New member,2013 Yukon season

[The Yukon Kid]

I am a new member here and was checking out some other posts and it got me excited to get back to the Yukon next season. I thought I would share my season. I arrived in WH on aug.17th and right away hopped onto a charter flight and I was on my way to the base camp. I arrived there and got some sleep. My hunter and I got our gear and food sorted but didn’t fly out till the next day due to weather. We had a little cabin at the airstrip that we stayed at the first night and then hiked a few miles and set up a tent. We spotted a band of 3 rams right off the hop and then spotted a great looking single ram. We decided he was the one and got after him right away as we couldn’t wait any longer it was already about 6 at night. We stalked up the mountain and made about a 2 hour climb staying out of view and basically rolled over an edge looking perfectly at our ram bedded at about 250 yrds. I aged him and he soon stood up and 2 shots were all he needed. We then took pics and cleaned,quarted and caped the ram out and headed back to our tent in the dark, We got in at 3 15 am and slept great. We then packed everything back to the cabin and continued to hunt from there for the next 8 days. We seen come caribou and a few moose and also got a nice grizzly on day 3 or 4. The ram was 41 and 1/2"inchs on both horns. The next sheep hunt was a little more work. I’m not sure how many miles we ended up covering in total but it was enough, always with our tents food and all our gear with us. On the 5th day we spotted sheep and the next morning at 3am we hiked up the mountain to where they were. There was 4 rams and we watched them for a while feeding and making sure to get a good age on them. We were about 450yards away and couldn’t get any closer without being busted so my hunter took the shot( he said he could shoot 750 with his long range gun) and hit the ram on the first shot missed the next 2 and then finished him on the 4th shot. He was a great ram that was 38 inchs and heavy basses and very well deserved. A few days later after a out long pack out I got flown to base camp and then into my moose area. My first Hunter showed up and we decided to tent out on an area I had wanted to hunt. We had seen about 25-30 moose by day 4 and passed on a pretty decent bull. But we decided to relocate and try another area. Well we ran into some rough terrain and ended up breaking 2 axles in the side by side. After 2 days of hiking back and forth to an airstrip to get parts flown into us we were free. Morning of the 6th day found us up and hunting again. We climbed a hill to glass from and I spotted a nice bull. We checked him in the scope and we were on our way. We climbed back down and I started calling and the moose came in perfect 4 shots from 30 yards and we had a beauty 63inch moose. The second moose hunt was the one I was looking forward to the most. I would be guiding my dad on his first Yukon moose Hunt!!! It was a great hunt that started slow with bad weather but by day 5 we had seen about 30 moose and had passed on a few bulls. We tried to get after a pretty nice bull on day 5 but him and his 2 cows must have winded us as they were gone by the time we got to where they were. Day 6 we returned and spotted a different bigger bull with 2 cows. We made our stalk and then bull grunted the bull into 60 yards. All we could see was his horns and head with no good shot. He left us and there might have been a few choice words between my dad and I. Well I climbed the nearby mountain quicker then I ever thought possible and spotted the bull. We were back in the game. He was heading down the hill and we followed. Half way down I climbed a tree to have a look around and the bull was now at the bottom about a ½ mile away following his cows. We made a run for it and my dad took a shot just before the bull got out of our sight going over a little hill. It looked like he hit him so we headed that way when all of the sudden we could hear the grunts getting closer. All of the sudden the bull came trotting back over the hill towards us. 3 more shots and the bull was down. We were both so stunned and happy at the same time. He had actually grazed his horn on the first shot that’s why we thought he hit him. Anyways it turned out to be a great bull over 61 inches and then we hunted the rest of the time for caribou we made a 2 mile stock on a real dandy caribou and about half way there we heard my bosses plane coming to pick up the moose meat. Well when we came out near where the caribou were they were gone so we figured the plane that went over there heads must have scared them off. But we also spotted a wolf right around the area and then heard a bunch more howling so I’m not sure what scared them off. The last hunt was getting cold. We tented out and after a few days of bad weather, we seen a couple of moose but never connected. On our way back from camping trying to see some new country the side by side over heated and while waiting to for it to cool down I spotted a few moose about 2 ½ miles away. We made our way there and it was also day 6 so there was no fooling around at this point. We spotted a cool looking bull that we had almost got earlier and my hunter got steady and let some lead fly. We hit him twice before he was over a hill and out of sight. We made our way over there and finished off the bull who was bedded down. He was a great moose with really cool fronts. We then packed the meat off the side of the hill for the next day and a half and got it to an airstrip. Then made the 7 hour buggy ride back to my cabin and got flown out to base camp. It was a great year but I’m happy to be home and get a little hunting of my own in. I had a great time with my dad and I’m super happy he got a great moose as I was feeling the pressure on that one. Sorry for the novel but that about 55 days compressed into a page and a 1/2

