On our recent hunt, as I posted on the moose thread, due to mechanical trouble we couldn't fly into high country, so settled for a short backpack into sheep and caribou elevations. We saw a number of large caribou bulls, all of them either too far away or they didn't have the minimum five points on top above the rear point on the lower beam.
A nearby area had a short season open for any bull so I suggested that we go over there for the last day of that and settle for a small bull if needed. With 15 minutes to go before I'd agreed to meet my partners to break camp, I spotted a young bull 500 yards from me when he stood up in the willows to feed. I'd climbed hard for three days and this one was in a valley, easy. With a low sun behind me I crossed a creek and sneaked to within 130 yards. I put my pack in the top of a willow and shot over it for a stand up rest as he fed broadside.
At the shot the bull looked up, paused a second then ran toward me. It looked like a clean miss. I put the cross hairs on his brisket as he bobbed through the willows but let him keep coming closer as long as he was headed my way. He angled to my right at 70 yards or so and when he slowed broadside, I aimed for the center of his ribs and shot again. He took off seemingly untouched and I wondered if I was shooting blanks.
He stopped behind some willows and I ran ten yard to one side for a clear shot in time to see his last circle stagger and fall. The first round had keyholed into his flank at the front of a hindquarter, obviously had hit something and tumbled before hitting the bull. The second was dead center through both lungs center of ribs.
Pretty hide, fat and tasty young bull, antlers in velvet look like a small five point bull elk. I am having his hide tanned.
Saw two full curl rams while up there and tried for them. The first evening it got dark as we fought through a sea of willows in torrential rain to get to alpine, and could not reach them in time. They had moved to the next mountain behind that one by the next day, too far for me to reach on foot by the time we located them the next afternoon. A few pics of that country as well. A hail storm caught me in the open, on a dome topped bare mountain. Pea sized hail driven straight up the mountain side with such force that it hurt through thee layers of clothes. I turned my back to it, pack protecting me, and edged backward into the storm nearly 400 yards to a spot where I might be within range of sheep when it broke, but no sheep. Was a good plan if the sheep had been there, to let the storm cover my approach. Visibility was down to 30-50 feet most of the time.
(http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s199/lokanagan/IMG_0001_99-1.jpg)
(http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s199/lokanagan/IMG_0001_87-1.jpg)
(http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s199/lokanagan/IMG_0001_86.jpg)
Just before the hail hit.
(http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s199/lokanagan/IMG_0001_84.jpg)
Steep to get up here but nice sheep and caribou pasture. Two rams near this spot the evening before, and two caribou bulls just down the hill when the pic was taken.
(http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s199/lokanagan/IMG_0001_88.jpg)
Those are great pictures! Sounds like an awesome hunt!
Some day I will do it. I'm jealous!!!!!!!!!!
Beautiful landscape!! :yoyo: Nice lookin bull too!! Congratulations & Thanks for sharing!! :congrats: :congrats:
Thank you.
Someday you will get to hunt this kind of country cb223, and you will love it. Go for it!
OMG what an awesome hunt! Congrats on the Bull! :congrats:
You just don't know what those pix do to an eastern boy back here in the hills. :nono:
WOW!
Absolutely beautiful :yoyo: :congrats: :highclap: :thumb2:
Congratulations :congrats:
Man, love that view in the third pic!
Thanks for sharin it all with us!
Scott
That's about as pretty as country can get. Great story too. I am sure you appreciate your success more having had to work hard for it. Thanks for sharing. :highclap: :highclap:
WoW! I want to go there now.....Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the compliments. Nice stuff in the viewfinder to work with. The only animal I really wanted on the trip was a big caribou but we also wanted meat and we made the best of a less than ideal hunt situation.
Jim, when I was growing up in sage brush hills I read jack O'Connor and dreamed of hunting northern mountains in Canada. It is a blessing to fulfill the dream and I take it as a pure gift every time I hunt.
FWIW the third pic was taken 100 miles north of the others, different mountain, the one where a grizzly came in to my call for wolf, mentioned in a predator thread. The other photos were all taken within a mile or two of the caribou.
With a good glass, you can see a lot of critters you'll never get close enough to shoot. From one peak at dawn a year ago I spotted three massive bull moose and some cows scattered miles apart, 14 caribou including a huge racked bull, and 23 Stone sheep, mostly ewes and lambs and a few young rams. Across vast canyons, the moose and caribou would have taken me a full day's hike to reach and maybe longer, and the closest sheep were over an hour's hike away. And when you've hiked a whole day away from a road up and down mountains to reach a bull moose, what do you do with it if you shoot it? Within 3/4 mile of one of the big bull moose, I spotted an outfitter's tent and part of his pack string of horses. He brings out some big ones.
Trouble is, this thread has me day dreaming too much about hunting. Hunts past and plans for next times...
Thanks so much for the great stories and pictures.
Pat
That there is a feel good story and beauty to boot. Thank's for putting it up to see. I hope that isn't where the bino's are now.
Beautiful scenery and nice caribou. Appreciate you taking the time to share your hunt and pictures with us DSMF'ers. :eyebrownod:
Unbelievably beautiful pictures. Nice caribou too.
Jerry