DarkSiths Cariboiu Adventure

[Darksith]

Sept 1
Jamie and I loaded up the truck early in the morning and we were out the door at 5:05am from Kamloops. We were Dease Lake bound. We were to fly out the following morning to our lake of choice with BC Yukon Air. The truck made it to our first stop 15 hours away on 1.5 tanks of fuel which was very surprising (new to me GMC Sierra 3500).
The drive was uneventful, we saw a lot of bears on the highway as usual, a porcupine and a few chickens.
When we got to our camp, we unloaded some hippy killer stoves that we bought for our buddy as they are discontinued but ideal for the small cabins he is building out in the back country. We also left him a box of wine which is a tradition, some years we get to meet up at camp with him and drink it while we tell stories, but other years hes out and so we just leave it for him and his clients as a small token of gratitude for letting us crash close enough to the airbase that we can make the drive easily the morning we fly out. We unloaded our overnight bags and whatever we needed to have to be ready to fly tomorrow, started a fire in the cook shack and read some magazines. We were both wishing we had shorts on for the drive, it was hot and the trucks AC wasn't quite enough to keep us cool...always planning on it getting colder as you head north but I think it actually got a bit warmer. Being too warm continued as I lit a small fire in the cook shack just for shits and giggles really, but it keeps the edge off as the sun goes down and we were both pretty excited so sleep wasn't going to come early even though we had been up and driving since 4am. Being done with the heat I ended up taking my pants off, lol what a site that would have been if anyone was around...I continued to read stories of mountain hunting adventures found in the numerous hunting magazines collected from over the years. Eventually I grew tired, I had woken Jamie up and told him to go to bed about an hour earlier. I was still content to read and sip on an adult beverage for a bit longer. Eventually the sandman came a calling and off to bed I went. We would be up at 6:30 to be at the airbase to check in around 9.

Sept 2
Woke up in the morning, first thing I noticed was that the moon was so bright, it was just past full. Normally I don't like hunting around full moons, but having clear bright nights might actually allow the caribou we were after to move around more which could mean we would be seeing more animals and new animals as they started their migrations in preperation for the rutt. The weatherman says it's going to be a low of -1 at our lake today, it's been so hot all summer this is going to be a shock to the system but a welcomed break from the heat. We were on the road just after 7, we seem to always arrive early at the airbase, I didn't see the point this year as its always a waiting game anyways. Had a splash of bailey's in my coffee, thanks R!
We arrived at the airbase and were greeted by Alex. We've developed a pretty good relationship with him over the last few years so it was some fun hello's until he gave us the bad news that the plane's starter had failed the day previous and they were waiting on the part which should be in town and installed around 2pm. I asked if there was any chance we would get out around dinner time that day, but unfortunately there were a few groups ahead of us and there was only the 1 Beaver operating at the time so it was pretty unlikely. We offered to help with loading and unloading to get the plane turned around quicker but they still said it probably wouldn't change anything and to not bother. One thing I've learned over the years is to not get to frustrated with situations you can't control, so we took the bad news in stride and said we would be back tomorrow morning. We grabbed some groceries at the gas station for a nice dinner and headed back to camp. Might as well have a nice meal with fresh veggies and what not one last time before we would be confined to freeze dried food and bars.
https://i.imgur.com/gg6pLQEb.jpg
We decided to take the extra time at camp to confirm our rifles were zero'd at the bench behind camp, them we reorganized all of our gear again and managed to condense everything down into 1 less tote which we then filled with split dried firewood from camp, thanks R! Again we found ourselves waiting 1 more sleep, we were getting itchy to get out there and start the hunt. It never can come soon enough once you've left home and are just stuck waiting.

Sept 3
Was really just a repeat of the morning before, got up made coffee and headed out, but I hadn't bothered to check my messages before we left. Once we got to the airbase we realized we had gotten a message from Alex telling us to be here for 10:30, we could of slept in and taken even more of our time, but ultimately we would of just been counting the minutes anyway so being a few hours wasn't a big deal. We hit the office and lounged out on the reclining couch seats. It was a bit wet outside so I went back and put a tarp over our gear that was sitting waiting for our turn which was still a few flights away in the queue. Eventually our turn came up, we finally made it out, it was 330 in the afternoon.
https://i.imgur.com/sXegwRC.jpg
No big deal though, delays should be expected on these types of adventures, the pilots can't control the weather and there's always a guide or something that will come up causing a delay. The flight was uneventful until the pilot did a safety pass over the lake and we spotted 4 bou right beside the lake, 1 bull for sure. Once we touched down and got the plane unloaded, we watched the plane taxi out and take off. The pilot purposely turned away from the caribou we had spotted, and I remember saying thank you in my head to her. We unpacked and inflated the boat and decided first things first we would go for a quick scout to see if the bull was legal. The law says we have to wait 6h before hunting after flying, and that time frame gave us zero huntable hours that day so we just took the bino's and spotter. I went to put the plug in the boat but was shocked to see it missing. Its normally tied to a string off the back end of the boat...wtf, that sucks. We decided the boat being an inflatable wouldn't take on too much water and we really wanted to put eyes on the caribou so we said screw it we will deal with this later and we took off across the lake taking on water the whole time lol. We managed to locate the bull, and although he had decent mass on top, he was only a 4 point so not legal and no need to keep track of it. We drained the water out of the boat and headed back across to our gear. We had about a 1km boat ride with everything to get to where we had planned to camp.

