I picked up some literature at the local outdoor show last night on an outfit called Northern Caribou Adventures. Basically it's a winter bou hunt, Nov. 15 - Feb 15, on the bou's winter gounds around James Bay. Allowed to take two bou. Cost is $1000 for 4 days hunting/3 night accom. You supply your own meals.

Any ideas about winter hunter for bou? Anybody used this outfit or know anything about them? Any suggestions??

Thanks,
ToddP

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It's kind of funny that someone living a whole 3 miles away from home is answering my post. I'm just up on the other side of Peter's Orchards.

also becareful on those early nov hunts..the bulls might still be in rut at that time making there meat by far untouchable for tablefare..heck dogs wont eat it from what I have been told!

WAY COLD. The prime time is late Aug - Sept. prior to rut, but the 'bou's antlers are fully grown. In the far north they may still have velvet on, but are hard underneath, cause there's not much to rub on. Stated above, in rut the meat may be gross and later no antlers.

As healthy stated, it would mostly be a COLD meat hunt. I did a February hunt at King Salmon, AK when I lived in Anchorage with a bunch of other guys. It was fun, it was very cold, and we all shot two caribou and none had antlers. We did make a point of studying them to pick out the biggest bodied ones assuming they were bulls. The wind picked up the third day of our hunt real bad. Thank goodness we had 5-6 bou to weight down the tents. Cold weather camping is the most ultimate survival. Better have great cold weather gear, a very good sleeping bag, and a reliable stove.

I would think that a November or December hunt would still have bulls running around with racks still on.

Edited by - Lefty Llewellyn on 02/08/2002 20:22:08

Todd a friend of mine is going on a hunt next November in the same area. I asked him if the bulls still had their racks and he said they did. I think it will only get about 20-30 below at the most at that time. As far as I know all you do is ride the road till you see them pick out the one you want and shoot it. Then you take your snowmobile and drag it to the road. The guys he's going with are meat hunters so I would say the meat should be okay.

I hunted Northern Quebec this passed year from Dec. 4-8th. There were more antlered caribou than you could shake several thousands sticks at. A lot of bulls have lost their horns, but there are more than enough to go around. Our largest bull had a 47" spread and 2 of our hunters had a bull standing 50 yds. away with a 5ft spread. (They had just filled their last tag).
There are two major herds that summer in Far northern Quebec, One has 880,000 animals and the other 240,000 and they all want to cross the GranTiegis Highway to get to the other side. In the 1999-2000 season, sport hunter took a total of 16,452 caribou in the combined fall and winter hunts. That is a lot Caribou left running around. Another thing, most of the animals have little or no contact with man, so it's not hard to kill them when they're crossing the ONLY road for 400 km. The trick is to find them when they're NOT at the road.
Winter caribou are not any dumber than fall caribou, they just taste better.
Your hunt will be what you make it, you want to shoot them on the shoulder of the road, or do you want to catch them running over the ridge in a spruce woods.
And remember THERE WILL ALWAYS BE A BIGGER CARIBOU COMING. Do not shootout too early and if you have time wait a day before you shoot your second animal. It can be quite a rush have 500 to 700 caribou run by you and still be objective about your choice.