Greenland Muskox 2016. Semi sorta live
Caribou
Contributors to this thread:
I'm starting this thread to update when I can while traveling and eventually, when I get home, continue it with the whole hunt.
Flying to Boston in the morning. I will overnight there and fly to Iceland Sunday afternoon. Spend Monday in Iceland and fly to Greenland on Tuesday.
It will take awhile for this thread to get complete considering I don't get back stateside until Aug 21st. But I promise I won't leave it hanging without finishing it.
Packed and ready to head to the airport in the morning.
Looking forward to the updates.
Pole mountain bow case...you're off to a great start! Good Luck!
Neat. I thought they boated across to Greenland from Iceland. Sounds like you are going the air route
Have fun and take lots of pictures.
Heading to Greenland next March. Looking forward to your reports
Bou, Frank's groups fly. It's a commercial flight that runs a few times a week. Lighter weigh limits on the bags. 44 lbs a bag and 13 for the carry on.
Anxious to see your updates!
Headed to Greenland the 4th of September. Good luck!
Good luck & safe travels!
Looking forward to following along.
Showed up over 3 hours early for international flight. Better safe then sorry. As you can see. It wasn't necessary.
If all goes well. I'll be posting from Iceland this evening.
Good luck Brian. I'll start a separate post for my hunt. Greenland was an awesome hunt.
I'm looking forward to more. Best of luck on this hunt.
Thanks Randy! Made it to Keflavik with bag in tow.
AirIceland planes have a northern lights effect when its dark. Pretty unique.
Bou, that would be quite the boat ride. Greenland is further away from Iceland than one would think.
Mountianman, try to get on some Cod fish while your there up in Ikka Bay.
You will eat like a king with Fredick's cooking.
Bou'bound's Link
I was wrong, there were two boat rides, about 5 hours, that were needed but that was after they flew from ICE to GRN. sorry. the attached is the link to the t semi-live hunt brought to us by Pat in 2013.
Awesome thread. Who are you hunting with. Keep the details and pics flowing. Great research and input for those of us planning a trip. Good Hunting to you.
I'm going with Frank of Bowhunting Greenkand. The same outfit Pat and the guys used a few years ago.
Thanks for the tip Shiffty.
I spent the afternoon walking around the harbor in Keflavik. Small place, but I always enjoy walking these small ocean towns. Food is expensive( as expected). My fish and chips( fresh cod) and Ice Cream cost about 35 usd. Nice little restaurant called Rain.
The boat is a fishing boat that was the first kind of its design. It's on display along the harbor.
Here is the big anchor statue in the harbor in Keflavik.
The walrus tusks were hanging in a local restaurant. No idea what it says.
I fly to Greenland this afternoon. So I'll have no service for about a week. I'll update when I get back to Iceland.
Good luck! Thanks for all the pics so far.
Thanks for taking the time to post pictures. Good luck up there!
Should be back to wireless soon. Excited to see some more photos.
Just finally got back last night. At work today. It was one of of the greatest trips I've taken.
Tons of pictures to sort through. Got some great pictures in Iceland as well. I'll start sifting through them tonight. Got some good video too.
I'll start posting soon.
OK. I've spend most of this evening pulling pictures off cards and getting stills from videos. But as promised, I'll start posting tonight(even if its just a few).
I spent a fair amount of time in Iceland as well( 2 days on the way up and 4 on the way back) and I am going to include those pictures too. This hunt was definitely more of an adventure that is only limited by your time and wallet.
I am going to start with the Iceland stuff and end with the hunting stuff. I hope you guys don't mind. I figure anyone going on this trip would benefit from the Iceland info/pictures as well.
The Iceland flag flying over Þingvellir nation park. Ths park has many cracks called fissures. Basically deep cracks along the tectonic plates, Some of with are filled with glacier run off.More on that later.
One of the many water falls in Þingvellir park. Iceland has no shortage of water falls, thats for sure.
Speaking of water falls. This is the Gullfoss waterfall. One of the biggest tourist attractions in Iceland. Very cool to see, but expect it to be crowed.
There is also a large area where steam vents out of the ground and some geysers erupt every few minutes. Having never been to Yellowstone, this was my first time seeing this type of stuff.