Once we got back to the beach, I cut a branch and whittled us a new drain plug. Making sure it fit really snug so we wouldn't have to be draining to boat all the time.
https://i.imgur.com/FEOgJsC.jpg
When I went to tap it in with the axe something caught my eye...
Right there in front of us...the plug, on the string its supposed to be on, just not hanging out the back of the boat but rather hanging inside the boat lol. Getting too excited seeing caribou right off the bat had us rushing and making a silly mistake.
https://i.imgur.com/9IdPSU1.jpg
We loaded up the boat, managed to get everything in so we didn't need to make a return trip and headed down the lake.
https://i.imgur.com/SoJvBrT.jpg
We docked to boat on the rocks and I went for a quick reckon to find our camping spot. We had gotten some good intel from another HBC member about where we might want to make camp, and as a bonus the spot came with a meat pole already setup. We cooked some dinner and planned to spend the last couple hours glassing from the hilltop above camp hoping to turn something up for the morning. This is when I realized I had assumed Jamie grabbed my bino's off the beach and he assumed I would take care of my own shit, so back down the lake I went. We didn't turn up anything that evening but were excited to get after it in the morning.

[Darksith]

Sept 4
Our opening morning plan was to hike up the side of the mountain to gain some elevation and get the lay of the land around the lake. We boated over to the closest bay where we figured would make a good glassing spot and started the hike. We quickly found an old horse/animal trail that really made the hike a breeze. Once below the ledge we wanted to be on top of we turned up the mountain. We got to a spot and started glassing.
https://i.imgur.com/aZ0qKpj.jpg
We saw the odd moose, a couple caribou way off that disappeared pretty quick. Not much else was happening until I spotted something way off, it was a caribou, then I spotted another one. They were way off, 3 maybe 4km's as the crow flies
https://i.imgur.com/VANUdka.jpg
Then I spotted something white, it was another caribou! Maybe an albino? Hard to say, looked like it had some dark patches around the eyes, but either way super neat to see.
https://i.imgur.com/LE006No.jpg
All in all there were 5 caribou, 1 white one, another bull that looked legal, another bull that was questionable and 2 cows. We watched them make their way across the landscape, wondering if they would wander into striking distance for us from the lake. Eventually they took a hard left hand turn and we watched them walk out of our lives forever, or so we thought anyway. Spotting a legal bull day 1 had us jacked though. We were too far up the ridge to really make a play at anything we saw, but it gave us a good idea of area's to venture into in the following days. We stayed up high until dinner time then went back to camp and made a new plan for the following day
https://i.imgur.com/rZqHLYT.jpg

[Darksith]

Sept 5
https://i.imgur.com/UC4mNIh.jpg
Our plan was to boat to the south end of the lake and repeat the day before, get to know the area a bit and see what was around. At dawn we boated down the lake and hiked up to a treeless knob not far off the lake. The balsam brush was so thick we didn't have much desire to head further in, and there wasn't much useful elevation until about 1km back as the crow flies which would of been an ugly grind with little benefit. The sun decided to make an appearance for a brief while, I took a second to notice all the water drops sparkling off the buck brush. It's been gloomy and wet for the last few days, it was nice to see a bit of beauty. We turned up a couple moose pretty far away while we were glassing. Jamie went for a quick walk and as soon as he did that I spotted a bull across the lake about 400 yards from the far shore. By the time Jamie got back he had disappeared behind the hill again but I knew he would still be right there. It wasn't a big bull but we had 2 tags and putting meat on the ground this trip was a priority for both of us so after a brief discussion we decided to boat across and see if we could get him on the ground. It would be an easy pack so it made sense. We got to the opposite shore and figured he was on our side of a small water way or creek looking at the map. When we got our eyes on him again we realized he was on the other side of it and all we could see was just his antlers so we had no shot. Jamie backed out to get the boat and circle around to the other side of the creek. The creek was about 30' wide and looked deep enough it wasn't worth getting soaked for, the bottom was also probably complete soft loon shit...so anyway I stayed behind in case he came back over the hill and presented a shot. The wind wasn't in our favour if Jamie did make it around the creek mouth so I decided to do a bit of raking and see if it could draw him over to my side of the ridge. After a few rakes, the bull peeked over the rise but didn't come forward enough for a shot. Not seeing another moose I suspect made him a bit nervous because he decided to take off and ran across the bay. I saw him turn and disappear then I heard him running through the water. I hurried over to the edge of the lake, I found him standing on the far side of the bay, but as I moved closer I lost sight of him again. I went to the edge of the lake and was glassing the treeline across the small bay when I saw him out of the corner of my eye. He had ran through all of the trees and straight out into the water about 100m from shore. The lake averages about 3' deep, so he was just standing there his belly touching the water, debating whether to cross. I looked over and also noticed Jamie rowing in the boat about 200 yards from the moose, it was staring straight at him. I hurried to the lake edge, ranged him at 540 yards, dialed my scope up and laid down in the tall wet lake grass on the bank, my barrel just clearing the grass. I wasn't perfectly stable, I was fighting gravity trying to pull me into the lake, my feet were above my head floating in the air but thought I was good enough and squeezed off a shot. I saw a big splash in front of him as my scope picture cleared from the recoil and knew I wasn't steady enough obviously. I ripped my bino harness off and placed it under my rifle, using it as a rest, that felt much better, I spread my legs wide and planted my feet in the ground, I was noticeably more stable and fired again. Whack, I hit him but he didn't move. I cycled in my last loaded round, steadied and pulled the trigger again. Another solid hit. I stopped and watched as he turned to go back to shore then tipped over and thrashed in the water. I've never seen an animal tip over in the water before. It was quite the sight and an amazing experience.
Jamie rowed over to me, picked me up and we headed over to him, we weren't sure he was floating, but thankfully he was.
https://i.imgur.com/NYKAI69h.jpg
We lassoed his antlers and towed him to the meat pole on the other end of the lake.
https://i.imgur.com/8qnvh3lh.jpg
We had a pair of waders for just such an occasion, I've never broken an animal down in the water but I can now say it's much easier on dry land. We got him processed and hung, we went back to camp with some heart and tenderloin and we cleaned ourselves up and called it an evening after some good eats and a celebratory adult beverage.
https://i.imgur.com/MocIqReh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/JywmO6rh.jpg

