Kodiak Island Blacktail/Caribou
By Jason Juliana
The bulls were spread out 50 yards wide feeding directly toward me. Craig and I had been trying to get close enough for a shot for 6 days so I knew most of the antlers by heart. The younger caribou with the spiky tops were to the left. Several nice bulls were in the middle. The big guy, the one we called Whitey because of his very whitetail looking tops, was to my right. I was just waiting for one of the big guys to get into range and present me an open shot. I was well hidden behind a clump of ferns and I anxiously ranged them every few minutes. 105 yards, 95 yards, 85 yards, they kept on coming. This same plan had blown up a couple times this week with the bulls suddenly changing directions so I tried not to get too excited. This time, however, it looked like it might all come together. At 58 yards, Whitey presented me with a broadside shot. I looked hard and even started to raise my bow, but it was just a little too far for me with the bulls still advancing. This was the last day I could realistically kill a caribou and still pack him back to camp in time for our flight out. I had to make it count.
I might need to start this story with a quick disclaimer: I've never had a more successful hunt. Of course, I've also never been able to kill three animals on one trip. I'm an active duty Air Force guy who has never lived outside the lower 48. I've had good success on elk, whitetails, mulies and lots of small game, but never made it to any exotic destinations. When Craig, a hunting buddy from Utah, called me last fall with an invite to Kodiak Island I wanted to go very badly. He had heard about some caribou on the island plus he wanted to see if he could get a bigger blacktail. I would love to get a blacktail or two. Caribou would be a bonus. My primary problem was I was on a budget. I had just moved to northern Virginia, a very high cost of living area. Craig said the trip would be about $3000. I thought about it and talked to my wonderful wife. She said I should do it, so the trip planning began.
Craig reserved our flyout dates to the bush and put down a deposit. That took care of the last leg of our trip. The commercial airline tickets to get me to Kodiak cost another $1000. Just a side-note, but flying from D.C. to L.A to Seattle to Anchorage is a brutal day. I don't remember how much money I saved with the extra stop, but it wasn't enough. The weather had some rest in mind for us, however. Kodiak happened to have its primary runway under construction. That meant planes had to land north or south. The weather was typical Alaska with drizzling rain and fog. Our Alaska Airlines flight into Kodiak the next morning was weather cancelled. We were on standby the following morning and on a confirmed flight that afternoon. We found out the next day the confirmed flight was on an Era prop airplane instead of a 737 so we had a good chance of making it to Kodiak. Craig happened to have an Air Force friend in Anchorage so our delay day turned into television, barbequed pork chops and a comfortable night in his spare bedroom. I was feeling pretty good the next morning.
Like we hoped, the next day our flight made it to Kodiak. The airport at Kodiak is quite charming. It's about the size of the main level of my house and half the residents were carrying fishing poles. My kind of place. Our transporter picked us up and took us to the airplane docks. We were scheduled for a flight to the south end of the Island that afternoon. We unpacked the boxes we had mailed a few weeks earlier and got everything ready to go. To the credit of the U.S. post office, everything had made it okay. We left our travel clothes and anything we wouldn't need in Kodiak. The float plane took off and wound through the valleys, keeping under the layer of clouds. We spent some time flying around different areas looking for caribou, but didn't spot any. There seemed to be quite a few deer around and the pilot recommended a destination that had produced well in the past. In a few minutes we were landing on a remote lake on southern Kodiak. We had the tents set up by the time the pilot left. We only had an hour or so till sunset so we set up the bear fence, threw the gear in the spare tent and got ready for bed. I might also mention here that the caribou on Kodiak are actually escaped reindeer that were brought to the island sometime in the past. I think the genetics are the same and the record books treat them as caribou regardless. The biologist at the Fish and Game office said there were only 250 on the island, so they could be hard to find.
The next morning, sunrise was at 6:30 and my alarm went off promptly at 6:00. We were both fresh and excited to get out, but as usual on the first day of the hunt it took a while to get our gear together. Craig and I started climbing the large ridge behind camp to look for deer and glass the lowlands for caribou. We spotted several deer working their way up the left side before we even reached the base of the ridge. Two were small two-points, but the third was a decent 3-point with good mass. I even removed the spotting scope to get a better look at him. It was a little early to start chasing anything yet, but I made a mental note that he was good enough for my first blacktail if I can get a shot at him. I had ready every article online I could find about Kodiak blacktails so I had a pretty good idea what a good buck looked like.
We had to go through some shoulder high brush at the base of the hills, pretty standard Kodiak Island cover from what I had read, but the real obstacle was the waist high grass and foliage growing most of the way up the mountain. Not only did it make slipping easy, but it was wet. My pants got soaked almost to my crotch pretty quickly. My Gore-tex boots and socks stayed dry for a while, but were also wet by the time we got to the top. Craig had high quality KUIU gear with gaiters so he fared better than I did. We survived, but I made a note to research ways to stay dry (or at least dry out quickly) when I got home.
