Zipper Riser.
Seek Outside BT-2 tipi.
Eberlstock pack.
Pro tip... ExOfficio travel underwear. Thank me later.

**nitro5x6's** · 12-29-2015, 10:49 AM

Aloe infused cleansing wipes are a must have also..

**Stripa Swipa** · 12-29-2015, 11:03 AM

Another item I'd heard about for years but never messed with was a sheet of tyvek. I finally broke down and got a piece and will say that is definitely a must have moving forward. The stuff is waterproof, light weight, pretty soft, bright in the natural environment. The uses for the stuff are endless. I used a piece as a ground cloth and planned to use for meat cache. I also used it to mark my pack when leaving it for stalks in low viz conditions.

**MolliesMaster** · 12-29-2015, 11:04 AM

The only problem with that terrain is I can't see a single good leaning tree for a BM.

**everlast** · 12-29-2015, 11:42 AM

Originally Posted by MolliesMaster

The only problem with that terrain is I can't see a single good leaning tree for a BM.

A good deep CF squat makes a tree unnecessary

**nitro5x6's** · 12-29-2015, 11:50 AM

Folding shovel- dig a "hover hole" ...

**Stripa Swipa** · 12-29-2015, 11:59 AM

The next day brought nice weather. I climbed in the morning to be able to move around and glass the various basins, valleys and rivers bottoms looking for animals. I saw several but no bulls and there definitely seemed to be less around than the day before. On Friday, I woke up to cloudy skies but headed out...definitley feeling the rythym at this point.

I would move to the far corners of this plateau at different times checking the different areas and hoping something worthy would appear. About 2pm, I was moving from the far east end of this plateau and I spotted a bull at my level on the far west end, about a mile away. He was headed in my direction but there were some ridges and valleys between us. I started moving quickly in his direction, trying to think quickly about the scenarios that could unfold. I wanted to stack the cards in my favor with the terrain as best I could.

When I finally got to the area I thought he should be, I couldn't find him. I was moving very slowly hoping to see horns before eyes and stay concealed. After a few minutes of slowly looking in the valley below me, I spotted him far away to my left (he'd changed directions) but he was drinking from a seep in the side of a hill, and looked like he might be stalk-able. There were some hills and knobs seemingly close by. I got one of them between us, dropped my pack, and sprinted hard to the closest one to him. I crawled up to get his horns in view and started to make a judgement on distance. He looked to be 50 yards and nothing between him and me but air if I rose up over that knoll. Hmmmmmm......

I sat there, fingers on the string and ready for something to happen. He just stood there dipping his head for a drink every minute or so but not moving his feet. I started going over all of the ways he could move out of there and none of them really offered a good shot scenario. After more thought it looked like backing out, swinging wide in his rear direction and then climbing up a hill so I could descend on him from the above towards his rear would be my best chance. After I got up the hill and was staying at an elevation to keep the top of his horns in view, it dawned on me that I was about to cross the "wind line". Dang. I could hike back and make a much wider circle but I knew he would leave this spot at some point soon so I decided to risk it.

**Stripa Swipa** · 12-29-2015, 01:11 PM

I sat there, fingers on the string and ready for something to happen. He just stood there dipping his head for a drink every minute or so but not moving his feet. I started going over all of the ways he could move out of there and none of them really offered a good shot scenario. After more thought it looked like backing out, swinging wide in his rear direction and then climbing up a hill so I could descend on him from the above towards his rear would be my best chance. After I got up the hill and was staying at an elevation to keep the top of his horns in view, it dawned on me that I was about to cross the "wind line". Dang. I could hike back and make a much wider circle but I knew he would leave this spot at some point soon so I decided to risk it. I was about 200 yards up wind and BOOM! He busted me. When he started out of there I hit the deck trying to absorb myself into the ground but it was to no avail. He circled to about 100 yards to get a good visual on me, then moved out. The bottom had dropped out of the sky at this point, so I donned the rain gear and headed back to camp.

This was a really nice bull. I felt a sense of satisfaction at this point. Realizing not much was going my way on this hunt but that encounter was what I’d come to experience.

**nitro5x6's** · 12-29-2015, 01:13 PM

Great bull for sure!!

**Stripa Swipa** · 12-29-2015, 01:15 PM

Another pic of that bull....

**Stripa Swipa** · 12-29-2015, 01:20 PM

When I woke up Saturday, thankfully, the weather wasn't too bad. This was, for all practical purposes, my last full hunting day since Sunday was supposed to be my scheduled pick up day. I hunted hard all morning but the caribou sightings were now few and far between. By lunchtime, the fog started rolling in and visibility up on the plateau had gone to zero. I moved down to the tent and could see a little bit in the bottom of the valley. Nothing much to do but hang out there and wish for a caribou to appear.