[Darksith]

Sept 6
We decided to head out for a hike to the east side of our lake. We walked to a high point about 1km off the lake to do some glassing. Didn't turn up much at first but we kept at it, time of day was right, lots of area in front of us, something was bound to step out. Dude there's that albino again I say to my Jamie. We both put our glass on him, no need for a spotter at this point, we are pretty sure he was with a legal bull 2 days ago and he was simply way too far to count points. We decided to close the gap a kilometre and see if he was gonna stick around or if we could see more, well after a kilometre he was still way out there. We figured he was 4-5km away as the crow flies looking at the map, it's a long ways to go for a bou I said. Well it's not the first time Jamie replied and we picked another vantage point around 1000 yards ahead and off we went. Our main concern was that they weren't sticking around, on day one when we spotted them the first time they covered several km's in an hour and we knew if they went adjacent to us it was going to be impossible to angle them off and actually catch up to them. So when we got to our next target, we put the glass up and couldn't find him. We started to glass off into the distance and all around, figuring he was heading south west when I picked him up again not far from where we had initially picked him up. We could see another bull with him, his tops were plain as day but even with the spotter we couldn't confirm. We chatted briefly again, I reiterated how long of a pack out this was going to be and added we were most likely sleeping under the tarp, Jamie's reply was well it wouldn't be the first time. He chuckled and off we went. The next target point, yes about 1000 yards out was going to put us in striking distance, or so we though. He had moved a few hundred yards while we were watching, to the end of the lake which was our marker on the map when we started moving and lost sight we were worried he was going to walk out of our lives forever again. We had covered around 3kms as the crow flys and when we got to our next spot we had no look into the area we had seen them last, there was a small ridge in the way. Jamie said well this is working out for us and I replied nope, but off we went agian, we were certainly committed at this point to either make a stalk or watch his ass end leave us behind. When we got to our next spot we were within striking distance of the lake but we knew he was moving away from the area last time we saw him so there were so many places he could of ended up. The one advantage we had was the fact it was noon, the sun was out and it was getting hot. We shed some layers, myself having gotten moose blood all over my shirt and base layer the previous day taking care of the moose, I decided to wash them off in the lake and they hadn't finished drying yet so all I was wearing was my sitka Kelvin vest and jacket. Anyway I shed my jacket and we had a laugh that I looked like someone from the A team or some other awesome 80's character.
https://i.imgur.com/wEhPXIsh.jpg
Anyway we needed a plan to pick up the animals again. I looked around and said we need to get to that hump as I pointed to the south. It was about 350 yards to our right and in the direction the bou were moving last we saw. We packed up and started heading there, about 150 yards in I spotted them. Just as we figured they were bedded down under some buck brush having a siesta. There were 3 bulls, our spirit bou the albino, he was younger than we though and only had 2 points up top.
https://i.imgur.com/YDQKnJnh.jpg
Too bad, he would of and will make someone very happy in a few years. There was another small bull in full velvet still and he had huge tops, but a short frame and pretty narrow. After several looks at him in a few moments from now he had a sticker that was close to legal but his frame was too small and so was his body. A good pass. The 3rd bull was hard horned, he had 5 up top and we both confirmed him to be legal and easily the biggest of the 3. He was sleeping so counting points was a challenge until he lifted his head. We had them at 550 yards. We were in the middle of the buck brush with no good spot to shoot prone from so we decided to close the distance. We got to 420 yards, a manageable shot but still not one we wanted to take freehand. We pulled the spotter off the tripod and tied 2 hiking poles together to make shooting sticks. It was my turn to harvest a bou, so i spent some time arranging our shooting platform. I finally settled on the tripod up front with my sitka sun hat on top of it as a cushion and the improvised shooting sticks at the back. Moving things around I finally got comfortable and could even let go of my 28 nosler and it all just stayed in place.
https://i.imgur.com/YeI5LFah.jpg
We decided we were going to wait for him to get up. Luckily we only had to wait about 5 minutes after I was all setup to shoot and he stood up. He turned broadside and was just in the process of laying down again when I squeeze off the first shot. He actually laid down just as I fired but got right back up as did the other 2 caribou, either startled by the noise, hit or both. I cycled another round into my chamber, recentered on him and squeezed again, I'm sure I hit him that time but I generally shoot until I'm confident he's not going anywhere so I took a 3rd shot. Jamie was calling out what he could see from behind me, I was out of bullets in my rifle and actually started picking up the brass. I knew he was dead, and I just listened to Jamie call things out. He's wobbling, he's going over, faceplant, he's down. I was pretty sure he was dead after the second shot but hey why risk any sort of chase. We stopped and just watched the other caribou, confused why their leader had just got up, laid down then jumped up and laid down again.
https://i.imgur.com/6GBnBQYh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/gwT9AO7h.jpg
They were waiting for him to show them what to do. We stood up and took a bunch of pics, that albino was sure a beautiful animal, hopefully he gets to maturity and then some. We then went back to get out packs that we had dropped when we spotted them sleeping then went to see our animal. I always take my time walking up to my kills, soaking it all in, giving them the respect they deserved. I don't think we hollerd once that whole sequence and we didn't once we got up to him either. We took a few photos then got right to work breaking him down. It was going to be a long day.

