Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Caribou meat run

Well my oldest boy and I headed North on Thursday with plans for 4-5 days of hunting. My youngest backed out unfortunately so it was just the two of us. Made the drive up, then a short boat ride. Set up camp that afternoon and went for a walk to see what was up. The first night we saw 15-20 cows and calves milling around, no bulls though.

Friday morning we got out of the tent and had another cow and calf playing on the far bank of the river. That was fun to watch! We took another walk but didn't see any animals moving. It was pretty warm and the whitesocks were out in force. Made it back to camp, looked up and saw another cow and calf, soon followed by 25 or so more animals. There were 6 bulls in the group, none huge but we're not real picky. Made a move to get ahead of them and caught the last one in the group still in the open. A short 75yd shot with my old 8mm mauser dropped it where it stood, which happened to be only 50yds from the river.

We got it cut up, bagged, and into the boat by about 1pm. The temps got up into the low 60's so we decided to get the heck out of there with the meat. With only one tag there wasn't much sense in hanging around. So all in all it was a fun trip, albeit a super short one. Heart and backstrap on the menu tonight!

Nice work!! Looks like a fun trip, caribou is damn good grub too

Congratulations!

Congrats.....you’re liv’n the “good life”! memtb

Always a good time when your out hunting and camping with your kid! My family likes caribou better than moose so we cross all fingers and toes for a tag every year! Haha! Gonna hammer some backstraps and heart tomorrow. Had to cancel it for tonight as momma had a ladies bday dinner to go to. She didn’t want to miss out!

Congrats...thanks for sharing the hunt. Great pictures.

From a ga boy knowing zero about caribou... are tags for bulls only?

Depends on the hunt and the strength of the herd. This year my hunt was to be bulls only at first, but after the summer herd census they allowed for either sex.

What tag do I apply for?? 🤣🤣🤣

Miss the days when my boy was little, but he just gave me a grandson on the 2nd, so it starts all over again!!

Congratulations

And other factors.. such as which herd/location/GMU. Varies.

Wife and I hunted 40 mile herd this year, off the Steese Hwy north of Fairbanks. One either-sex registration permit each. Those August bulls are prime!

A bit of a circus, at least the first day. Season is closed by emergency order when quota is reached. This year, 5 days. I took a fair bull day one, wife same on day 2 - then we had to haul ass for home before the meat spoiled- 700 miles . Temps were in 60's up there, 70's near home, 50's at night. Meat was just about rightly aged (4 days, including kill day) when we processed - mine first, one day, hers the next - tho it's better longer and cooler. About 38 degrees and 10 days is good! But we don't have a controlled temp meat place. Am considering a couple big coolers and ice, if there is a next time. Less hurried trip that way -

I was thinking just yesterday I maybe should have left a snowmachine with friends in Kotzebue when we left last year. Come November, I could camp on their floor, and weather permitting, go out and whack up to 5 cow caribou per day.... tho 3 would suffice, one day only. I'd be all done....

Bull season is closed there from Oct 15 to Feb 1- Rut/Eskimo preference - incorporated into regs, big rutty bulls are referred to as "stink-bulls" -and inedible, tho bulls are again edible, tho fat-less, by Nov 10 or so. Not as good eating as all those pregnant cows. But there are lots.....:)

Good hunt P!

LIKE ..

Well done. Congrats.

OK, I'll be the dumb one and ask.

Is the 40Mi herd named for being 40Mi from some town/trailhead or did someone see the herd from the top of some hill way back and decide that the migrating herd was 40Mi long?

Fortymile is a river in NE AK and the Yukon, named during the gold rush.

thanks for that post & pics cool to see places I will never see other wise

Good stuff.

Congrats.

from Wikipedia:

History[edit]
Prospectors named the river after gold was discovered there in 1886. The name reflected the distance of the river mouth from Fort Reliance, a former Hudson's Bay Company post upstream along the Yukon River.[3] Miners eventually extracted more than a half-million ounces of gold from the Fortymile watershed.[5] After the gold discovery, two Alaska Commercial Company traders, Jack McQuesten and Arthur Harper, built a post at the mouth of the river.

Good stuff Congratulations

Lots of this kind of naming went on... 20Mile River near Girdwood was named so because it is 20 miles from Sunrise, formerly a large mining town near Hope. Anchorage did not exist then...

Good deal on the success... did not see very many either alive or dead on a quick trip to retrieve a moose last week.

We probably saw 75 or so in the 24 hrs we were out there. Mostly cows with calves, but there were 5 bulls with the group we took one out of. I only saw meat hanging in one camp on the drive out. Not many people around Thursday morning, Friday night on the other hand looked like a zoo at some trailheads.

Super stuff Ptar !

Glad the kiddo had fun too.

Great post, tell us some more specifics on your boat/engine, tent/stoves, and your gun and loads. Great photos. MB

My boat is an Alweld 1752 tunnel hull that I added a grab bar and flotation pods to. I've got a Tohatsu TLDI 50/35 jet on the back of it. The tipi is a Luxe Megahorn that I just picked up. It didn't get much of a workout but for the small amount of time I've used it, it's been great. I put a KniCo Trekker stove in it which puts out more than enough heat!

The gun I used was my old sporterized Turk 8mm mauser. I use factory 195gr Hornady Interlocks in it. I had actually brought my Tikka .300wm as my oldest son likes using the 8mm. It just happened that the 8mm was closest to me when I had a shot.

Great work man I agree there is nothing that can compare with meat collecting with the boys.

Congrats on the good eats!