http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t401/stillar44/IMG_2637_zps6cd0ceb2.jpg (http://s1058.photobucket.com/user/stillar44/media/IMG_2637_zps6cd0ceb2.jpg.html)http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t401/stillar44/IMG_2642_zpsf854ba0d.jpg (http://s1058.photobucket.com/user/stillar44/media/IMG_2642_zpsf854ba0d.jpg.html)http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t401/stillar44/IMG_0236_zpsbf45f7e8.jpg (http://s1058.photobucket.com/user/stillar44/media/IMG_0236_zpsbf45f7e8.jpg.html)http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t401/stillar44/IMG_0239_zps7a14d461.jpg (http://s1058.photobucket.com/user/stillar44/media/IMG_0239_zps7a14d461.jpg.html)

[REMINGTON JIM]

Thats a HECK of a GREAT hunting season you had there ! :mrgreen: Congrats on all the Beauty trophies ! Good on YA ! :-D RJ

[xfactor]

Amazing animals! Just absolutely beautiful!!

[Mikey Rafiki]

Beauty Rams and some incredible moose!

My brother in law is going to be my resident guide for a moose hunting trip in the Yukon next year and I can't wait to have a chance at something like the those.

[The Yukon Kid]

Oh That's awesome, I bet your excited about that. I'm moving there this summer so hopefully in a year or so i'll do a bit of my own hunting.

[Hammerhead]

Thanks for posting. There are some great looking trophys there. I bet you wish you could be the trigger man on some of those. Sure would love a chance at a Dall some day
HH

[ydouask]

Great animals you guided there Y Kid. Thanks for the trip North .... nice pictures !

[325]

Simply awesome!

[markt308]

welcome to the site and thanks for such an unreal thread!

[Phil]

Incredible animals! Thanks for sharing your hunts.

[kennyj]

Awesome season you had! Thanks for sharing your story and great photos.
kenny

[spear]

Wow, some amazing looking rams there, and some incredible bulls, thans for posting

[boxhitch]

tough read for me , so I didn't , but the pics tell the story
attago
real character on the bull in the snow.

[5 spike]

Awesome animals thanks for sharing the pics and story.Congrats on your guiding season.

[srthomas75]

that is a pretty cool read for sure , nice pictures to boot.

[325 wsm]

looks like you had a great season. I think I recognize the mt behind the grizzly bear, looks like 1 I might have climbed it with you before. Great trophies ..... funny front palm on that 1 moose. congrats.

[Buck]

Some Dandy animals there.really like the second Ram.

[rifleman]

great trophies you got your hunters. thanx for sharing your season with us.

[Yukon280]

Glad you had a good time up here.
However, reading your post and the use of ATVs, the outfitter you are working for is typical of the "new breed" of outfitter up here that is messing it up for hunters like me who were born and raised here. You fly into a remote area hoping to get away from it all and find the outfitter in that area has tracked it up with ATV use. My good friends very remote trapline base camp has had Jim Shockey trashing it with Argos for a few years now.
Sorry to be the negative post, but there it is. In my and many other locals opinions, Yukon outiftters should be banned from using ATVs.

[shallowH2O]

Great pics. Look forward to next years adventures!

[Mik]

looks like a very successful year. Great pics, congrats to your hunters. Thanks for posting.

[The Yukon Kid]

Yukon280, no problem that's ur opinion and a totally reasonable one. I used horses my first year and really liked that unfortunately a lot of outfitters are starting to use atvs or Argos and it does rip up the country quite a bit. I have 3 main trails that I use( old horse trails) and try to stay on those and then backpack from there, the other way I go is alone a river which doesn't leave much of a trail or track which is nice.