[Darksith]

I think we had him boned out, gutless method and yes we got thr loins, by 4pm. We shuttled all the meat and the head and cape 1.3km as the crow flies. We had a 6.5km adventure to undertake up hill and through buck brush and muskeg. We got everything to our first laydown spot just before dark about 1km from the carcass. We broke out the sil tarp, the bivy sacks and put on all our puffy down. Had a nice freshtrek meal (locally made and sourced right here in BC) and went right to bed.
https://i.imgur.com/ak5Ogsph.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/VSlwhVhh.jpg
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https://i.imgur.com/DwhxLlSh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/9n7ggbUh.jpg

[Gateholio]

Wow, great adventure! To be honest i just looked at the pics but will come back and read the whole story when I get a moment, I'm juggling prepping for work tomorrow, making dinner and surfing the intraweb right now :)

But big congrats!:)

[stoneramhunter]

enjoyed the story!!!

[Getbent]

Great write up… awesome adventure.
let’s have some more!

[Retiredguy]

Well done boys!! :)

[Ron.C]

amazing read and great pics. Congrats on the successful hunt.

thanks for sharing

[Arctic Lake]

Congratulations ! Good write up Darksith ! Looks like some scenic country you were in .
Arctic Lake

[jimzuk]

Outstanding story. What a great trip

[Harvest the Land]

Awesome stories and pics - thanks for taking the time to write it up. Had to MacGyver a branch for a temporary plug before too - good thinking on your part and great to hear you found the actual plug.

Congrats on a very successful trip

[sillybear]

Thanks for the great story and pic's! Well done!

[srupp]

congrads on the adventure
the photos
documenting the albino caribou..
the adventure in writing...
I truly enjoyed it all...and shared the white caribou photo with Susan
steven

[Bigdoggdon]

Great story, great pics

Congratz, thanks for sharing

[Steeleco]

Fantastic, stories like yours is the reason this site was formed. Ah the good old days!! THANK YOU!!

[Stone Sheep Steve]

Loved the story and pics!

Man that white bou is cool looking!
Good thing he wasn’t legal as you would have had to life-size him! Lol!

I think the story has more to it….hopefully.


SSS

[Everett]

Man does that make me want to head back north next year. Thanks for sharing a great hunt.

[CheesyLimper]

Caribou, my favourite kind of hunt. Great story and pics, that albino one is beautiful.