If any of you are into scuba diving. Diving the silfra fissure is worth checking out. It's one of the large cracks I mentioned earlier in the national park. The water is 36-38 degrees Fahrenheit and is considered some of the clearest in the world.
Turned my lips numb in about 10 seconds after entering the water. But very cool experience. This is me and one of my buddies that flew up from the states about to head in.
Post dive. You can't talk right for a few minutes when you come out because of the numb lips.
This is the famous silfra photo op. One hand supposedly on the North America plate side and one on the European plate side. I'm sure a Geologist may dispute that, considering there is more then one crack along the plates. But pretty cool none the less.
And of course one spot that everyone likes to hit is the blue lagoon. A naturally heated lake that is full of minerals. It's like a huge natural hot tub. It's nice to go and just soak and relax.
One thing if you are going to travel in Iceland and don't want to rent a car. The bus system there is quite good and will take you just about from your front door to anywhere you want, from airport to tourist attraction. The prices aren't to bad and you can book online.
Something else to note,the food in Iceland is EXPENSIVE. Your average fish and chips lunch would cost us 30-40 dollars. Dinner time is even worse. If you are there for a few days it can easily push into the hundreds for food. But you can try smoked puffin(I didn't care for it), mink whale(not bad) and horse(excellent).
The picture is my mink whale appetizer in keflavik.
OK. It late and that's enough for today. Tomorrow evening I'll start on the trip over to Greenland and the hunt.I managed to pull some stills from the video that caught the arrow flight right at impact on my musk ox. I think you guys will like it.
Here is a shot from Greenland. Such an amazing place
Great write-up and pics. The picture above looks familiar!
OK. Now off to Greenland for the hunting. Some of these pictures will look familiar since I’m on the same path as a few other bowsiters.
While checking in at the airport I ran into 2 other hunters in my party. They were a father and son from Michigan, Charles and Cameron. The delta airlines meltdown had affected them and they had their bow cases in tow, but no other bags. They were working on getting them but it became obvious that they would have to head to camp with just their bows and the clothes on their back.
The plane took off from Keflavik in the evening headed for Greenland. It’s about a 2 and a half hour flight. The plane comes in over the water and lands in a huge valley where the small town of Narsarsuaq is situated. It’s always a great feeling stepping onto the ground of some exotic place you’ve never been.
All my bags made it along with the two bows of the other hunters. The forth hunter got messed up even more by the delta thing a was still a couple days from getting to camp. I would suggest arriving early to Iceland on this trip to let your bags catch up if there is an issue.
We got checked in to the hotel and had dinner. Very simple rooms but they worked just fine. The hotel used to be part of an old army base.
Polar bear statue in the hotel lobby.
Simple but functional rooms. It is nice to get one last shower before you head out.
The next morning our ride to camp showed up. It was about a 4.5 hours ride to camp, with a stop along the way for fuel.
The ride to camp was a great memory in itself. I had never saw icebergs before, and this area had tons of them. All sizes ranging from bright white to a deep blue.
Awesome thread. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the trip.
Finally we get into camp. It a nice little cabin considering it's in the middle of nowhere.
We had several hours of day light left so Frank suggested we go for a musk ox. The other hunters let me go first considering they didn't have their hunting clothes.
A side note on that. They let Frank know their situation and he managed to get together enough spare clothing for each of them to have a water proof outer layer and something for some warmth. I offered socks if they needed them. What they really needed was boots, which there wasn't any extra around.
We load everything into the cabin, unpacked and got ready. We each shot our bows a few times to make sure nothing got goofy during travel.
It's nice when a camp has a GOOD target to shoot at. This one was an 18-1 rinehart in really good shape.
The view from the camp area. This exact spot was the view from the crapper. Best view I've ever had from the throne.
Here are a couple boats that we used to get around from camp. These things had some serious horse power on them.
Now it is finally time. WE ARE HUNTING! We ride for about 30 minutes and come into a large valley. This is where I got my first look at a musk ox. What a sight these huge shaggy things are. At first they were a little hard to spot until I got used to what to look for.
As we slowly boated into the bay we spotted several small groups on the hill sides. Most of these were cows and calves. But with this many animals around, the mature bulls can’t be too far away.
