Well we made it back in from the caribou hunt. Had a good time but we had to drop a couple days off the hunt. We didn' t get out until Friday afternoon instead of Thursday morning, and ended up coming out Sunday night instead of Monday, so we only hunted all day Saturday and then Sunday morning.

Saturday morning we got an early start and motored up the river. The water level was higher this year, so going up was easier, but we still managed to tag a rock and put a small leak in the bottom corner of the boat. We pulled it up on the beach to patch it, and while we were waiting we did some grayling fishing. I had just cast out, and over my shoulder I see two bulls running right at me! I quickly ran back to the boat with the lure flapping behind me and got my bow, and my dad picked his rifle up and we headed in front of them to cut them off. They worked their way out fairly quickly, so I ran to try and get in front of them, but couldn' t quite make it, so I' m trying to get my dad to drop a gear, up the RPM' s and catch up, but he stopped, hunched over and I ran back to him. Since we only had the rest of that day and Sunday morning to hunt, I grabbed his rifle, ran up another 300 yards and cut them off at about 150 yards. I yelled and the bulls stopped broadside, I put the scope on his shoulder and squeezed off a round. Dropped him in his tracks. Dad made about half the distance to me by that time and I ran back to him to give him the rifle. He sat down, got a good rest and shot the smaller bull which was hanging out by the larger downed bull. Two shots, two dead bou. We pulled them up to the beach, about 200 yards, and cleaned them out, bagged em up and by that time the boat was patched and we drove right up to them and threw them in the boat.

We motored upstream some more and within half an hour we spotted two larger bulls. My brother shot a small one last year, so he really wanted a nice rack this year, and there was a dandy in the pair. We stalked up to some brush about a hundred yards from the shore and the bulls were working their way right to us. I had the binocs on them to make sure he put a round through the larger bull, and we waited patiently as they worked back and forth in our direction. My dad was about 100 yards behind us, and my god father had his gun ready about 30 yards off to the side of us. The bulls worked their way up to about 120 yards and the large bull offered a perfect broadside shot, so my brother squeezed off a round from the .243 and no reaction from the bull. He started turning some, and trotted quickly off to the side. I saw red on his side, but wasn' t 100% sure, so I told him to shoot again. The second shot dropped him, and the other bull ran about 50 yards, stopped and turned back to see what was going on. My godfather worked his way up to us, and had about a 200 yard shot on the other bull. He knocked him down with one shot, and we all had out caribou cleaned out and in the boat by 3:30 in the afternoon. The load was a bit too much for the boat to get on step, so we barged back 2 hours to camp.
My brothers caribou had a real handsome rack, 27 points, 3&1/2 foot spread, and what I guess you could call a double shovel. One was huge, the other was about 4" tall.

My godfathers rack was nice as well. Double shovels, no points on the bez though and about 5 points on top of each side. Mine didn' t have any points up top, but a few points on the bez, double shovels and back points and dad' s bou was a dink.

I kept a couple of the quarters up here to cut up and freeze to take down south with me, but the rest of the meat is southbound to Fairbanks right now. We got blasted with nasty weather coming out on Sunday afternoon, so its nice to be back in out of the elements. We had a couple more opportunities on Sunday morning, but couldn' t close the gap. A couple of the bulls were monsters, but the closest I had was a 250 yard running shot. A tad too far for me even standing still, I don' t like shooting over 200 yards.

Phish, did you find out about access to your bou hunting grounds yet? How was ole SEAK looking? A little different then last time you saw him I bet. He' ll be back up on Tuesday, so hopefully we' ll get out a couple of nights and chase some more bou around with the bows. I used proxies out in the rifle area, so I' m still freed up for bow hunting them. Ptarmigan opens up on the 10th, so hopefully we can decapitate a few birds for dinner too.

Jerry

Sounds like an exciting few hours. Congrats to you guys. Must be nice to be able to return home every few weeks. Few more weeks to go and I will be back for some hunting too. It' ll be 11 months since I stepped foot on Alaska soil. Congrats again...will we be seeing some pics?

Jim

Hey, Jerry, sounds like your caribou trip was fun and full of excitment!

When you see SeAk, ask him about his new nickname! [>:][]

Hmmm, this should be good, what did he do now?

Do you know if he is coming up for a week or two weeks this time? From what I remember it was only a week. We missed him, Casey and Greg on the caribou hunt this year, but still had a good time. Hopefully next year we' ll have a larger crowd out there. Always fun with more people... to an extent. lol

In fact, it is a good story! If you sense he' s slanting the story at all, let me know. I have video proof. (Video has been rewound about 15 times to see about a two second event......made me laugh so hard I was crying!) Just so you don' t feel left out though...at one point, Casey said, " Hey Dad, that' s even a funnier nickname than " Jerry Cotton!" So, um, really sorry, but.....my whole family knows about the story behind your nickname.... []

He' ll be up for a week starting tomorrow. Hope you guys get a chance to get out and chase come caribou around!

ABM - Its not looking too good in the caribou access department. All the outfits I' ve spoken with have either already filled-up on clients or aren' t going in to the area this season. I' m beginning to get kind of P.O.ed - especially after putting in for so long and then not being able to get anything arranged. Then, there' s the operators that say they will call me back and don' t - that' s always real helpful!

Congratulations on your animals. Sounds like everything worked out pretty well for you guys - even with the delays and cutting your time short!

bearhuntr - The deer hunting is relatively skimpy right here in the Juneau area. You can find some decent hunting on Douglas Island if you want to do some bushwhacking to get in to areas that don' t get steady pressure, but anything that is an hour' s hike from the road system is normally a waste of time. Even the west side of the Island gets quite a bit of skiff hunting pressure. Its a challenge, but there are nice deer taken on the mainland in the Juneau area each season if you are willing to put some miles on your footgear.

Over the years, most guys that have consistant deer success travel to Admiralty, Chichagof, or Baranof Islands.

juno, I talked to SEAK today, found out the story behind the nickname. Too funny! We' ll have to make sure that nimrod sees this as well, I know he' s not gonna want to miss it! I fear that I might not be hearing all the story though, so sometime in the near future, probably on the road south while we are going hunting, we' ll have to call you and make sure he' s telling it all! He' s had a close nickname to that before, Tommy Up Chuck. That name has a little something to do with fox urine.

Phish, I hope you find something out for the bou hunt. Do you think you could get in there and pull one out on your own? It sure would suck to not be able to go since you finally drew after all these years.

If you ever get to Juneau, I' ll have to show you the video. His double-take when he realized what he' d done is hysterical. He' s had lots of nicknames, from what I can tell, but I' m relatively certain that this nickname is going to stick with my family. (My aunt is still trying to get rid of a nickname that my father tagged her with 11 years ago...). You know, compared to Tommy Up Chuck, this one isn' t so bad!

ABM,

Congrats on what appears to be one heck of a cool hunt! You got any of those pictures ready to share with the rest of us?

It' ll be about three weeks before I get off the slope and get into town to get the rolls developed. I' ll have them up around the 24th of August I' m hoping.

SEAK came over tonight for a spell. We are doing a small patch job on the inflatable, and hopefully on Saturday we can take it out and look for some bou.