[Ride Red]

Great story and pics. That is some beautiful country your working in. Thanks for sharing.

[buckguy]

Great pics. Some big ol' boys there. Congrats.

[yama49]

Some beauty animals there, congrats on a great season

[decker9]

An amazing season TYK!!! And even more amazing photos! Good on you for takin your old man out, I bet he had the time if his life, I bet both of you did! Congrats and welcome!! I look forward to your future posts as well... I love the Yukon!!

[Blainer]

Some incredible trophies there
tfs

[Blainer]

Glad you had a good time up here.
However, reading your post and the use of ATVs, the outfitter you are working for is typical of the "new breed" of outfitter up here that is messing it up for hunters like me who were born and raised here. You fly into a remote area hoping to get away from it all and find the outfitter in that area has tracked it up with ATV use. My good friends very remote trapline base camp has had Jim Shockey trashing it with Argos for a few years now.
Sorry to be the negative post, but there it is. In my and many other locals opinions, Yukon outiftters should be banned from using ATVs.and everyone is entitled to their opinion.
But would this not deprive disabled hunters and possibly the elderly from an opportunity?
I can't see many outfitters passing on an opportunity given the prices they charge.
This is a business first and foremost and concessions should be made in some cases.
Just my opinion.

[Yukon280]

Yukon280, no problem that's ur opinion and a totally reasonable one. I used horses my first year and really liked that unfortunately a lot of outfitters are starting to use atvs or Argos and it does rip up the country quite a bit. I have 3 main trails that I use( old horse trails) and try to stay on those and then backpack from there, the other way I go is alone a river which doesn't leave much of a trail or track which is nice.
Thanks for the reply TYK. Its refreshing to be able to have this debate in a rational manner. As you said, they do rip things up quite a bit. Which begs the question, maybe it's time here in the YT to allow the use of helicopters while hunting, as they do in the NT. A friend operates an area in the NT, and I had a long discussion with him re. the use of choppers. His thoughts on it were from a management point of view, it allowed him to harvest equally throughout his area, not just the areas that were easy access, thus minimizing impact. Of course there are many factors which would have to be considered such as the time one must wait after being dropped off. The use of choppers for resident hunters should be considered as well, it would be self limiting in a sense, as chopper time is not cheap, but it would spread the pressure as opposed to concentrating it to those areas with floatplane or ATV access.

Blainer, point taken. However, I know that many older Yukon outfitters have accomodated older and handicapped hunters with horses in the past. Helicopter use would make this a no-brainer of course.

[boxhitch]

it allowed him to harvest equally throughout his area, not just the areas that were easy access, thus minimizing impact. A valid point , if the g/o operated on a quota , thus spreading out the impact. With no quota , the g/o can just increase the harvest as his business model allows , and impact the whole territory equally , leaving no pockets untouched for recruitment.
Atv's already give hunters a great advantage as many would rather book a ride on a padded vinyl seat than a leather rocker , having the ability to sit for a 20 min. heli-lift would have the bookings flying in .

[The Yukon Kid]

It's hard to say if helicopters would be good or not. I also just talked with a friend who runs a very good outfit in nwt and from listening to him it does have its advantages. Like he said its very low impact on the terrain, while also being able to access a lot more of his area that were previously never hunted and in turn they are taking some unbelievable animals from his area. They do take a lot more animals from his area then the area I work but they are very selective and are passing on good Rams and coming back for them a year or two later and really managing his area well. He is also able to take older hunters and conduct his sheep hunts in less time then a Yukon outfitter. The outfitter I work for is pretty much strictly back pack hunting for sheep and then uses the atvs and river boats and horses for moose hunts. I think helicopters could work but like I said the outfitters would have manage there areas very strictly which i know the outfitter I work for tries very hard to do. But like mentioned before it does open up more country and you wouldn't have the untouched pockets anymore. From what I heard Kamchatka used to have great moose hunting and now after use of helicopters over a long period of time there moose have gone down quite a bit in quality from over harvesting and such. So there would definitely have to be some heavy restrictions and rules in place to ensure good quality animals still exist.