Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Huntin' story

I've promised several times to post this story, and have nothing better to do tonight. No pics from this hunt, but if I can find the discs, I might post a few from later ones.

I call it "Kenai Country Caribou" and first wrote it out a few days after it happened, some 14 years ago. Here goes:


Perhaps I was a little tense. It isn't every day I try to take a kill away from an Alaskan brown bear. This time would make once. But it was my kill, and I wanted it back.

Seventy-five yards down the steep alpine slope lay the cow caribou I had shot, gutted, and left opened-to-cool just after sunset the evening before. Fifty yards below that lay the bear, almost orange in the bright August sunshine, near the gut pile (it rolled that far down the slope). The bear lay watching me.

Tipping the muzzle of the .280 into the air, I fired a round to frighten it off. Riiiight! It only pricked it's ears at me. I found myself twenty feet farther up the slope, not having told my feet to move.

"Wait a minute", I thought. "It didn't kill me when it had me cold last night. It'll bluff. Now, if the feet will behave...."

I had drawn a permit for the Kenai Mountain caribou herd, game management Unit 7 on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, where I live. Of 250 permits issued annually, about half the permit winners actually hunt, and those don't find it an easy hunt, or easy pickings. Only 28 animals, including mine, would be harvested from the herd of 400-plus animals in 1996. In recent years, the average has dropped to about 20 animals, in a season that lasts from August 10 to December 31. Only a handful of animals have been harvested after October 1 since this hunt's initiation in 1972. It's a tough hunt anytime, and shortening daylight and ever-increasing adverse weather conditions as the season wears on pretty much makes late-season non-viable for anyone that doesn't have something wrong with them. On the other hand, it's nice being all alone up there....

The animals are widely scattered by ones and twos, mostly, over hundreds of square miles early in the season. Later on they mob up for the rut in the core areas 10 to 20 miles in from the trail-heads. Access is only by foot or horseback, making for tough hunting conditions. Especially with no horse.

It was the second weekend of season- mid-August- and I was looking to pick up a "fringe" animal, only a couple miles back in, before the in-gathering for the rut. Cow or bull, it didn't matter. I had an "any-caribou" permit and was hunting meat, with two whole days to do it in, three fourths of it forecast for good weather.

I'd hunted this herd for over 20 years, many times backpacking 10 to 12 miles in and humping the meat out in a single 100 pound plus load. I'll use a pack-dog or two when I can, but even then it isn't much fun on the way out. My knees, among other things, aren't what they used to be. If I can catch an "easy" caribou, I will.

Smart people hunt in twos or threes, kill one animal, and pack it out, sharing the load and the meat. This was a solo hunt. Again.

Saturday dawn found me working up Palmer Creek Road in my pick-up, stopping every half mile to glass everything visible under the cloud-line half-way down the slopes. That's a rather long-shot anyway, but clearing skies were forecast for the afternoon. I saw a cow and calf, a fork-horn, and a mid-40 inch class bull moose on the road. They were safe, as it was not yet moose season, and Palmer Creek Valley is closed to moose hunting anyway. Near the head of the valley I left the truck to climb a thousand or so feet up past the abandoned Hershey Mine shaft into a saddle just below the fog. Finding nothing there, nor in the far side basin, I continued up the right-side ridge-line into the fog, eventually topping out into a small, high bowl cupping a melt-water jewel at the base of a snow pack. Drifting fog kept visibility under 70 yards, so I ate an early lunch and took a nap.

Awakening just before 1:00 p.m., I found the fog lifting as forecast, and began glassing the surrounding slopes and ridge-tops through drifting holes. Within the hour there was clear blue sky with no animals visible, so it was time to pick up the gear and begin working the main ridge-line. From here, I had access to miles of prime habitat along upper slopes and ridge-lines, as well as several spur ridges. I could spend all afternoon ridge-topping in a big half-circle around my truck, having departed to the east, and coming back to it from the west. A nice day-hunt.

Three hours and a mile and a half later, white freckles lower down on a far slope caught my eye as I was rounding a high up shoulder on the main peak of the ridge system.

