Alaska 2011
Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 10:47 pm
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[/URL]Main camp.
Back from our fall hunting camp in Alaska. Headed up around the 25th of Aug. Outstanding weather with only a couple of days of light rain. Caribou were everywhere this year. Had one camp saying they were seeing hundreds every day. Took my buddies son up this year to help with camp chores and packing, and in his first camp he saw 5 black bears, several moose with two large bulls fighting and around a dozen grizzlies. They shot 6 caribou one day and had a grizzly on one of the carcasses 100 yards from camp. Two wolves were spotted across a canyon headed their way. He had a tag along with another hunter. The guy got excited and didn’t wait till my buddy could call them in and he missed twice. I guess he was a retired Alaska Trooper. My buddy I took up there is a world class predator caller so he was bummed he didn’t get a chance at them. A lot of wolves were heard around several camps but no one got one this year. They are by far the hardest animal to get in my opinion. They are smart.
[/URL]Ron and I flew up to the Wulik river one day for a fantastic day of fishing. Largest fish was a 26 inch Char. Talked to a group of guys floating down that had been there for a week, their biggest fish was a 36 incher. The Wulik is about an hour north of our camp.
[/URL]I took some pictures in the market in Kotzebue to give you guys some idea what prices are up there. That’s a gallon of milk and a bag of dog food. We spend around 3K in food each year for our hunters. We’ve tried shipping up most of our food but it doesn’t save you much after you pay the shipping.
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[/URL]One of my clients had a Grizzly, Moose and Caribou tag. We got his bear on the first morning and were seeing a lot of moose tracks and several cows so I decided to stay right there for our moose.
[/URL]The rut was really late since the temps were in the 60’s and a couple days in the 70’s. But I knew they were there so we stuck it out. Had a couple of smaller bulls near camp but nothing legal (50” min). One morning I found a couple of bulls a mile up river, so off we went. I raked and called for about 5 minutes and they answered behind us in the trees. I sent my buddy up a tree to look around since it was so thick and told the client to get ready for a 10 yard shot. One bull had already gone out in the river and was tearing up the willows so we moved to the edge of the tree line and dropped him out on the gravel. It was an easy flat pack back to camp where we could land. That same day some Caribou walked past camp and so he got all three of his animals. We were 100% again this year for all our hunters.
These two girls walked right past our tents one day. (lower center of pic).
[/URL]This guy came out around 6:30 one afternoon so I tried calling him in. He didn’t care much for an elk calf in distress call but came about half way to us when I used a bear cub cry.
[/URL]A grizzly that stepped out while we had a huge bonfire the night before leaving.
[/URL]Last morning, these two bulls showed up right at camp. One is around 50”, the other around 64”.
[/URL]That’s one of our tents in the foreground.
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