The caribou hunt that almost wasn’t

[Magnum Sherpa]

This is the follow up of the caribou hunt that I had originally planned with Arctic Air. After a late cancellation of our hunt by Arctic Air, we scrambled and were able to book a hunt with an airboat transporter on the North Slope of the Brooks Range south of Deadhorse.

Disclaimer: (Unfortunately) no caribou were harmed in the course of this hunt

September 1: My friend, Mark, and I flew from Missoula and landed in Fairbanks a little after midnight on Tuesday.

September 2: Spent the day in Fairbanks getting supplies, visiting the Alaska Fish and Game office, and enjoyed some good food at the Pump House restaurant. We were pleasantly surprised at the quality of our rental truck from Alaska Auto Rental. It was a Chevy Silverado 2500 with only 5,000 miles.



September 3: A long day behind the wheel, driving the nearly 500 miles from Fairbanks to Deadhorse. We stopped in Coldfoot for lunch and gas ($7.49 per gallon), and finally arrived in Deadhorse a little after 7 pm. Overall the conditions on the Dalton Highway were decent. We spent that night at the Aurora in Deadhorse.

 

[Magnum Sherpa]

September 4: We met our transporter a little before 7 AM on the Sag River. After completing our paperwork and checking licenses we were on our way.


We rode up the Sag then up the Echooka River for about a 50-minute total trip. We saw a lot of camps and a lot of hunters just hanging around camp. By 11 AM we had our tent set up, gear organized and were ready to hunt.

We were super eager to get hunting and probably over did it that first day. Based on our onX tracks we hiked just over 12 miles that first afternoon/evening (we realized that 12 miles per day was not a sustainable pace for 7 days of hunting in the tundra and tussocks). The only caribou we saw that first day were 2 cows and 2 calves about 4 miles from our tent. We did see hunters to both our north and south, which we pretty much expected based on the number of camps we saw on the river. We got back to our tent at dark, slightly discouraged, hungry, and thoroughly wet from the rain that had begun to fall on our hike back.

 

[Magnum Sherpa]

September 5-10: Basically “Groundhog Day” every day, despite variations in the weather. We had one sunny day in the 50s, but the rest of the days were typical Alaska weather with rain/clouds/snow. Except for one day when visibility was near zero, we would hike to a glassing point and settle in for the day. We were pretty much limited to the area east of our camp due to being flanked on each side by other hunter camps. For these 6 days we only saw 3 more caribou (2 cows and a calf). We did talk to the hunters camped upriver from us and they harvested a small bull (they had to study the penis sheath with binoculars to determine it was a bull) 6 miles from the river.

Despite the lackluster hunting, it was still amazing to enjoy the experience of hunting in Alaska and the beautiful scenery.

 

[Magnum Sherpa]

September 11: Pickup Day
We had our camp broken down and gear packed by 9 AM as instructed by our transporter. The night before we had gotten about 2 inches of snow.

As we sat waiting I noticed a few brown dots on the ridge across the river that hadn’t been there the other 100 times I had looked. Caribou! 4 of them with a nice bull at the back of the group. Unfortunately they were about 1,000 yards away and across a river not safe to cross by wading. They were paralleling our position, so not headed our way. A few minutes later we heard the hum of our approaching airboat and the caribou disappeared over the ridge.

 

[Magnum Sherpa]

Over the next 2 days we drove back to Fairbanks then flew home to Montana. Despite a fresh 5-6 inches of snow along the Dalton Highway, we only saw one group of caribou along the entire drive of the North Slope to Atigun Pass. The hunters that we had seen hunting along the road on our drive up seemed to have mostly gone home.

Everyone we spoke to said the migration of the Central Arctic herd was abnormal this year. The Echooka River valley is normally a major route for migrating caribou, but this year that was not the case. I don’t know much about caribou, but I wonder if the years of intense hunting pressure along the river might have altered the migration pattern. Maybe it was just an off year?

 

[Magnum Sherpa]

WHAT I LEARNED
Despite not getting caribou, Mark and I still had a great time. If a hunter can’t enjoy time spent afield in Alaska, then maybe you need to reevaluate why you hunt. I do, however, want to give myself the best chance to be successful. So here it goes:

1). Take recommendations for outfitters/transporters with a grain of salt. Arctic Air (my original airplane transporter that canceled us last minute) does have good reviews out there, as well as a lot of bad ones. A fellow Hunt Talker had recommended Arctic Air to me, after he personally had a good hunt with them. I am amazed and baffled that even this season there are a few positive reviews for Arctic Air’s operation out of Kotzebue. It seems if people kill a caribou, they are willing to forgive just about everything else.
2). Buy trip insurance for big trips. If things go awry, at least you can salvage most of your money and not try to “force” the trip to work.
3). I don’t think I would ever use a boat transporter again that drops you off in a location where you are stuck for the entire hunt. If the animals aren’t in your location it makes for a long week.
4). Next time I hunt Alaska I will access my hunting location by airplane. As a person who might only hunt Alaska a few times in my lifetime, I want it to be the best experience possible and I don’t want to be crowded by other hunters. An airplane doesn’t guarantee total solitude, but there is a much better chance than hunting off a river or road system.

 

[Oak]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm sorry the caribou weren't cooperative.

 

[Magnum Sherpa]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm sorry the caribou weren't cooperative.

Thanks. It gives us an excuse to go back and we are already starting to plan the next trip. If we are successful next time it will be that much sweeter.

 

[ashersdad]

Thanks for the write up. You definitely took a negative and turned it into a positive, even if no caribou were harmed. Going into any hunt with a good attitude and realistic expectations really helps when things don't work out quite like we had hoped. I'm sure your next Alaskan hunt will be even better.

 

[CPAjeff]

Thanks for sharing your adventure with us!

 

[KU_Geo]

Thanks for sharing.