We spotted a couple ox in a draw that we thought may have been bulls so Frank and I take off on a quick stalk to close the distance. This area is excellent terrain for bowhunting, lots of draws, rocks and willows. We get about 30 yards from the OX in the willows before they walk down a trail and give us a clear view. It was 2 cows and their small calves. It was cool see one close up. And the fuzzy calves were cute little things. We let them go on their way and returned to the boat.
This is the bay where we did the first couple stalks.
This brings back recent memories. Keep it coming!
I snapped a quick picture as we walked into the hunting area. Hopefully a good luck sign. That's Frank in the foreground.
Some ox grazing on the hill side.
We spotted another group and this one definitely had a decent bull in it. So off we went again. We worked our way around shore line until we got below them. We then worked up the hill toward them using terrain and rocks for cover.
We closed the gap to 18 yards with the bull just over a rise, broadside. I readied for the shot and slowly crept up to get a view of the vitals. That's when I hear Frank whisper ”don’t shoot”.
I relaxed the tension and the bow string and glanced at Frank. “Needs another year” he whispers. This one gets a pass. I still drew on him just because there is likely not many times in your life you’ll look through your pins at a musk ox. We back out and returned to the boat.
I will give Frank ton of credit for being able to judge these things. I looked at lots of pictures before I left but I was still light years away from being able to judge them quickly like he did.
He could call out a mature bull from several hundred yards away, while I couldn’t even for sure tell if it was a bull or cow from that distance. You’ll be glad you have him there to judge the size for you.
We take the boat and head back toward camp. Stopping to glass areas.
In one of the areas closer to camp, a bull is spotted.He is alone. He is mature. The stalk is on again.
We pull the boat to the rocks and climb up. On this stalk I gave Charles (one of the other hunters) my video camera and told him to follow if he could and record what he could.
The following stills were pulled from the video.
The bull was down in a little bowl. We had to come up and back out and circle a few times in order not be seen and have the best angle.
We eventually ended up on a big rock with him slightly below us in the depression.
He bull is 17 yards broadside. Although he is in the willows slightly and I can't see his legs at all. But I have a clear view of the body.
Frank went over how to use the hump as a guide for fwd and aft arrow placement. I'm not sure if it was the fact this bull had a pretty shaggy mass of hair coming back from the hump that was deceiving or just the fact that your staring at such a huge mass of broadside hair trying to pick a spot.
But whatever the reason, I put the arrow perfect up and down, but about 10 inches back from where it needed to be. Basically a gut shot. It was so deceiving that I thought the shot was good until Frank told me it was back.
This is me drawn for the first shot.
At the arrow impact the bull ran about 10 yards snorting and turned to face us.
I knocked another arrow and was waiting for another shot opportunity. By this point Frank let me know the arrow was too far back. No way could you see the entrance/exit wound with all that hair.
The bull started to move so I drew. But the bull took off at the fast, bouncing trot that they do and didn't offer me a decent shot.
This is me at full draw for the second shot. You can see the bull breaking out of the draw not offering a good shot.
He ran about 70 yards and slowed down again to a slow walk.
I have to head to bed. I'll continue the story tomorrow evening.
I'm awake Shug. I'm just at this job thing they expect me to show up at until this evening when I can continue from the house.
I'll spend another hour or so posting tonight. This definitely takes some time. Makes me appreciate even more the folks that write up their hunts on here for us to read.
After about 70 yards the Ox started a slow walk and would stop every once in awhile.
We circled around above him and sneaked up to about 25 yards. I drew my bow and took a step up the hill and my foot slipped and down I went. On the fall down I let the bow down so fast that my QAD rest dropped. Luckily I got it let down and hit the ground without damaging myself or the bow. Since I was on rock I didn't make much noise when I fell and the bull didn't spook.
The issue was he was facing straight away. I slowly stood up and waited. He took a few steps and turned to where he was quartering away at 30 yards.
I drew the bow, picked a spot and let the shot go. This arrow flew true, entering behind the near shoulder and exiting between the opposite shoulder and neck.
He stumbled forward at the shot, leaving a huge blood trail. These things are tough.
He quickly bedded and fell to his side.
Here is Frank and I discussing what just happened.
The first evening in camp. I had my Musk Ox.
We get the Ox skinned and quartered. Loaded it up and head back to camp.
