Washington Hunter

If you could pick any place to go for Caribou with a high success rate, where would you go? How much do you think it would cost?

Non-Guided or Semi-Guided hunt.

I've wanted to go on a Caribou hunt for some time now, but I've not really done any research on it. What better place to start than here?

j3k2c1

I would do a semi-guided hunt for 2 bulls in the Mulchatna caribou herd of Southwest Alaska. range for unguided is 1100-1500 for 2 bulls and semi guided is 1700-2000- and fully guided is 3-4K. Not too bad for the highest success rate in Alaska.

sdeshazo

I was looking for the same information, me & a few of my Florida hunting buddies are wanting to hut Caribou, but have no idea of where, how, & how much. Are the above prices just the hunts or is that including lodging, food, etc?
I'm trying to plan a hunt for next year (Sep or Oct) What are the open seasons in Alaska? Can you hunt anything else while up there (Bear, Moose)?

j3k2c1

It depends on the outfitter, most of what I have found is that the guided hunts include lodging/food and the partially guided ones as well. On the do-it-yourself hunts you typically supply everything. Typically you can do a 2x1 guided hunt for like 300-500 bucks cheaper per person BTW.

AlaskaMagnum

There is no reason to not self-guide caribou in Alaska if you can rough it. If you cannot tent-camp, you are best suited for somewhere else (Canada) because Alaska caribou hunting is not typically done in restort-type places.


You can do a do-it-youself hunt drop camp for about $2,000 per person. IF it were me, I would access the Mulchatna herd from Bethel via Ptarmigan air. You could also try Aniak or a few other places.

There are other herds as well than can be hunted, but they are more expensive to reach, but the hunting is probably less crowded.

AlaskaMagnum

Also,

Be aware that the $1700 does not include your tickets to Alaska nor your cargo for getting your meat home. It may or may not include camping equipment, depends on the outfitter.

Time of year, August - September. October caribou are in the rut and are inedible due to hormones in the meat. Caribou meat IS tainted by the rut, and is not fit for human consumption.

j3k2c1

Good point AlaskaMag about the tickets/cargo. I forgot to mention that. Shipping the meat/antlers/capes home can cost upwards of $1000 in and of itself.

cnhntr

Artic Circle

usa

Hunted out of Quebec last year,met the guy I booked with in Buffalo NY , I drove but some of the others flew in and he provided transportation, we drove up to the hunting area and in 3 days we probably saw 20 thousand caribou, everyone killed 2 each and we drove home with the meat,total cost was$2000 which included everything you needed from the time you left the states until you returned, we boned our meat out and brought it back in coolers, I went on this hunt because it was the cheapest hunt that I could find,I really enjoyed the experience but the actual hunting was boring, about 98% of the hunters killed their caribou from the road but, we chose to go into the woods to make it more exciting, at one point where I was standing in a swamp I had caribou on both sides of me filing past at arms length, I would have had to step back to take a shot, one herd took about 15 minutes to go past me , I chose not to kill one that far from the road( about 3/4 mile uphill to my truck in 2 1/2 feet of snow. my advice is to go as soon as you can go because prices have been rising a lot in the last 2 years.

DM

In all the years i've shot caribou in Alaska, and i've shot quite a few, i've never had one "tainted" from the rut or anything else.

The only meat i've had go bad was when one time i was stranded in the Brooks Range for quite a while, and lost some sheep meat before i got it all smoked!

Now bear meat, that's a diff story, as it really depends on what they've been eating as to wether you will want to eat them!!

Drilling Man