The weather was foul as we woke for our “official” first day of hunting. After a great breakfast by Amy, our camp cook, one group of four headed out in the boats for an area a few clicks from camp. But as they headed around the point into the open water, the chop was so bad they had to turn back and head in. That was the cue that all of the hunting would have to be on foot behind camp. The good news is, there were caribou behind camp. The bad news, we had 12 hunters who would likely be heading there. Arden from Michigan was the first out of the gate. Before we finished our last sausage link he was already a half-mile up the hill!
Steve and I decided to hike far away from the camp and give the others some breathing room. It wasn’t quite as far as Bill, Matt and I had hiked last year (9 miles) but we did six anyway. We did find caribou and I did have a stalk. But they were so widely scattered that it was pretty tough hunting.
We came back around 5PM and started running into the others. The first person we ran into was Brian from Wisconsin. He was tracking his buddy’s (also Brian from Wisconsin) 2nd caribou and had just recovered it. We began to hear about several bulls knocked down and just about every one of them was BIG. That was great news for us as our day was relatively slow. There is no doubt that the funnel seems to be behind camp. They hammered them there.
The boys in camp made us proud. There were some huge bulls including four of six that would likely book the PY minimum of 325 inches. Needless to say, stories were flying around a very happy dinner table. Two guys are tagged out already and almost everyone got a shot. The weather may have been foul, but the moods were far from it. I’d say that all 12 would consider this hunt a success just from today’s results alone.
For this caribou hunt I am shooting the new 100 grain, short-profile MX-4 by Muzzy Products. This head shot exceptionally well in testing and I'll be interested to see how well it performs on a caribou (hopefully I'll get to find out!)
Click Here For More Information on the new Muzzy MX-4
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Steve and I are hoping that tomorrow we can get out on the boats. We’d prefer not to hunt the same funnel as everyone else unless a majority of hunters have tagged out. There’s got to be another funnel around here and we’re determined to find it. I was thrilled for our group. I don’t set up a lot of group hunts because I feel responsible for recommending a trip and if the caribou hunting was slow, it would bother me more than you can imagine. And you know Murphy’s Law. I was pretty sure this hunt would be terrific and I was right. Seeing everyone so happy in camp was a big relief. The other thing I refuse to do is to get in anyone's way and potentially mess something up for them. I've hunted and killed caribou before and I'll do it again. But for most of these guys it may very likely be their only caribou hunt. So I'd rather see them tag out than me. The good news is that there's lots of room and opportunities for everyone here and the trophy quality appears to be excellent. All the bulls are hard-horned and there are no bugs anywhere. This was the reason I liked this particular week so much. Seeing the great bulls already taken, getting Steve's awesome shot on video, and seeing everyone yucking it up over dinner made this trip a success for me. If I don't kill a bull, it honestly would not matter that much.
