Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting What happened to the backpack hunt stories?

After some high fives with my brother, he decide to walk around the lake to the bull. I was going to walk back to camp to get the boat and waders that I brought. As the boat was pretty suspect he plan was to load the meat into the boat and pull it back to camp along the shoreline.

A week before leaving for the trip I pulled the boat from the woodshed rafters to find it had been attached by a pack rat. Every night that week I was patching holes and the next night I'd pump it up only to find more, progressively smaller in size. The last night i patched the last hole and finished off the tube of seam sealer.
As i was walking back to camp and looked back to where the caribou lay my heart sank. He was on the shore of the lake, but rather an island. I though to my self if this cheap. piece of chit boat doesn't hold air the caribou will lay there and rot. I had only brought the boat to paddle out 20-30 yards to try fishing. I loaded up the boat, pump, life jacket and waders.

I hiked back around to the point where i had shot from. My brother was on the far side of the bay, behind the island where the bull lay. He yelled to me "he's on an island". I yelled back I know, I'll try to come get you.

As i pumped up the boat I was pleased to not hear the familiar hissing sounds. I left my Scarpa boots & rifle on
shore and load up. No bubbles were coming around the boat and it seemed to be holding air - yea! I paddled up to the island and unloaded my pack, then continued on across the bay to get my brother. The boat had a 440lb payload, which I took as more of a guideline than absolute as my brother and I are over that.

After we got the caribou qutered and in game bags I ferried my brother back to shore, then took the meat, full cape, and antlers in 2 more loads. Once back at shore we loaded all the meat, cape and antlers into the boat and I piled in too. It was way over capacity but as it only drafted a few inches of water I just stayed waited deep water close to shore for the paddle back to camp. That way if it blew a patch or a seam I could drag the works to shore.

I actually got tired of catching fish up there, so I went for a hike on the north side of the Brooks Range. This wasn't too far from Atigun Pass: Probably 10 miles north and 3 miles east, up a drainage out of sight of the haul road.




Earlier and closer to town I came across a lynx that had been killed and partly eaten, easily a mile from a road, so being hit by a car was out of the question. It was kind of spooky.

I didn't do any backpack hunts this year due to taking a transfer to a new state.