Perhaps the time/distance needs explanation. Bedded or unmoving caribou are just another grey-brown hump on the slope. Any declivity, hump, outcropping, or slight contour can hide animals, bedded or not. At any time, an animal can stand up or move out from behind an obstruction or cross a ridge into view. Their Genus name is Rangifer for good reason. Plus, moving and changing perspectives requires constant glassing and re-glassing. Foot-racers catch blisters, not meat.

Excited now, as I also had a valid sheep tag in my pack, I shed the frame-pack and set up the spotting scope. Alas, it was only eleven ewes with lambs bedded about a mile away, at a 2:00 o'clock low position. Glassing with binoculars found 6 more ewes with lambs across the ridge from the first bunch, at about 11:00 o'clock, low, and a half mile farther. Smack between the two groups of sheep was a lanky young black bear feeding on blueberries, and putting on a heck of a show. He would lay down and rake with first one paw, then the other, roll on his side or back and stretch his head back to nibble, then toboggan down short grassy stretches on his belly or back to new pickings. A few times he pounced; I think on "escaping" berries. He was having a blast, and so was I, watching him.

A quarter mile back I had passed two big billy-goats bedded in the rim-rock below the ridge-top. Pausing to watch them for 10 minutes at 75 yards, I really worried them. They simply looked back at me and chewed their cuds. I had a goat permit in the pack, left over from the previous weekend's hunt. It was in my wife's name, however, and for a different area. This area was closed for goats anyway. Rats!

Thirty feet above my spotting position a flock of ptarmigan clucked and ducked through the talus. "This", I said aloud to myself, "looks like a good spot to sit!" In 3 directions I could scope miles of slopes and broad ridge-tops. Here I would stay until time to head back to the truck (camp), or I saw something worth going after. Rams, caribou, or a fat black bear: any of them would do. That skinny one I'd pass on.

Between watching two groups of sheep, a bear, a couple hunters on a far ridge, and all-round glassing, the hours passed quickly. The Vegan- running freakette that came trotting through my plant an hour after I set up was surprised to see me, and looked not a little disapproving. She did stop to talk briefly, however, and was pleasant enough. But why do they always insist on informing you of their "religion"? I just don't care. She was good looking in those short shorts and halter top, so I didn't mind all that much! Healthy looking...Should have been in camo tho.....

At 7:20 p.m. the binoculars picked up a caribou at the base of a slope a mile and a half distant, over the main ridge from nominal camp. Obviously, she had just risen from a bed in or near the brush line where the mountain slope began to gentle into creek bottom. I remembered a lesson I had previously learned: alpine caribou drop low, into or near brush when the weather gets cruddy. We had just ended three such cruddy days.

Deciding she was headed cross-slope to a nearby rivulet for water, and that she would feed nearby after drinking, I plotted a course, picked up my gear, and hustled buns, dropping 2,000 feet or more of elevation on a long dropping cross-slope diagonal approach which should put me on her at about the same level. A nasty cirque between us limited my options to staying on top or this approach. Crossing the base of the cirque should put me within sight of her at same level, within 200 yards or so.

An hour later I was tying neon pink survey ribbon on the doffed pack before the final stalk (don't, and one can spend hours looking for it afterward - BTDT), when movement caught at the edge of my eye. Easing the "Safari"-slinged rifle around into position, I slowly turned my head. Thirty feet away a large wolverine came humping around the slope, apparently having heard me coming. At my movement, he stopped and stood on hind legs to look me over. As a friend later aptly put it, he appeared to be deciding whether or not he would (not could) "take" me.

After a minute or so of stare-down (I looked back through 9X binoculars) he went humping back the way he came, having seemingly decided, " Not today, too much bother." After nearly 30 years in Alaska, this was my first close encounter with a wolverine. Double cool! What a gorgeous animal!

Poking around, I eventually found the caribou, now on the ridge-line maybe 1500 feet above me on the near 60 degree slope. Retrieving the pack, up I went, keeping out of sight using the contour of the mountain and a small drainage depression. Near the top, where the slope began rounding out for the divide, I again dropped the pack and carefully contoured cross-slope, but not carefully enough. When I caught view of the cow, it was as she lay down, several hundred feet below me, and 300 yards or so across the drainage. I was well exposed, maybe 30 yards farther around the slope than I had cover for. Fortunately, she was staring down-slope toward my previous position with the wolverine. I had thought she might have glimpsed me earlier, and now I was certain.

