Grayson's First Caribou

Grayson covered nearly 40 miles, entirely on foot, in three days during his first caribou hunt.  He shot his caribou (his first big game ever) on day three of the hunt, nearly six miles from the lodge where we had left our pickup. On the day he shot it, he walked 18 of those 40 miles, and over the next 12 hours carried his half-share of the weight of quarters, burger bags, and antlers on his back for the last 6 miles (I carried the other half-share). He wants to tell you the story, so I'll turn the rest of the blog over to him.  Grayson, take it away....

By Grayson:

Well, I'm going to start off by saying that there are three things that I have learned in the past couple days. Everything is always farther than it looks, everything is heavier than it looks, and there's always another ridge to cross.

About halfway through the Denali Highway we crossed the Susitna River on a bridge which is nearly completely made out of wood.

On the first day of the hunt, we hiked over 10 miles scouting for caribou. This picture was taken about 1 mile up the trail. The first lake sits right behind me, and the Big Su River is visible in the distance.

We stayed at Alpine Creek Lodge for two nights before camping, It is named after the creek you see in the above picture, Alpine Creek. The creek extends the full 6 miles that we hiked each day and runs down to the lodge with over a 2,000 ft elevation gain.

Another few miles up the trail sits the second lake.It was here that we spotted our first caribou. We only caught a glimpse of its back, and weren't sure what it was at first so we decided to hike up closer to see if we could get close enough to see it clearly. 

We split up to cover more ground and kept searching. (You can see me in the distance in the picture Dad took).

We didn't know it at the time, but there was a caribou hiding behind one of those hills on the right, laying in the snow to keep the bugs away. As we hiked further up the hill in the background, the cow ran out from behind us and stood broadside for a moment. I was able to steady the rifle on a rock next to me and attempted to take the shot. The rifle misfired just like it did on Landon's moose hunt two years ago. I ejected that round and put another one in the chamber, but by the time the caribou stood broadside again, it was too far and I missed the shot. Dad always says "Inhale, exhale, pause, slow trigger pull and let the shot surprise you." That is, unless there's big-game in-front of you which in that case, he just says "TAKE THE SHOT, TAKE THE SHOT, SHOOT HIM!!!!!"

Dad's Note: I fully admit I'm a little less calm in the field with a moose or caribou in front of us - but I'm happy my sons can remember the shooting advice I give them during practice at the range :)  

Oh, and I'm sending this rifle back to the manufacturer for inspection. It's the most accurate rifle I've ever had, but it misfires every once in a while at the absolute worst times. It's a Savage Axis 30.06.

On our way back to the lodge that day. This view is from the second lake looking down on the first lake.

The one picture I got of Dad. This view is looking up from the second lake to the ridge that overlooks the third lake where the rifle misfired.

On the second day, we had the privilege of seeing a wall of rain clouds come towards us. We also saw what we think to be a white coyote-wolf mix that scurried away before we could take a picture of it. Other hunters and hikers had told us they saw a white wolf in the area, but we got a close 30 yard look, and Dad says it looked more like the body of a coyote, but it is solid white and has more of a wolf look in the face, and he wonders if any wolves and coyotes might be interbreeding in this area.

Right next to the first lake, some beavers built a dam.

On the second day, we set up camp next to the first lake, and used this camp site for the next two days. Prep up because the next picture is the best!

On the third day, we hiked back up to the second lake where we saw what at the time we thought was a young bull, three cows, a calf, and a smaller bull trailing behind. The bull following from behind eventually turned off so we started stalking the small group. We eventually caught up to the group after climbing a very sketch cliff that went straight up a mountain to over 5,000 ft elevation. We stalked up to a pair of sloped rocks that we could both lay prone on. It was like I was a sniper and Dad was my spotter. The group was at 350 yards and dad asked me if i could make that shot, I said no at first, but then considered it after about 30 minutes of the caribou not moving. I told dad I would take the shot and turned my magnification to ten, then scoped in on the caribou with the biggest rack. Breathe in, Breathe out, pause, slow trigger pull, boom. I hit it! The caribou ran down hill towards us, and I finished it off as it neared us, it expired about 150 yards from where we were shooting from.

Dad's Note: I didn't expect to encourage a 350 yard shot, but the caribou were perfectly still and broadside, and we had the best shooting set up laying prone and out of sight, using a pair of man-sized rocks as a rest. At 350 yards, his hit was just behind the diaphragm (aft of desired, but still a fatal shot), causing this caribou to begin moving downhill towards us, and he finished it off as it got closer. Unlike moose, caribou terrain is very open country, and longer shots are normal, but he did a great job landing a hit at that range. He put a lot of time in at the range to get ready for this hunt, and I was confident he could make the shot.

This is what the caribou last saw before it expired just 150 yards from us, we were steadied on the two rocks across that snowbank, which you can barely see in the picture. 

While I was hiking 4.5 miles back to our campsite to get our meat backpacks, Dad field dressed the caribou and chilled it in the snow. The meat was able to chill for ~3 hours before we started carrying it back to the lodge (~6 miles away), which is a great way to make sure the meat is cooled quickly and well-preserved.

As we packed the meat and headed down the valley, Dad turned the corner and 30 yards ahead of him sat 40 caribou. Of course, there were plenty of huge bulls in that herd, because I had already shot my caribou! You can see the herd on the hilltop over my shoulder in this picture as they moved away from us.

Dad's Note: Grayson's tag was for any caribou, so we didn't need to identify at range male from female. The caribou he shot was a cow, but was the largest animal in that small group, and was calfless, so at 350 yards we thought it might be a young bull.  Caribou cows sometimes skip years between calving, especially if the herd numbers are strong and the winter food supply is low.  So the cow he harvested likely had a calf last year, but skipped calving this year to recover from the nutrition loss of raising last year's calf.  She of course still had antlers, as both cow and bull caribou grow antlers - a bull's antlers are just larger, but at this early time of year, not all the caribou have finished growing antlers yet, and they are still in velvet. If we had been restricted to harvesting just bulls, we would've had to stalk much closer to verify the bulls from the cows.

A closer look at the herd.

We saw many more small herds of caribou on our way down and on the drive home. Once again it had to be after I shot my caribou cow that I saw many big bulls closer to the road on our way home, that would have been much easier to carry to the truck. Figures.

On the six and a half hour drive back to the house, we passed through the Caswell Lakes fire area from last year. As you can see, there are many fireweed plants growing all around the ground. Fireweed gets its name because it is always the first plant to grow after a fire.

That's it. My first caribou is partly in our freezer and partly at the processor to make some delicious polish cheezers.  Can't wait, we ran out of polish cheezers about 6 months ago from Landon's moose, so it will be good to stock back up.  Thanks for reading.