kshunter

This hunt has always interested me. A DIY caribou that you can drive to, going to the Arctic of Alaska. But I have also read a lot of mixed reviews, with most of the negatives being hunters driving the road back and forth on the road, looking for an easy caribou crossing the road or next to the pipeline.

Here is my"initial" breif gameplan. My wife will be hunting with me. We will fly up to Fairbanks, and rent a vehicle to drive up north. I understand that many rentals will not allow you to drive on the Dalton Hwy, but I have found a few which will. With roughly a 14 hr drive, we should arrive to the general area of the caribou. I'll plan 7 days to hunt.

We haven't decided on whether we want to archery or rifle hunt(beyond 5 mile buffer). Our preference would be to archery hunt, but depending on what the pressure is by the road along with success rate vs going 5 miles in and rifle hunting, we may be using the rifle instead. We also plan on doing some fishing and making it a vacation bysoaking up the scenery.

I do have some questions though,

1. I'm looking into a July/August hunt...mainly for warmer weather and a chance of getting abull with velvet. Are there any week timeframes when you should see more caribou than other times?

2. Is the Caribou tag specific to the weapon, or could we bring a bow & rifle, and decide later on how we want to hunt? (We are both archery certified) And are the seasons the same?

3. Is it worth buying a wolf tag in the caribou areas? Think we'll have a chance at seeing one?

Has anyone been on this hunt? And if so, do you have any recommendations or experiences you could share? Thanks for the info!