Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Caribou - who did you use?

Hi folks,
I am planning an unguided drop hunt for the Mulchatna either next year or 2006. I was wondering who you have used or who you might be using and why? If you don't want to flame an outfit on this board, please feel free to send me an e-mail. Thanks.
John

John,
I have participated in a Mulchatna Bou hunt as a non-shooting meat sherpa. Every few years I go on a hunt with my brother who is an AK resident.

In August 2000 we did a drop hunt out of Illiamna. Used Illiamna Air Guides. The site is Airguides.com. In fact on the caribou page, the first pic on upper left is little bro with his bigger rack (he got 2). I can�t compare with other outfits but I thought they were a top notch operation. They used 2 supercubs to get our party of 3 about 70 miles generally NW of Illiamna. Dropped us off on a flat hill a couple of football fields long that would be our home for the next 7 days. Didn�t see thousands of bou like you see on the Discovery channel, but we saw small groups of bulls every day and after taking 3 and being assured of meat (residents could shoot at least 2 each), my brother was pretty selective about taking his second bull. Unfortunately for the big bou, he and his posse of a few bulls wandered within � mile of our base camp late on the eve of our scheduled pickup. We dressed him in the dark and since we were well rehearsed with the 3 previous bulls, our 3 man assembly line had the work done in short order. We woke to the buzzing sound of approaching supercubs. They were out early picking up hunters trying to beat some weather that was moving in.

Mark and Cindy of Illiamna airguides did a very good job. Although it was an unguided drop hunt, the process worked out well. Basically, you fly in from Anchorage to Illiamna on the morning commercial flight (used to be ERA aviation but Pennair might be doing the run). Cindy was at the airport waiting with the Suburban and takes you the 2 miles to their place. Spend a couple to a few hours on final gear prep while waiting your turn to be shuttled out. If you brought too much gear you might hear something like �hey Mark�s not going to let you put that 100 qt. Cooler of Bud on the Cub so you better leave it here. Most of em will be there when you come back�. Upon pickup, they do have a couple of small cabins for outgoing parties. They had a screened meat room so you can finish boning and boxing meat for the commercial flight out the next day. The little kitchenette in the cabin worked well for grilling up some fresh bou steaks. Oh, and hot water for a shower!

If you are self sufficient being in the field and just need good air transport, I would have to recommend them. The only aspect not spot on, was water. They did tell us they would make an effort to drop off fresh water and they did start us off with 5 gallons. In the middle of the hunt we were getting low so guess who had to trek downhill into the brush and haul water from the creek. Now hauling the 40lbs uphill was no big deal cause I take steroids (kidding), and I�m not overly paranoid about bears, but just before I started getting into the thickest brush I need someone to �ride shotgun�. �Hey Karl, get your butt down here with that howitzer you�re carrying and make sure I don�t get jumped by one of those big tan furry things�. Now I know a lot of the readers will want to know what kind of gun how many gr.s in the bullets and all the other details and I don�t know. I do know that it was plenty if not overkill for Caribou maybe a .375. It was bigger than my brother�s gun cause he shoots everything with a .300. And I wanted that extra .075 and all the gr.s in the bullets as possible�.just in case.

It�s under 2 weeks until I again revive my role as meat packer but this time as a sheep sherpa. I can�t specify where we are going, cause even though I am a flat land/city slicker/tourist, I know that if I start discussing sheep hunting areas, there will be a nice fresh head mount (me) joining the other game hanging in the den of my brother�s lovely Anchorage home. The one detail I will give is that as far as gun selection�.I�ll go out on a limb and say�.. .300?

Guided for caribou for 10 years out of Wood Tikchic state park. Lester and Jill Bingham at Freshwater Air, or Rick Grant, both out of Dillingham. In all that time I only once saw a herd of 10,000 or better animals, most of the time herds of 75-100, but many days of 2000 + animals if the migration was going strong and we were in it's path. Have fun, don't shoot a dink. 1ak

I got to agree with jimbo. I used Ili air guides a few tears back and it was great service. I cant even begin to explain how well the hunt went.

Basically, great pilots who know there [bleep], grat hospitality, good comforts and now they give 5 gal water jugs (with water) with all hunting parties (atleast with us they did).

Highly recommended.

jrachow,

I've been fortunate enough to have been able to do this 4 times over the years for Bou and Moose and hope to do it again by or before 2006. All of these were do it yourself hunts with air drops like you mention. Lots of things come to mind but I'll just limit comments to a few. Hopefully, the rest of the guys here will join in and add or subtract from what I'm telling you cause last time I did this was 02 and things may have changed. For sure, prices are up for all of it. The following is down and dirty, to the point and for a 10 day trip. How you do it and who/what all you bring will partially determine which air service to use, some I have used no longer do drop hunts:
1. Dont go alone, go with a trusted, tried and true hunting podnah.
2. Dont try to go by flying direct from Kenai to the drop site. Use a service that is on the Peninsula no matter what the price differential may seem to be. Consider flying from Merrill to Dillingham, King Salmon, Lake Clark, Illiamna, etc.. then to drop site. Use only a service that has tundra tires, scouts on the way in and has a "flag system". Dont do a lake drop/pontoons.
3. Use top notch gear, go light as possible. Good optics.
4. Use enough gun to cover surprises.
5. Get in shape.
6. Relish the time, even during the bad weather that you will most definitely encounter.
7. Get in direct contact with the Alaska F&G for current data in Bou movements and herd concentrations.

Didn't mean to ramble. Keep us posted. I'll want to know who you finally book with for my own reference.

Old Toot

My experience with Illiamna Air Guides varies quite a bit from the other 2 posters. I will not be using them agian. Search the threads for Mulchatna Bou sept of last year for my experience.

Guys, I may be wrong on this but I believe that Illiamna A.G.'s is one of the services group that no longer does drop camps.

Keep us posted on your progress, jrachow.

Old Toot