Interior Caribou

First time out on my own snow machine, first time out with this guy. Got up and drove out in the dark. We got to the area we intended to hunt about 45 minutes before daylight. We discussed what to do as the visibility was pretty crappy but within about 15 minutes we could see a thin line of blue above and it appeared things were going to clear up. We got unloaded from our rigs and loaded up for the day. The wayside near Eagle Summit is 3652' with a bit of a breeze blowing ice on the ridge where we parked. The temperature was approaching -7* we would find out later as we unloaded and spoke to the State Trooper who parked not far away. A lot of broken and stuck machines trying to get off the road but not many Caribou since the hunt opened.
We headed off up the hill and off along the ridges to look for Caribou. We stopped and glassed up a group that we would have no way to access. We rode the ridges stopping to peak down several drainages and glassing up each set looking for the tell tale movement of the ever wandering Caribou.
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We ended up circling one hill all the way around and as we stopped to look back down into the drainage we saw a group of about 30 that had appeared out of the snow. We were pretty surprised and they were down in an area we couldn't get to them, it would have been impossible on the snow machines and the likely hood of making it back out with a load on our back through the snow was very low. We sat and watched to see how they would decide to play. The group started to move away from us, up onto a saddle that we believed we could actually access from above if we worked around. Unfortunately I didn't stop to take any pictures here, forgive me. We got on the machines, rode back around the ridge to get out of sight and sound and rode to the peak of the hill we were on above the saddle. We killed the machines, and with guns on our back we came around the crest and started moving towards the saddle. We were about a 800-900 yards or maybe a bit more when we jumped off the machines. We started to move up and gained about 200-300 yards when we saw the first Caribou starting to climb up into the saddle. We still had some cover between us so we crouched and continued on. There was no way to access the saddle with the time allotted, to back out and move back around the far side of the hill would take us longer then the caribou to climb and cross the small window we had. So we continued to move forward. At about 600 yards the Caribou had gained the saddle and were milling around with some feeding and some playing. We were spotted as we had nowhere to hide. Ranged at 570 yards, the Caribou were getting nervous. My buddy looked at me and whispered "I've heard of a trick...it sounds really dumb ... but it might be our only chance", to my shock and surprise he stuck his arms above his head in a Y and walked straight towards the Caribou. I followed suit and we walked to 400 yards. At this point the Caribou seemed to get nervous so we stopped and laid down prone. We looked at the group and saw a couple of decent looking Bulls. None were monsters but they looked big in the scope and I hadn't harvested a Bull Caribou ever, and I was on a dry spell and the freezer needed a top off. As we looked we found the nicest looking bull and I lay breathing, the snow, rocks and tundra soaking the heat from my body and hands as we waited for the Caribou to move enough to give me a clear shot of the Bull. Finally an opportunity presented itself. Shot - MISSED! I racked the bolt on my 6.5 and to my shock the bolt came completely out!! The bolt release had somehow frozen in the open position. I quickly tried to get the bolt back in and my buddy was calling "high .. high .. high ... you ok over there?" I told said "yeah" as i tried to put chamber the next round. It jammed, and I rotated the bolt out ejecting the shell and chambering the 3rd round. I fired - hit low and the same thing happened again. I told him what was going on and as we sat there watching the Caribou they went back to eating. I was shocked they hadn't bolted. I wiped off the one unfired round realizing like an idiot I'd left all my spare shells in my pack.... on my snow machine.
 
We decided to push forward so we got up and continued on and after about 50 yards they were all looking at us again so we raised one arm, rifles in hand, after about 20 more yards the bull we had picked out and about half the other animals started trotting towards us! We quickly pushed up to a spot and got set. But the close Caribou didn't crest and enter the 100 yard area. I tried to use my rangefinder but in the cold temperatures it was giving me errors. My buddy ranged the center of the group at 270 yards. I got a little higher and could see the bull. Again I put my sights on him and waited. As we sat there again it was interesting to see the calves fighting and playing around this bull as the cows and calves circled him. Finally an opening and I fired as he turned broadside. He humped, hit and I relaxed. We watched him and the Caribou trotted off a short distance looking back at him. I told my partner to pick and shoot his so we ranged them and now his rangefinder also stopped working. We found the next decent bull and I kept one eye on his new target and the bull I shot. He had the same issues, a high shot, a low shot and a hit. Finally the Caribou ran and we had two bulls down!2 Caribou.jpg
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We processed them out which in the sub zero temperatures with the wind blowing ice crystals onto us created an interesting situation. The blood was freezing to my blade as soon as I would finish a cut and pull it away. We finished processing them out (no we did not use the Gutless method - I want to try to do that but we didn't on this trip) and spent a little more time looking to see if we could find any other Caribou. For this hunt you could harvest two Caribou.
We found a couple other small groups but they were not accessible - we would have had to traverse some pretty terrible slopes by crossing or climbing which our trail machines aren't designed to do.. We ended up heading back. Which is where the story took a decidedly worse turn.IMG_6806.jpg
 
Congrats! For once, I have an idea of where someone was! Didn't go that far up, went maybe 30-40 miles past Chatanika before turning around. Had plans to go out to Circle but they fell through. It looks cold, and empty.
 
As we had been warned half of the area had plenty of snow. The other half was leaving us hitting rocks every so many yards. This caused several problems. To make a long story short, I ate holes in both my skis. We had to climb the final hill which we had started at and couldn't make it up loaded, and I couldn't make it up at all with my skis not giving me enough float. So we had to make 8 total trips to get the 2 Caribou, the bags, guns, and gas up to the top. Plus myself and my machine. Once we got the the top and were crossing my left ski gave up the ghost completely breaking off and throwing me over the handlebars. Luckly the strut stuck into the Tundra and I wasn't run over. I did bash my head pretty good though. What you see here is the culmination of several attempts that failed to get me across the top with ALOT of colorful language and frustration. The final trek including all the trips took us 4 hours. We arrived, and the State Troopers and a Game Warden met us at the bottom of the hill. They congratulated me as I rode down the final slope with no steering but my body weight hanging Completely off the side of my machine as I used my hands to hang on to the handle bars and the box behind the seat. They said they had been discussing climbing up the hill to see if they could find us. After checking our tags and licenses we limped back to the rigs to find a flat tire on the trailer I had borrowed. After getting that fixed it was an tired, sore, uneventful ride home to tell the wife and kids I had killed Sven. HAHAHA
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Dave N said:
Congrats! For once, I have an idea of where someone was! Didn't go that far up, went maybe 30-40 miles past Chatanika before turning around. Had plans to go out to Circle but they fell through. It looks cold, and empty.
Click to expand...
Yeah, we were up in the Eagle Summit area. THere wasn't much there and the Troopers and Wardens had said they have seen very few Caribou harvested so far. But have had to rescue a ton of stuck people.
 
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