**Stripa Swipa** · 12-29-2015, 01:23 PM

Can't remember what time of day it was, but at some point I spotted a bull through the fog on the side of the hill to the North of camp. He was feeding against the wind so I grabbed my gear and made a wide loop down wind and then hiked up hill to try and get to the same elevation where I'd spotted him. My plan was to ease along agains't the wind until I spotted him again and hopefully use the cover of the fog to ease up on him VERY slowly from the rear.

Well, after an hour or so of sneaking towards where I thought he should be, I'd determined my plan hadn't worked and figured I'd head back. I couldn't see very far and he could be who knows where by now.

When I got back to the tent, guess who was feeding about 100 yards away. Damn!

There wasn't much terrain between us, but when he put his head down I sprinted to a small gully to get out of sight and then try a belly crawl from there, using his antlers as my visual queue for when and how to move. I was crawling as slow and low as I could go, inching along with my face literally in the dirt at times but he finally made me. After he boogered out of there, I walked off the distance and came up with 42 yards.

**Stripa Swipa** · 12-29-2015, 01:25 PM

By Saturday evening, with "socked in" weather conditions and the knowledge of my pending departure schedule, I started to have to think about getting stuck. How much food do I have left? If I miss my flights, wonder what I'll be looking at? How should I start to prepare my wife and employer for a "not sure when I can get out of here" reality.

Sunday morning's weather was foggy but after talking to Jeff, my pilot, on the sat phone, we were hopeful that the forecast was predicting a break later in the day. I went ahead with packing up my camp and relocating to the plateau where he'd landed the cub to drop me off. It was about an hour hike and I didn't want to not be ready if he was able to get to me.

As the day wore on, the weather actually got worse and it became obvious that I'd have to make camp and prepare to stay. The scree covered hill top was hardly an ideal spot but I was just going to have to make it work.

**Stripa Swipa** · 12-29-2015, 01:30 PM

Monday weather was horrible. The temps were getting lower now so everything was freezing and the wind was bad enough to make it pretty uncomfortable. I was just hunkered down at this point. With only a little bit of food left, I decided to go to "one item" a day which I thought might carry me for about 4 days if necessary. A cliff bar was the menu for Mon. Oatmeal would be up for Tues. I had a decent amount of coffee and powdered gatorade. Also had fuel left so I had a few warm drinks throughout the day and that seemed to help.

When I woke up to the same stuff on Tues morning, I was hopeful that at least the forecast would be improving and that's what I'd hoped to hear when I made my check in with the pilot via sat phone that morning. "I hate to tell you this, Julian, but the forecast isn't good and it doesn't look like it's going to change much for days to come. Thursday looks like it might give us a little break, but then it gets bad again. I've got several folks now in the same boat as you. There's a husband and wife in the mountains who have a sheep and a bear but they are almost a week past pick up time and I haven't heard from them in 5 days."

This was starting to get a little serious. Jeff told me that he had two guys at his landing strip on the Hula Hula River and he thought I might be able to hike there. Since they were still waiting to get flown into the mountains, they still had plenty of food and his chances of getting to that location in bad weather were better than getting to mine, given the difference in elevation. I punched the coordinates he gave into the GPS and it spit back 6.9 miles. Since those were crow flying miles I talked to him about the terrain and it didn't sound inviting. The weather was at its worst on Tues as well so I told him I thought it best to sit tight at this point.

**Stripa Swipa** · 12-29-2015, 01:42 PM

When I woke up on Wed morning, there was actually some blue sky sneaking through and the visibility was better. I was elated! I talked to Jeff and we were both hopeful the weather would continue to improve. He asked me to call him back at 10am with another local weather report.

I started breaking down camp and getting ready for something. By 9am, though, snow started to fall. The temps and wind were not too bad, though. Jeff said the forecast was calling for improved conditions for the afternoon and there was a chance he might be able to fly. I felt like I needed to make something happen so I told him I was heading out for the Hula Hula. If I could make it, then everything should be better for me there.

I've done some physically demanding things in my time, but I can honestly say I've never done anything tougher than this trek. The hills and valleys were plentiful and steep. The valleys were covered in tussocks. Ohhhh those tucking fussocks. The snow fell the entire day and the weather got worse as the day went on. About half way there, I realized this had turned out to be more dangerous than I thought and in hindsight, not real smart. However, turning back wasn't any safer so I trudged on. I did manage to stay pretty dry from the knees up so my clothes/gear did well. My boots were full of water, though and my feet pretty well destroyed when I got there.

When I finally made it, the two guys hopped out of their tents and got some coffee and a Mountain House going. Jeff had told them to expect me and they were eager to help me out. They were from Anchorage and just turned out to be great guys.