by-Gage Brock
April 8th 2005 is the day this hunt started for me. I was in the hospital and had just had surgery and learned that I had Thyroid Cancer. It was the worst and best day of my life. It was the worst because of the obvious, but it was the best because it woke me up and I realized that life may be over before you are ready, and I needed to start doing the things that I thought I would get to someday.
Hunting Caribou has been a dream of mine since I was a teenager, for one reason or another I had never motivated myself to do what it takes to go on a hunt. While on an Idaho late season archery hunt my best friend Brent Taylor offered to take me on any hunt I wanted. He and his wife Shannon had sold a piece of their property and offered to take me as soon as I was done with my treatments and was feeling good enough to go, the only catch was I had to do the homework and find the outfitter. I could not believe how truly fortunate I was, I had to be dreaming. I knew the animal I wanted to hunt and I started with the research. I poured through all of me old EBHJ’s and talked to everyone I knew that had hunted Caribou before, after all was said and done we ended up booking with Safari Nordik.
We ended up flying out September 23, 2007 and spent the night in Montreal. That night at the hotel we talked to a few hunters that were coming back from their hunt, they had taken their Caribou but said the hunting was tough and it took all week for them to tag out. We were excited and couldn’t wait to get into camp. When we were in the air from Montreal the pilot announced that it was getting real windy in Kuujjuac and we might not be able to land there. Two hours later the wind backed off enough the pilot landed in Kuujjuac, a representative from Safari Nordik was there to greet us and line us up on our next leg of the trip. Brent and I would be going to camp Vanessa. We got on a float plane and in about an hour we were at camp. When we arrived the camp manager Ben was there to greet us and let us know that the hunting had not been easy but a few Caribou were around and if were willing to work we should be ok, and introduced us to our guide Willie.
The first three days were tough, Brent was one of the first guys in camp to break the ice and we had Caribou on the ground, a few of the guys in camp were having some luck also. The Caribou were moving to the North and we were seeing up to 20 a day. I have watched hunting shows and read articles where guys have been hunting and seen thousands of Caribou in a single day. This was not like that at all so far.
On the 3rd day Brent, Willie and I were glassing from a vantage point on a knob a couple of miles from camp. Brent spotted a bull with a cow working towards us. Willie said he would pass by next to the lake and we needed to get down there. When we got there the bull was not as big as we had thought, I decided not to shoot. We ended up about 50 yards from the boat and decided to take the boat up to the end of the lake and look in the direction the Caribou had been coming from before heading back to camp. When we came around the point Brent spotted a cow feeding up on a ridge. We turned the boat towards her to see if there were any more around. When we got about 10 yards from the shore I spotted a set of antlers in the brush facing the other way and it looked like a good bull. When I got out of the boat the cow spotted us and started to get nervous. I got down and started getting as close as I could to the bull. After about a hundred yards the bull stood up and I laid down over a big rock I was using for cover. When the bull got up it took forever for him to finally turn broadside, I put the crosshair behind his shoulder and touched it off. My dream about taking a Caribou had just happened. I was so happy I couldn’t stop shaking or thanking Brent for making a dream come true. After taking a few pictures we got the bull cut up and caped out and back to the boat.
That night at camp a few other guys had also taken Caribou. The next day was more of the same, with a few Caribou were taken. We decided to go back to camp for a hot lunch. When we were eating a call came over the radio from another Safari Nordik camp from the north and they said they were having a herd come through and it was headed right at us. All of their hunters had tagged out and it was the second day and they still had not seen the end of the herd. They also said the herd was moving real slow, this was music to our ears. We got back in the boat and went back to the knoll we had been glassing from and turned our glass to the north. Late that afternoon we could see one small knob on the horizon through Brent’s Swarovski spotting scope and it was loaded with Caribou and they were headed right at us. When we got back to camp everyone was very excited and anxious.
When I woke up I couldn’t wait to look outside and see the Caribou from camp, when I walked outside I couldn’t see a single Caribou. When we were eating breakfast Willy said the Caribou would be to where we were glassing from by the time we got down the lake. As we were going down the lake my anticipation was out of control. We docked the boat and climbed the back side of the knob. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when I got to the top. This was better than any hunting show I had watched, it looked like a Disney movie. The Caribou were about a half a mile away, as far as I could see to my right and left there were Caribou and they were still coming over the horizon, I could see thousands. Some were swimming across a small lake others were bedded, standing and of course walking. Willie said we needed to get over to a pinch point that he thought they would be streaming by. As we were headed over to the spot Willie had picked we got caught out in the open by another herd that we didn’t see. They seen us and turned away. As we were standing there another herd came out of another small draw, so we sat down and figured we were in a pretty good spot. It looked to me like we were in Caribou Nirvana. I was having a hard time picking out a Caribou. I would find one that had good tops but poor bottoms, and vice versa.
Finally I spotted a bull that had my name on it. He was coming right at the little clump of trees that we were hiding in. His antlers were very red, it looked like he had just finished shedding his velvet. When he got to 73 yards he turned slightly to his right and started to angle away. I settled in for the shot and in a flash my second bull was on the ground. I was so excited; this was something I wanted to do for 20 years. After taking a few photo’s we got busy and broke down the bull and got it back to the boat.
Over the next couple of days a total of 16 hunters took 32 Caribou. Brent and I kept our self’s busy by helping our guide pack out other hunters Caribou and Ptarmigan hunting. When we left it was the third day the Caribou herd was still coming, not like the first day the herd came through but still good enough to see a thousand or more a day. On our last evening all of the hunters were in camp and we were sitting outside glassing the Caribou on the distant ridge wishing we still had a tag when we heard something hit the water next to the cabin. We looked over a medium bull jumped in the water next to the cabin and swam across the small inlet in front of camp. What an ending to a perfect hunt.
It was a trip that took so long to happen and I didn’t want to see it end. This was a true trip of a lifetime for me. Thanks Brent & Shannon.