[Darksith]

We were up around 7, it wasn't a great sleep for either of us. Those emergency bivy sacks might keep the wind and ground wetness off of you, but they trap in the moisture from your body/breath. They are not very comfortable to sleep in, I will probably rethink a thing or 2 in regards to survival equipment I pack on day trips that could turn into overnighters. I woke up as the sun rose, had my triple shot of coffee in the jetboil and a cliff bar. We broke down our mini camp and loaded up the first round of meat. The pack out was uneventful, we shuttled the first load about 3km leaving us about 2.5 for the final push to camp, went back for the second load which included the antlers and cape. For some reason I can't seem to get the meat shelf to work on my kifaru pack. Ive tried numerous times, the cavern I believe is the model, I end up just putting the meat inside with a garbage bag if I have 1. For more than half the pack the head and cape were sitting off kilter, it was annoying but I didn't bother to stop and fix it for a few km's.
https://i.imgur.com/93Kl4tPh.jpg
We kept using this pine tree as a reference point. It must be one of the only pine tree's for tens or hundreds of kilometres, how it managed to get there makes you wonder...hawk eats squirrel then flies and drops seed from squirrel?
https://i.imgur.com/o2Us1Dph.jpg

On our way we took a break on a nice hillside and I found a decent crop of wild blueberries. Its nice to forage a few wild berries and enjoy another little thing that one finds along these adventures.
https://i.imgur.com/KEyamS1h.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Mp81qfVh.jpg
We pushed past our first lay down spot as this was the heavier of the 2 loads and got into camp around 6pm. We ate a nice dinner of Smokies and rehydrate hashbrowns, had our 2nd celebratory beverage of the trip (we decided that any day we brought meat back to camp we would celebrate and have a beer, we each only brought in a 6 pack for the 10 day adventure) and hit the sack. I took a few minutes to catch up on my trip journal that night, the last few days had been a bit hectic, but in such a good way lol.

[Darksith]

We had planned to sleep in a bit, I was up at 7. I fried up some left over hashbrowns and threw in our last jalapeno smokey. Then I asked Jamie if he wanted some which got him out of his tent. We refilled our water, did a few small chores then headed out. A quick stop at the meat pole to hang our loads from the day before then off to get the rest of our caribou. We were robbed! Something got at one of our bags of meat while we were gone for the 2 days! Tore the bottom out of it and the whole bag was empty. Of course it was the tenderloins, back straps, ribs and other trimmings. I saw so mad, I did a rib roll on the moose where you cut the rib and flank meat out as 1 whole piece and then when you cook it you add spices and what not where the ribs were and you roll it up and roast it. Not sure where I saw that, some hunting show, but I was pretty excited to try that cut. Totally bummed we raised everything up as high as we could, that will teach us to use someone else's half ass meat pole I guess. Hopefully the rest stays safe. Off we went to get the final load of caribou.
We hiked for an hour and made it to our meat cache, bumped some ptarmigan on our way, they are so pretty when they start to change colours.
https://i.imgur.com/oMEReFYh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/P4BT1RQh.jpg
Our meat hadn't been touched thankfully but for some reason we had decided the day before this was the lighter load, well I guess it may have been but it was still dang heavy! In my mind this was just going to be an unnoticeable 20lbs lol...nope, not sure why we thought 2/3 of a caribou was going to be unnoticeable in our packs haha. Oh well we loaded up headed back to camp. Took a few quick rests and 1 break at the half way point. No need to push it, today was our day off.
https://i.imgur.com/dgHgx4vh.jpg
Jamie bringing my pack the final 20' from shore to boat

Once back to camp Jamie went for a sit on some high ground, I decided to give fishing a shot. I had some decent Intel but ultimately it was just too windy so I headed back to camp, caped out the caribou skull and waited for Jamie to call his water taxi. It was starting to get dark and I was wondering where the heck Jamie's text was, so I ended up shooting him a message then all of his texts popped up. He was down at the water waiting for me for the last 35 minutes. On route to picking him up with the boat of course I ran out of gas, so he had to wait a few extra minutes...we ate dinner, had another beverages since we had brought more meat back to camp that day and called it a night.
https://i.imgur.com/1qaTaOmh.jpg

[Knute]

What a great read!

Thanks for posting up and congrats on a successful hunt/adventure.

[Darksith]

Sept 9
We woke up and made a plan to head south. We would hunt moose again mainly, try our hand at fishing and test our skills duck hunting. We boated to the south knob that we spotted our moose on Day 2 from, hiked up and glassed around for a bit but didn't spot any animals so we continued on south. We rigged up a tree branch to tilt the outboard so it would be higher up in the water column to avoid running our prop into any rocks as we were told it was going to get super shallow. Once we got into the channel between the 2 larger bodies of water there were ducks everywhere. Thousands of them. We cut the motor and let the wind push us, padding when needed. We were in the middle of their flyway. We took turns shooting and decided 5 was enough for the next few days and the responsible thing to do would be to stop so no animal was wasted. Neither of us had ever really been duck hunting so it was super fun. We will come back and take a few more closer to our departure day to being home maybe.
https://i.imgur.com/xN0sAYmh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/yl9vNnbh.jpg
We headed further south looking for a spot to glass from for moose again but they were few and far between. We decided a small hill behind us was our best option so we turned around. I pulled out a fishing rod and made a few casts as we putted towards the hill. Fish on! It was a dandy, an 18-20" Grayling. Then I handed the rod to Jamie, hes not much of a fisherman but he managed to figure it out and make a cast. Fish on again! This could be fun! The next thing we know we've tied to boat to a big rock, Jamie's fishing from on top of the rock and I'm in the boat with my flyrod. We stopped counting after about 20 fish each, 8 out of 10 casts you would catch a fish and we basically got tired of releasing fish, plus this was a hunting trip lol so we headed up to the hilltop. That was a hoot, we always bring in a couple fishing rods, last year we had a fishing derby on another lake that apparently had no fish in it we learned after the fact haha. We kept the first fish we each caught and let everything else go. The menu was set for the next few days. We got up to the hilltop, had some lunch, debated trying to start a fire and cook something but the wood is seriously lacking so we just had soup in our jet boils. I had a nap and waited for the evening hunt to begin.
We didn't see a thing that day but it was still a great day that I will always remember. We went back to camp at dark, filleted the 2 fish and breasted out the ducks. Sea n sky we called it, seared duck breast with bacon and allspice on garlic toast with lemon pepper Butter fried fish as an appy. Does it get much better than this? We stuff ourselves and went to bed, gonna go hard tomorrow for a 3rd animal.
https://i.imgur.com/P9stosoh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/zWTnJeqh.jpg

