Brooks Range Caribou Hunt

[Widgeondeke]

Did we just see the inside of your mouth??

I thought the same thing 

[buggy]

Any pics of the camp he provided?

[JoeE]

Which outfitter was this? Did he (or you guys) already have the camp picked out ahead of time? When we went up we didn’t know where we would be camped until about five minutes before the bush pilot took off because we wanted to discuss where the caribou were and where they were headed. Literally had at least a dozen caribou in sight from the tent the entire time in the field and it never let up.

I’m glad you had a successful hunt and experienced Alaska. It gets better every time.

[Machias]

He has several spots in mind, but we are limited to the river, since we went in by airboat.  If the migration had begun, I am quite certain we would have been right in their path.  Nothing the outfitter could do about that.  It's all timing.  He did offer to move us, but explained we would not see any more caribou than we were already seeing, but there would be less people near by.  Hind sight, I'm kind of wishing we'd taken him up on it, but 2 of the guys in camp did not want to move.  One other thing I wanted to mention was the Inreach.  What an awesome piece of gear.  No problem texting back home, the outfitter and even other HuntWa members up hunting the same area!  Well worth the money!!

[Machias]

Here is the tents he provided.  We had to set camp up.

[ctwiggs1]

Am I missing something?  That kind of looks like the $40 tent I bought for my kids to play "camping" in the back yard with.

[JeffRaines]

Am I missing something?  That kind of looks like the $40 tent I bought for my kids to play "camping" in the back yard with.

Not to mention that boat in the background! Thats a pool toy!

[ctwiggs1]

Am I missing something?  That kind of looks like the $40 tent I bought for my kids to play "camping" in the back yard with.

Not to mention that boat in the background! Thats a pool toy!

I think that is literally a $40 Challenger raft

[JeffRaines]

Am I missing something?  That kind of looks like the $40 tent I bought for my kids to play "camping" in the back yard with.

Not to mention that boat in the background! Thats a pool toy!

I think that is literally a $40 Challenger raft

It is.

I mean, I'm sure it worked fine for fording the river there. I have an even cheaper one I used for fishing alpine lakes(15 bucks on amazon) until I broke down and bought a alpacka. For the record, I still have the $15 raft. It still doesn't leak. I just would expect a little more.

[ctwiggs1]

I just looked at their website. It looks like their core competency is really transport.  They charge extra for "camping gear."  Maybe that's just not their niche.

They sure do seem to experience some successes... They're probably just really focused on the "unguided" part of the agreement.

[Machias]

Am I missing something?  That kind of looks like the $40 tent I bought for my kids to play "camping" in the back yard with.

Pretty much.  The gear is not higher end stuff and some of that I understand...some of it, like the kitchen gear, fishing gear..etc...was disappointing.  One of the guys on the trip brought up a very valid point.  The outfitter essentlially provided the transportation in and out for us and our gear and the transportation of the meat out.  That's what he covered.  The rental gear was provided by another company, which is run by his family member.  On the gear end a little thought and slight improvements would have made it a much better experience on that front.

[Wetwoodshunter]

I just did the same hunt, I believe you were right below us on the river, we did hear your 7 shot fiasco when you harvested your bull. 5 shots all at once and then 2 more a few minutes later.

We had troubles with gear and the outfitter. He made us wait at the ramp twice for 4 hours each time going in and out, we were in an airboat wreck, he gave us a soaked tent and no cook stove for 2 days, our tent was better than yours was, cabelas alanak, but during the blizzard the wind nearly destroyed it. Also there is no way to keep it warm since they have mesh windows you cannot close, water would condensate on the mesh and drip on us all night on the inside of the rain fly.

Long story short, Ryan had a lot of bad luck this year with boats (sunk 1 another catastrophic breakdown). He was trying as hard as he could but with our service we will look for another hunt next time we do caribou.

We did harvest some animals, and had a great trip once we were in. The camps were way to close together, we hiked 60 miles in 7 days of hunting and ran into other hunters from other camps daily.

I kept a detailed journal of our experience, I'm undecided how I'm going to post the trip yet when I finish the article.

[cbond3318]

Good job Machias on your success! Happy for you!

And thank you for an honest review, I think a lot of people , myself included, have such a romantic view of hunting Alaska, honesty as yours keep them in check and really save some serious heartache. 

[ctwiggs1]

I just did the same hunt, I believe you were right below us on the river, we did hear your 7 shot fiasco when you harvested your bull. 5 shots all at once and then 2 more a few minutes later.

We had troubles with gear and the outfitter. He made us wait at the ramp twice for 4 hours each time going in and out, we were in an airboat wreck, he gave us a soaked tent and no cook stove for 2 days, our tent was better than yours was, cabelas alanak, but during the blizzard the wind nearly destroyed it. Also there is no way to keep it warm since they have mesh windows you cannot close, water would condensate on the mesh and drip on us all night on the inside of the rain fly.

Long story short, Ryan had a lot of bad luck this year with boats (sunk 1 another catastrophic breakdown). He was trying as hard as he could but with our service we will look for another hunt next time we do caribou.

We did harvest some animals, and had a great trip once we were in. The camps were way to close together, we hiked 60 miles in 7 days of hunting and ran into other hunters from other camps daily.

I kept a detailed journal of our experience, I'm undecided how I'm going to post the trip yet when I finish the article.

Please do.  It really helps.  And there are untold amounts of people who lurk, and learn from these writeups as well.

[Machias]

I just did the same hunt, I believe you were right below us on the river, we did hear your 7 shot fiasco when you harvested your bull. 5 shots all at once and then 2 more a few minutes later.

We had troubles with gear and the outfitter. He made us wait at the ramp twice for 4 hours each time going in and out, we were in an airboat wreck, he gave us a soaked tent and no cook stove for 2 days, our tent was better than yours was, cabelas alanak, but during the blizzard the wind nearly destroyed it. Also there is no way to keep it warm since they have mesh windows you cannot close, water would condensate on the mesh and drip on us all night on the inside of the rain fly.

Long story short, Ryan had a lot of bad luck this year with boats (sunk 1 another catastrophic breakdown). He was trying as hard as he could but with our service we will look for another hunt next time we do caribou.

We did harvest some animals, and had a great trip once we were in. The camps were way to close together, we hiked 60 miles in 7 days of hunting and ran into other hunters from other camps daily.

I kept a detailed journal of our experience, I'm undecided how I'm going to post the trip yet when I finish the article.

Looking forward to your write up.  Congrats on the animals your group harvested.