Here is Kunuud(spelling?) carrying some meat and the rib cage down toward the boat. Everybody pitched in and grabbed a chunk to carry out.
The other two hunters didnt get the bags until the 3rd day of the hunt when they came in with the 4th hunter.
I'll give these two tons of credit. They hunted hard in basically tennis shoes and plastic bags over their socks.
I'm not posting their musk ox kills in case they want to post it elsewhere.
Here is Charles gearing up for the day.
Amazing story. Best thread I've read in a long while! Congratulations!
The next series of pictures is from climbing up in the mountains going after caribou.
On Franks website it says to be in excellent shape. This is no understatement. Getting up into these mountains is no joke.
I suggest a walking stick if you can bring one.
One of the big snow drifts that the caribou like to bed on when it's hot.
This is what it's like once your get on top. Still not easy hiking.
We didn't see any caribou the first day I hiked up. But the second time, after hours of hard hiking, we did find some.
It was a group of 15-20. It was mainly cows and calves but there was 2 bulls in the mix. Some where bedded and some were up milling around and feeding.
We sneaked up above them at the top of the mountain. I started a slow belly crawl down the mountain. It was slow and tedious, sometime in full view of the caribou. But I kept it slow and stayed on my belly and made it down into the herd.
I had cows and calves feeding below me and upwind of me. Some as close as 25 yards. At one point I looked over and saw a spike dead asleep 25 yards from me. I just couldn't get to the bull. He was bedded about 100 yards away but blocked by several bedded cows.
I didn't end up getting a shot, but getting in the middle of that herd unnoticed and getting to watch them all up close was a very cool experience.
I walked back up the mountain toward Kunuud with a smile on my face and thinking "now THAT is what bowhunting is all about!"
On the way down we ran into this pair. The hares up there had very little fear of us. I assume because of a lack of many ground predators up there. I slowly walked up to about 5 yards of these two.
A kill from a few years ago.
All the bows got some miles on the boat.
A cool shot of Kunuud carrying one of the other hunters kills to the boat. That's Charles and Cameron in the back ground.
This is the whole gang the day we did some fishing.
The fishing was incredible. We would catch a char every 2-3 casts.
Charles with a nice Char.
The char liked to hang out under falls like this.
We also jigged for some cod with big spoons in the deep water.
We each managed to catch a Cod as well.
After fishing we had a little glassing for caribou and checked out the glacier close to camp.
You don't realize how big these things are until you get up close. Unreal.
Musk ox dinner. That's Cameron, me, Frank and Fredrick, the cook. He was a really good cook.
We stopped and got some glacier ice for camp. The sound it constantly makes as it melts from all the thousands of bubbles compressed in the ice is like rice crispy cereal on steroids.
No trip to Greenland is complete without a whiskey toast to the hunt using the crackling glacier ice.
Great view while having dinner.
OK, out of time for tonight. I'll finish up tomorrow. There is still pictures from the trip to Franks village and the trip to the viking ruins across the bay from Narsarsuaq. I hope you've enjoyed this so far.
Well done. Missing that place!
What a trip! Congrats and thanks for sharing
Great report so far. Keep it coming!
Great recap thanks for sharing and congrats!
Very nice Recap! Congrats!
During a time when one of the other hunters had a Musk Ox down, Frank had to make a run to the small village he lived in.
The cook was getting in and he had to go pick him up. He asked if I would like to ride along and I jumped at the chance to see another part of Greenland.
The view of the village as we came into the dock.
There was a small grocery store there that we went into. It was surprisingly well stocked. From frozen vegetables and meats, cereals and shelf stable stuff. They even had a wine section.
As we were waiting on Fredrick's(the cook) boat to come in, I got to meet Franks wife and his little son.
He was a cute little guy and loved being on the boat. He stayed on there the whole time we were waiting.
We got the cook and headed back to camp. The following pictures are random ones during the week.
Jeff and I getting ready to head out. Jeff was the forth hunter that didn't make it to camp until the third day because of flight issues.
Having some lunch on the boat.
A great picture taken by Charles.
At 6 am on our last day, our ride pulled up and we loaded everything up for the ride back.
This ride we just as great as the one out. We arrived at Narsarsuaq at around 10 am and our plane didn't take off until about 6 pm.