[Darksith]

https://i.imgur.com/oZmXW8Kh.jpg
The plan was to split up today. I would go high up on the side of the mountain and Jamie was heading to the opposite side of the lake. It's amazing how little game is actually around or maybe just making themselves visible? It's been a little windy the last few days, we haven't spread our scent all over the place mindlessly hiking, and we saw way more game day 2 when we went high than we have been seeing the rest of the trip, even though we've punched 2 tags.
https://i.imgur.com/Ef8gL4Vh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/JaAqMtSh.jpg
I think between the weather warming up and the wind it's just kept the animals on lock down. The caribou simply haven't started moving yet much in regards to migration and the rutt and moose are staying in the timber our of the warm and wind I suspect. Jamie was coming back from his walk about when I picked him up in my binos about 3km away. That morning when we woke up, smoke had blown into our valley. It was actually quite thick so it really made glassing shitty for me. I could hardly tell a cow bou from a bull at several Km's away.
https://i.imgur.com/IUtmCrYh.jpg
Shortly after I spotted a caribou to the south of him. I sent him a coordinate and he started moving in that direction. It was about 1km away from him. I couldn't confirm if it was a small bull or a cow so Jamie went to get eyes on it. I thought the animal ducked into some tress to bed down as it was approaching noon. Jamie snuck into the area but couldn't locate the animal. I told him to have a seat and I would let him know when I picked it up again. A few hours later I spotted 2 more bou off to Jamie's western flank. He picked them up as I was notifying him. A cow calf. He continued to move through the area following them in case something else moved into them, but then they bedded down again so Jamie tucked himself into some shade again. I picked up another animal and shot him a GPS of its approx location. He asked again where it was and I told him about to step into the meadow right in front of him. Sure enough it was another cow and was 100 yards in front of Jamie. All day those were the only 3 animals I picked up from my overwatch location. I could see for several km's 180 degress and there simply wasn't anything moving. With the heat and lack of animals we decided to request extraction a day early, the airbase told us they could maybe fit us in the following afternoon/evening.
https://i.imgur.com/rEFdSIBh.jpg

[Darksith]

Sept 11

We decided to sleep in since we weren't getting picked up until later that afternoon. When I woke up at 745 I checked my phone. The plane was coming at 10am! OMG, I hollered at Jamie and the scramble was on. We managed to get camp packed up and down to the boat in an hour. I try to avoid these types of hectic situations that we felt due to the flight being bumped up and us sleeping in, but sometimes you just have to get through it and we did. It was blowing hard that morning, the lake was the roughest we had seen the whole trip, but we knew the SS Meat Hauler wouldn't have any problems. We loaded up the boat, pointed the nose into the wind and took all of camp minus the racks and our rifles to the beach the plane will pick us up at. 30 minutes later we were unloaded and going back for the last trip. We checked the time, 30 minutes until anticipated arrival time, we were just gonna make it. We decided to get the meat first then we would put the racks and guns on top of that. We loaded up the meat, we could hear the plane coming in and we pushed off to go get the guns. The engine revved then there was a pop and although the motor didn't stop we had lost all power. Wtf! We shut it down, did a quick investigation then hauled the outboard into the boat to investigate further. We tried to pull the cotter pin from the prop but it was stuck. "Where are the tools?" Jamie asked, "on the beach with camp" I replied. We took a pocket knife and tried to pry it out, that didn't work. We took the guts out of some para cord and fed the strands through the loop and twisted them then tied them to the knife to pull it out, that didn't work. Meanwhile the plane just landed, we are on the downwind side of the lake with 1 foot of chop and a moose and caribou in the boat. What do we do, the only thing left we could do...we grabbed the paddles, first we had to get across the bay to get our guns and the racks, now we had about a 1km paddle upwind in brutal conditions with a heavy boat...well we paddled hard for 10 minutes and had to turn the boat towards shore or we were going to be right back where we started. We ended up back at the meat pole location. We emailed the airbase and told them of our problems then we did the only thing left available to us. We started to tow the boat by hand around the shoreline. There were 2 large bays between us and the plane. We got to the point of the first bay and I said let's try and paddle across. Worst case scenario it blows us into the bay which we would have to walk around anyway. It took a lot of effort, and we tried to go into the wind to cut into the second bay but eventually the wind was just too strong and we had to turn towards shore again or lose any progress we had made. We got to shore and we repeated, pushing, dragging or paddling the boat. We finally made it! Just when we thought our adventure was over things take a twist and chaos ensues lol. The plane was waiting for us for almost 2 hours, the pilot had loaded up all our gear while he waited. We had some good laughs with him once we got there finally and packed up the boat and loaded it as well as the meat onto the plane. What was supposed to be an easy uneventful day turned into anything but, but ultimately it was a really fun successful trip even if we didn't complete the trifecta that we were hoping for.


