Caribou Hunt

I got a caribou. That is the short of it. Here is a picture. Sorry it is not glorifying the animal in the field. I tried. I will explain.First of all it was cold. I know I say that a lot and I probably sound like a little girl by now, but it was frost bite cold. Just ask my fingers. I know I say that a lot too, but just ask the skin that peeled off my fingers. There, haven't said that before. My nose might have something to say on the subject too. He too lost some skin. It was cold enough that the guns wouldn't work. The oil used to make things smooth, was making things stick. It was cold enough as soon the camera opened to take a picture it froze and wouldn't even shut.

I took Steph that morning up the south side of the Kanektok river, hoping that a few would have crossed the river. It was calm out, and thus felt somewhat warm near the house. I don't know what we were thinking because it was too cold. We work our way maybe 7-8 miles up the trail. Didn't see a dang thing and just gradually froze our entire body. Kind of just worked its ways up the arms and legs to the organs. By then we were stopping every little bit and doing jumping jacks and running sprints. Hands hurt, feet hurt and running was not helping the situation. We made it home and immediately fired up the stove and thawed.

I ate lunch and geared up for a trip up the north side of the river, where there were reports of a few herds. I didn't get two miles from the village, before I spotted a herd of maybe 30. They were half bedded up and half eating. I crawled for about 150 yards as there was a stretch that long with no cover. I cozed into some brush and got the scope on them. A nice bull was in the group, but was behind some brush. I was prepared to wait them out as they had now idea I was there. But...another snow machine came along and they went on alert. I thought they may run, and tried to move for another angle on the bull. This time they saw me and took off. At first they were probably only 100 yards. Now they were all running. A few stopped at 200 yards and I lined up a shot and got the one in the picture. All in all, much easier than I anticipated. Will never again be that easy, I know. Tim and Eric came by later and helped me get it home. Thank you guys.

Some of the stuff we were hunting:
Eric looking like snow:
A couple over here, a few hundred over there.