She was in slope-shadow, while I was in sunlight, and facing directly into the setting sun touching the top of the ridge-line 400 yards distant. I had a devil of a time finding her in the binoculars, and even worse through the 6X compact Burris scope. The scope's sight picture was far too murky to shoot.

Nine p.m. had been my "drop-dead" cutoff for heading to camp, a bit over 2 miles away, with sunset officially within minutes of 10:00 p.m. it was now 9:10. On the other hand, DC001 caribou aren't that easy to come by, particularly on a weekend hunt, the weather was good, and high-latitude twilights are long.

Easing back around the contour on my belly until I was out of sight, I shouldered the pack and hustled the short way to the ridge-top, then rimmed around out of sight until directly above the cow. Following the drainage cut, I dropped down about 200 yards, and peeked around a rock outcropping to find her still bedded, now about 100 yards away. As I was also now in the ridge-shadow, scope clarity was vastly improved. The outcropping top made a perfect rest for the rifle, padded with my cap and hand.

At the shot, she rolled over on her side, legs outstretched. Good thing, too, as she was on the only flat spot - just caribou sized- for a long ways down. Actually, I had missed high the planned lung shot and broke her spine. A head shot from a few yards out finished her before she could recover enough to drag/kick her way off the tiny flat. (I'd once had a dead ram tumble a quarter mile and lose 1500 feet of elevation on such a slope! By the map.)

After a quick, rather than neat gutting job, and propping her cavity open with shards of rocks to cool overnight, I hustled back to the ridge-top. The sun was long gone and it was well into blue twilight when I topped out, still nearly 2 miles back to camp. The quickest way there was straight off a 60 degree or more scree-slope headwall of a cirque, then across the nearly level bowl at the bottom, and down the relatively gentle creek bottom directly to the truck. Unloading the chamber before starting the rock-slide descent, I pocketed the round, leaving two in the chamber. Why I didn't top off the 5-round magazine from reserves in the pack, I haven't a clue.

Reaching the bottom of the headwall, I drank from ice-cold snow-melt headwaters, washed blood and gore from hands and forearms, and drank again. I'd been without water and working hard for 6 or 7 hours. Not much I could do with the considerable amount of gore on my clothes (I told you it was quick, and not neat!). By this time, it was pretty darned dark. If I was to reach the truck without logging flashlight time I'd have to beat feet, and so I did, concentrating on my footing.

A hundred yards out into the bowl, maybe a third of the way across, gravel rattled behind me to the left. I knew what it was. I hadn't thought "bear" since the little blackie had fed out of sight, but I knew. And I knew it was no black, either. There were several little 2 foot deep creek channels lacing the otherwise bare-gravel bottom, with about 2 foot high grass fringing each channel. Fairly good cover for an ambusher.

I don't remember reviewing the rifle's condition, but I was reefing the bolt hard as I pivoted left, on my left foot. I do remember thinking "two rounds; no warning shot". As my right foot hit the ground, the bolt slammed home, with the stock socked in against right hip, right hand dropping back and down from bolt handle to trigger in one smooth, continuous move. It was too dark for scope use, even if the covers had been off. Shooting would have to be from the hip, ala John Wayne.

Simultaneously, the bear exploded up through the grass fringing the creek bank, less than 60 feet away. And stopped!

I think it was the combination of my final movements, upright stance, and the sound of the bolt slamming home that did it. It had laid an ambush, but I wasn't what it expected.

Even at that, my first flash-thought in the poor light was "That damned wolverine followed me!" Same shape, same color, same motion. "No, too big!"

I backed up a step. The bear took a step. I backed another step. The bear took another step. "Wrong!" my mind shouted through the intense concentration on the bear. I stopped. Whatever played out would be here and now. I started talking in a calm, warning voice. At least, that's how I remember it. It might not have been.

At the first words the bear's entire posture changed. It had been half-crouched, poised to charge, but with hackles down and ears kind of out to the side. I figured later this was probably an "I'm gonna kill me some food" rather than defensive, aggressive, or startled posture. It was, like me, hunting meat and likely thought from the sounds I made coming off slope, then crossing the basin floor, that I was a caribou, sheep, goat, or even a moose, which sometimes work that high.

