Kodiak Island Caribou?
Caribou
A friend and I are going on a hunt this August for blacktail and when he found out that there are caribou there that's all he talks about. So I am wanting to fly into an area that has a decent chance of holding a herd. I seen a herd when I was there a few years ago but never got close enough to put on a stalk. If anyone could help with logistical info please send me a pm..... Thanks in advance Mike
spent 14 days there hunting browns..saw one caribou on the plane ride back to float base. ...better be able to shoot really really long yardages from a moving fixed wing vehicle.
14 days or 100 days, if you are not in the general area the caribou there frequent you won't ever see one.
If you want to hunt both deer and bou, go where the Bou might be and I bet whoever you fly with may be able to help you. Or the biologist down there.
Good luck
Caribou are on the south end of the Island generally near the Ayakulik River between Red Lake and Grants Lagoon. They range toward the coast near Halibut Bay and Bumble Bay. They have also been seen near the Sturgeon River, but I have seen them there less frequently.
I'm told by someone who knows the Island very well, there are roughly 400 to 500 of them. Numbers do not grow due to hunting and bear predation on calves.
My experience with them, 20 plus years, is they are very difficult to stalk when they are out in the flats in a big group. If you catch a small number of them or a single bull in the hills, its lake taking candy from a baby. That doesn't happen too frequently.
We see them almost every time I go to my cabin at Bumble Bay. I've never killed one there though. They tend to spend a lot of time about three to four miles from the cabin off the coast.
We were down by Halibut Bay in Oct and the 2 guys in our group that got the last 2 bou tags in Kodiak [arrrg] both shot nice caribou
Buy your tag beforehand as you can't trust the sporting goods shops in Kodiak on the phone...the GW couldn't even believe it.
Archerynut,
Just read what Blacktail Bob wrote, and take it to the bank....like Nick Muche typed, there you have it!!!
What Bob said... that's a huge area. Ed F
They tend to be like Ed's bull shown above and this one I killed a few years back. Nice tops but very weak on fronts and very spindly lacking mass.
But Ed's is really impressive because it's a cow, no bull !
How did you come to that conclusion??? Its eyelashes?? Ed F
Ok, maybe I'm getting senile but I remember you posting that pic before on another thread and you said it was a cow. Sorry about that.
I have seen some really large antlered cows out there, but I doubt Ed's is a cow.
A buddy of mine killed three of them with a rifle once. He shot the biggest three in a group of about 12. All three ended up being cows.
By the way, it used to be no limit no closed season on them.
Scary.....I guess I've been working around too many chemicals for too long.
My bulls nutz were dragging the ground... that's how I was able to get close enough for a shot. I don't know how to tell the difference between a young bull and a cow. Another thing, the Kodiak caribou come in all different color shades. Kinda different from what I've seen on the mainland.
Just to give you an idea. I went there to target caribou. Our destination lake was void of caribou. We flew an extra hour trying to locate them and only saw one lone animal. We decided to change to a deer hunt. Luckily, mid hunt we located about 40 animals. I shot 4 arrows on that hunt and killed a caribou, two deer and a fox. One of my greatest adventures. Ed F
Ok, if anyone can remember who it was that posted a pic of a large antlered cow caribou on Kodiak I'd appreciate if you would share that, because this is eating at me. Sorry Ed for the misinformation, I thought it was your Kodiak bou.
I do remember a post with a cow with large antlers and they said it was the biggest one in the group. I think it was while ago though. The picture was a euro mount IIRC
I found the thread on Alaska Hunt Forums. A guy posted a pic of a large cow that he mistook for a bull. Ed also posted his pic of his bull on the thread but my memory sucks and I thought that his was the cow. Don't know if it's allowed to post a thread from a different forum so I won't. Sucks getting old.
Getting old... it's in your head. I'm only 25 years old... still backcountry hunt like I'm in Boyscouts. Sorry Breck... I forgot about that thread too. Ed F
Thanks guys, I hope we see some while there. If not the trip will still be awsome. It's more about the adventure with good friends than killing anyway.
I hunted out of the north end of Red Lake one year and we regularly found small bou sheds, but never saw a bou in 8 days.
The sheds were small (cow) which probably put them there in the spring.