For a fee the boats will take you across the bay to some old viking Ruins where Eric the Red had his settlement.
A statue of Eric the Red overlooking the bay.
A really colorful creek running through the area.
A recreation of the church ruin that the vikings built.
What a grand adventure. Muskox, Caribou, fish, beautiful scenery and a shot or two of Jack.
Excellent story and pics.
my best, Paul
A couple of horses hanging out in the area. Not often you see horses laying around with an iceberg in the background.
A very unique iceberg that was in the bay.
Well. I'll call this a wrap. Thanks for following along.I hope you enjoyed it.
This trip was a truly amazing experience.
Thanks to Randy(chief419)for the call when he got back. A couple of your tips really helped out(like the hiking pole).
If you are on the fence about this hunt. Trust me, do it! You won't regret it.
Awesome! That's truly the experience of a lifetime. Thanks for taking us along.
Geesh. Must've took a while to photoshop all those picture of yourself into the background. Lol. Just kidding big brother. Glad you had an awesome trip. Wish I could've been there with ya.
Ha. Yeah Matt I wish you could've been there. We will get another trip one of these years.
WOW! AWESMOME!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for taking the time to post the pics/story!
Great thread! Thanks for posting.
Very nice, thanks for taking the time to put this together for us!
No problem. Glad you guys enjoyed it. I have read so about so many great hunts on here. I figured it was time to pay it forward.
This will go down as one of the most awesome thread of 2016 !! Congrats on an interesting experience and great adventure. Very nice trophy. Thanks for making us feel like we were there with you. Beautiful job !!!
Great thread, great pictures, great hunt. Thanks for sharing. Because of these threads I in the process of booking for next July. Every time I waffled on booking I would read another comment to effect of 'If you are thinking of doing this hunt, just do it'.
I just booked for next July also with a friend of mine. Hope to have some other Bowsiters in camp!
This is the girlfriend wondering how much of a mess I'm going to make when I tear the box open in the living room.
This is the girlfriend wondering how much of a mess I'm going to make when I tear the box open in the living room.
Well, yesterday a big box finally showed up on my porch.
View upon opening. The hide took up most of the room.
View upon opening. The hide took up most of the room.
The head as it laid. I was rather disappointed in the fact that the head still smelled pretty bad and had bugs all over it. I bagged it and bug bombed it. It'll take some more spraying and cleaning it until I feel comfortable putting the skull in my trophy room.
Going to display the skull for awhile and then get a shoulder mount at some point.
Either way, I'm still happy to get him back. What a great trip.
Either way, I'm still happy to get him back. What a great trip.
Nice!! As hunters I feel like our spouses often put up with a lot of "Extras" lol
Awesome write up, great pics! Thanks for taking the time!
Agreed Apauls. Although she likes to hunt and shoot so she understands it easier than most. I'm lucky in that aspect.
Awesome... great recap. I'm heading to Greenland in April. Ed F
No idea how I missed this thread last year! Great write up Brian....thanks!
Congrats ! Thanks for sharing.
Great write-up and pics!! I've been to Iceland and Greenland...very cool places. Narsarsuaq was Bluie West 1 during WWII. Alot of history there.
My crate should be arriving in a couple of weeks. I'll wrap the whole crate in plastic and bomb it in case any bugs are in the cape. It's been a long wait!
Why does it take so long to get your skulls/capes? Slow export process? Or just the scheduling of shipping?
I missed this first time around too! CONGRATULATIONS! Great read and I appreciate you sharing. Definitely on my hit list.
The trophies have to go from Greenland to Denmark. A taxidermist in Denmark fleshes out and salts the capes and cleans the skulls. That process took a few months. When he's done the crates go to the shipping company. The shipping company appears to be where the biggest delay is. I hunted the week before Brian and still haven't received my crate yet. It's a slow process, but you will get your trophy back.
It may be infested and stink but you'll get it back. Lol
Congrats again, Brian. I hope I get one back by this time next year too
Always great when your mounts show back up!
Congrats again!
For anyone interested in scores, I had him officially scored this weekend. Gross 100 3/8s, net of 99 6/8s.
Frank tries to get his hunters an ox around 100 inches or better. He called this one within an inch while it was on the hoof.
Congrats man! Thanks for sharing.