https://i.imgur.com/wqrqDKLh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/83IO4yLh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/uZ0irpgh.jpg

I'd like to thank a few guys from HBC for giving me some tips about the lake, and to all the other guys that reached out trying to help. Planning is a huge part of these types of adventures and its a lot of fun as well I find, so having more knowledge even if its not used bc things are different once your boots hit the ground is always super appreciated.

If you haven't tried Freshtrek Dehydrated meals, I suggest you do. I formerly used Peak Refuel but Freshtrek is made locally here in BC (Burns Lake) and sources all its ingredients from BC producers.

Also I encourage everyone to get involved in a local conservation group or club (rod and gun or WSSBC, Hunters for BC etc). We need more people to get involved which forces politicians to pay attention to us (hunters) and the wild spaces we all love so much. Without action we will lose more and more so please get involved. Thanks for taking the time, I enjoyed sharing this adventure. Next is a moose LEH the kids got in 2 weeks so hopefully we have some more to share soon!

This story was inspired by BigBoar's Story Telling, he was great at it.

[fogrady]

A good story. Thank you.

[Trekker]

Right on, looks like you guys had a great trip. Thanks for taking us along.

[Livewire322]

Thanks for the story and photos! It is great to see some legit hunting content flowing in from the early season

[Husky7mm]

The story and the photos, a real treat. Thanks for the contribution and congratulations.

[whitespringer]

Thanks very much for going “old school” with the story telling. Not everyone can do it and I enjoyed it immensely.

[digger dogger]

Great story DS, I enjoyed it from start to finish!
Good on ya for gettin it done, and putting meat in the freezer, is a bonus.

[kennyj]

Great adventure!!
Thanks for sharing.
kenny

[todbartell]

great pics, thanks for posting up!

[Blockcaver]

Congrats! Beautiful pictures, nice adventure, great meat and story!

[Redthies]

Awesome trip and write up! Thanks for sharing it!

[BimmerBob]

Awesome write up of an epic hunting trip, thanks for sharing and congratulations on your Team success!

[nano]

Great story and well done, thanks for posting it up for all to enjoy .

[montec assassin]

I enjoyed reading about your adventures. It looks like you and your buddy know how to have a good time. You’re rockin’ the GI JOE tactical gear for sure! Good times.

Montec

[Gun Dog]

Great story and pictures but you need to learn about paragraphs and formatting. A couple of things can help - Write the story in Word or WordPad and then copy & paste it into the huntingbc edit box. (Sadly it pastes as plain text so any formatting like bold and italics is lost.)

Second - at the bottom right of the edit box are some diagonal lines. Click and drag to make the edit box bigger.

[Darksith]

Great story and pictures but you need to learn about paragraphs and formatting. A couple of things can help - Write the story in Word or WordPad and then copy & paste it into the huntingbc edit box. (Sadly it pastes as plain text so any formatting like bold and italics is lost.)

Second - at the bottom right of the edit box are some diagonal lines. Click and drag to make the edit box bigger.

****ing hilarious...maybe next time I can send you the proof and you can edit it for me :wink:

[Gun Dog]

****ing hilarious...maybe next time I can send you the proof and you can edit it for me :wink:No problem. Every writer needs an editor.

[ekul246]

Very cool trip. I’d love to do one of those one day!

[Stone Sheep Steve]

Very cool trip. I’d love to do one of those one day!

Going to be very difficult in the coming years if the proposed Reg 6 regulation changes go thru.

SSS

[Retiredguy]

Going to be very difficult in the coming years if the proposed Reg 6 regulation changes go thru.

SSS

Have you got a link to these proposed changes or can you give everyone a brief rundown? Thanks.

[Patman7]

Thanks! Was a great read! You guys are tough!

[Stone Sheep Steve]

Have you got a link to these proposed changes or can you give everyone a brief rundown? Thanks.

So far I only have a Facebook link and it’s a private page. I’ll keep looking.
Basically it’s proposed to from GOS on caribou and moose to LEH across the region.

Will certainly be difficult to plan fly in trip when you have to wait for your LEH results.