At the first "Don't you do it!" its ears came forward and stance changed. Its expression changed from "kill" to "WTF?", and the legs straightened. At the third of fourth sentence, it stood up on hind legs, and I began to hope I was home free. This is an inquisitive posture, rather than threatening, so I began to back again, still talking, thinking movement might now help him define me. Or not....

Two steps back, he dropped to all fours. I planted feet and half raised the rifle for point and shoot, shotgun style, but it turned away, bounded twice, and paused to look back over its shoulder. I was still talking, and again backing up. It shifted into high, and soon hit the slope I had just come down. I think it made better time going up than I did coming down, and I had more or less ridden a rock slide down the chute. The bear was headed directly for my kill.

It had been a right interesting 20 seconds or so! I made very good time back to camp myself, and after a bit, slept well. Surprisingly, I didn't worry about what I expected to find in the morning. It's wide open up there, and I always had the option of backing off and leaving the bear with the carcass, as required by Alaska law if the bear won't leave, and is otherwise not legal to shoot.

Now, facing it over the kill, I remembered its reaction to my voice the night before. I proceeded to cuss it's looks, ancestry, love life, and was working my way through its eating habits when it decided it didn't have to take that kind of abuse anymore. It's fur rippled and danced as it bounce-humped diagonally down-slope toward the creek bottom far below. Twice it stopped to look back, and I yelled and waved my arms.

The locked and loaded safetied rifle was kept within reach as I skinned and boned the caribou. The bear had eaten the liver, cleaned off the brisket bones, half the rib meat on one side, and taken one bite out of one ham. The heart had been bitten, but I guess it didn't like the texture, maybe. The gut pile had rolled 50 yards down the slope, to where the bear had been bedded within yards, guarding it. Good stuff there! I didn't check, but that too might have been fed on, either before or after the carcass. The bear had dropped gallons of blueberry scat all around the carcass, but hadn't moved, fouled, or tried to cover it.

Nevertheless, whenever my kids found a slightly gamey bite of otherwise excellent meat, they accused me of having "left some bear slobber on". Didn't seem to slow them down much. I'm undecided whether I was lucky that this was just a 2 or 3 year old bear, or if I'd been better or worse off with an older more dominant one.

Once, while boning out the cow, my heart grabbed my throat as movement caught the corner of my eye. I felt a little silly pointing an unsafetied rifle at that bunch of helium filled red and blue party balloons that had come drifting over the ridge-top and down-slope, before reversing course and disappearing back over the rim once again. I imagine they had come from either Hope, about 15 miles away, or the Hillside above Anchorage, another 10-15 miles beyond that.

I reached home at 1:30 a.m. Monday morning and immediately weighed my load. Meat, day-pack, and rifle came to 119.5 pounds. Coming off that steep ridge had been the tricky part.

If this wasn't my best hunt ever, it's certainly in the top three. A true "trophy hunt" for all the wildlife encountered. And in good weather too!

__________________________________________________________________________________

Well told, that was a great hunting story!

Nothing like seeing all that game and being potentially "bear bait" all in one hunt!


Thanks for sharing..........It would be great if you could find the disc with the pics.

Excellent story...Thanks for taking the time to share it...

If I could write that well, I would be sending that into a magazine or two. Seems like I was right there with you. Great story!

Very nice!

"she should have been in camo" is far and away my favorite like!

Very nice!

"she should have been in camo" is far and away my favorite line!

Mr. las;
That sir was a great story, very well written.
FWIW, I�d gladly pay to read that tale in any of the magazines I�ve subscribed to.
I�m glad you made it out to write it for us, thanks for sharing it.
Regards,
Dwayne

Great hunting story. I have to agree with panhandle and BC30cal! Hope you post the pictures! Thanks for sharing it!

Nice story. As said, belongs in a magazine.

Great story. Can't wait to see pics.

Thanks, for the great read.

Good essay there ...

Man, you guys walked right into that one!

Most of these have been posted before, all are from one or the other of the two Kenai Peninsula permit caribou hunts: (I'm happy to live here!)

[IMG]http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c87/sterlingak/P8150177-1.jpg[/IMG





look-outs...

I'm still looking for a couple I really wanted to post.... do I live in a good place, or what????

Wonderful story and pictures and I like your hunting partners.

That is too cool, very professional Sir.