SSS

[Retiredguy]

SSS...thanks. That is what I was expecting would happen, but I cannot find anything on the internet so far. I know there have been discussions, but so far they seem to be doing a pretty good job keeping their plans under wraps. I hope it will come out so that all hunters know what is coming.

As you said, planning a fly in trip will be difficult with all LEH and how late in the year you find out the results.

[Darksith]

Going to be very difficult in the coming years if the proposed Reg 6 regulation changes go thru.

SSS

While the floated proposed changes won't really change anything in regards to conservation, harvest numbers etc etc, it will make it harder for resident hunters to plan these types of adventures 100%!

The big problem I have is the fact that this is just another level of control where control isn't needed and its very obvious what the purpose of this is. It is setting the stage to transfer control of the wildlife to FN. You can't give FN control if there is a GOS in place, cause other than access, anyone in BC can simply buy a tag and go hunting, and if the Tahltan or any other group tries to mass restrict access they will become the bad guys in the eye of the public eventually. If you have to apply or win a tag however, then you have the ability to transfer control of those tags and eventually you have the ability for whoever controls them to pick and choose who gets what.

Currently the Tahltan are strong arming the GO's in the area for either a harvest royalty or an operating royalty. The Tahltan want the GO's to pay them annually simply bc it's their traditional lands. This is setting the stage for serious ramifications if this happens. It won't simply be outfitters. It might already be forestry and industry extraction among other things. Soon you will need a permit (permission) to go hiking anywhere in this province.

Back to the proposed LEH...take Spatsizi as the perfect example. Approx 250 leh tags issued. Most people that win don't go on the hunt once they realize they simply cant drive around and shoot an animal, and those that do go on the hunt I bet have a success rate around 20%. So switching the Kawdy to LEH where there are 270 tags issued won't change anything. There aren't 270 caribou killed a year in BC I bet let alone on the Kawdy. So from a conservation point of view its irrelevant. Issuing 270 authorizations when in actuality there is less than 50 caribou harvested affects nothing. The only thing it changes is control of who can go on the hunt. Why are we restricting who can go where? There are only 6 weeks give or take 2 that you can hunt that area. The season doesn't open until Aug 15 and the lakes freeze up blocking float plane access somewhere around early Oct. Currently there are limited companies flying into these areas and some of them won't stack hunting parties on the same lake so we already have built in restrictions to access, making this move completely useless unless its in preparation for something else...Im not an alarmist, but crown land or traditional territory (all of BC is traditional territory) shouldn't require permission or have access restrictions placed on it for the general public, but it really looks like that is potentially what could happen. This is the scary part, not caribou going to LEH...I mean if you plan a hunt 5 years out (I booked a lake in 2020 for 2025 because that was the first available opening for the time I wanted) and you don't get that draw...then what? The issue isn't too many caribou are being harvested so why potentially blow up someones plans?

[ydouask]

Firstly , thank you for the time and efforts to relate your entire story ( including the bumps along the way ). Secondly , congratulations on your successful hunt. Your Sept 05/23 sunrise picture should inspire anyone who loves the outdoors to get out there.... guess that was thirdly. Your encouragement for all hunters to get involved with their local Rod and Gun Club to support our lobbying efforts and become informed of what is taking place involving FN groups and our elected officials should be of the utmost concern for all hunters in B.C. Thank you, Hank.

[Retiredguy]

Darksith.....good post. I can tell you have given everything a great deal of thought. I also have some strong beliefs about what the government is doing and has been doing for several decades, knowing that things were slowly moving in the direction that they have gone. It is far more serious than most want to believe or even consider, but long term all British Columbians should be worried, not just hunters. We of course are an easier obstacle for them to overcome, and so we are seeing the direction of things more clearly because we are going to be some of the first casualties....and by us I mean licensed hunters and Guide Outfitters. I just wish more people would open their bloody eyes.

[Stone Sheep Steve]

I didn’t want to hijack DS’s post so maybe we should start another thread on it?

I really appreciated your story telling and sharing your adventure with us. That’s what HBC is about!

Oddly, yesterday marked the 20th anniversary of my last caribou tag that was cut. I was going to re-tell that tale but I got busy the last two days.

SSS

[Retiredguy]

Yes you are right SSS. Sorry Darksith. It was great to read your story....and nice to see a couple of guys enjoying a REAL hunt. Brings back memories of my first fly-in hunt many years ago, back when I didn't have bionic knees. :-D

[HarryToolips]

Awesome writeup and pics there Darksmith, and congrats to you guys on the moose and caribou... looks like a great time..

[CheesyLimper]

I didn’t want to hijack DS’s post so maybe we should start another thread on it?

I really appreciated your story telling and sharing your adventure with us. That’s what HBC is about!

Oddly, yesterday marked the 20th anniversary of my last caribou tag that was cut. I was going to re-tell that tale but I got busy the last two days.

SSS

Please do, hunting stories are becoming scarce here.

[swampthing]

Great to see a guy like you who gives soo much to conservation out living the life you give soo much to support!Excellent!