Once on top, we sat to glass the miles of country. We spotted handfuls of deer in every direction. I pulled out my spotting scope to see if any were worth chasing. Most turned out to be two points or maybe small 3 points. There was one good looking buck about a mile and a half away that was wide and tall. I couldn't count points from that far, but he could be a 4 point. The does seemed to be towards the bottom of the hills while the bucks were near the top. Once we ran out of deer to check, we moved down the ridge a half mile or so and did it all over again.
An hour or two into the morning we swung around a corner of the ridge where we could see the other face and some new river bottom. I hadn't glassed 5 minutes when I spotted the caribou. It looked like 20 or 30 animals bedded a couple miles away near a bend in the creek. We quickly got out the spotting scope and could tell there were some nice bulls in the bunch. Since deer seemed plentiful and caribou scarce, we bailed off the hill and headed toward the bottom. That was my first time walking on tundra. The mogul-like areas weren't too bad as long as you didn't misstep and drop into one of the holes. I didn't care for the sections that felt like a vegetation waterbed sloshing under my feet. We picked our way along until we hit the creek. It was a lot bigger than it looked from above. There was no way we were jumping over it. We worked our way along the edge toward the caribou looking for a place to cross. About a half mile down we ran into a beaver pond that gave us a couple foot gap in only inches of water.
We had the wind in our favor so we picked our way across the flat, trying to keep some cover between us and the animals. We had to rely on the roll of the ground since brush was pretty scarce and crawling was a really wet option. The caribou didn't seem too alert though and we closed to within a couple hundred yards without being noticed. Now the hard part began since they were feeding on open tundra and our preferred range was somewhere around 50 yards. We watched the herd quite a while to see if we could anticipate their movements. It certainly looked random. Sometimes they would wander left or right for a while. Sometimes they would bed down and rest. Sometimes they would just stand in a bunch and hang their heads like they were in some stupor. All in all, I described it to Craig like a group of pigeons--pretty hard to predict.
We picked out a decent route that had some cover along small creeks and would cut the distance and headed out. We cut the distance in half when the wind shifted. Most of the caribou stuck their noses up into the wind and bunched together. Then they acted like we were a brown bear or some similar threat. They stayed downwind where they could smell us and increased the distance to a couple hundred yards. They never did really run. It wouldn't present much of a challenge for a rifle hunter, but it was pretty effective against us with our sticks and strings. We played cat and mouse with them for most of the day, but they seemed alert that we were around and we never could close the distance. We didn't want to run them off so we eventually backed off and vowed to try again after we rested them a day.
Even though the sun didn't set until almost 10:30 we headed back to camp late that afternoon. I had definitely had enough fun for the first day. I was soaked from walking through wet grass and tundra, my legs were feeling a little beat up, my ankles were complaining about the lack of good footing and my stomach wasn't happy that I hadn't eaten anything but jerky and power bars since breakfast. A couple hours later we were drying our feet and eating Mountain House dinners. Pretty good first day if you ask me.
By Jason Juliana
The bulls were spread out 50 yards wide feeding directly toward me. Craig and I had been trying to get close enough for a shot for 6 days so I knew most of the antlers by heart. The younger caribou with the spiky tops were to the left. Several nice bulls were in the middle. The big guy, the one we called Whitey because of his very whitetail looking tops, was to my right. I was just waiting for one of the big guys to get into range and present me an open shot. I was well hidden behind a clump of ferns and I anxiously ranged them every few minutes. 105 yards, 95 yards, 85 yards, they kept on coming. This same plan had blown up a couple times this week with the bulls suddenly changing directions so I tried not to get too excited. This time, however, it looked like it might all come together. At 58 yards, Whitey presented me with a broadside shot. I looked hard and even started to raise my bow, but it was just a little too far for me with the bulls still advancing. This was the last day I could realistically kill a caribou and still pack him back to camp in time for our flight out. I had to make it count.
I might need to start this story with a quick disclaimer: I've never had a more successful hunt. Of course, I've also never been able to kill three animals on one trip. I'm an active duty Air Force guy who has never lived outside the lower 48. I've had good success on elk, whitetails, mulies and lots of small game, but never made it to any exotic destinations. When Craig, a hunting buddy from Utah, called me last fall with an invite to Kodiak Island I wanted to go very badly. He had heard about some caribou on the island plus he wanted to see if he could get a bigger blacktail. I would love to get a blacktail or two. Caribou would be a bonus. My primary problem was I was on a budget. I had just moved to northern Virginia, a very high cost of living area. Craig said the trip would be about $3000. I thought about it and talked to my wonderful wife. She said I should do it, so the trip planning began.
Craig reserved our flyout dates to the bush and put down a deposit. That took care of the last leg of our trip. The commercial airline tickets to get me to Kodiak cost another $1000. Just a side-note, but flying from D.C. to L.A to Seattle to Anchorage is a brutal day. I don't remember how much money I saved with the extra stop, but it wasn't enough. The weather had some rest in mind for us, however. Kodiak happened to have its primary runway under construction. That meant planes had to land north or south. The weather was typical Alaska with drizzling rain and fog. Our Alaska Airlines flight into Kodiak the next morning was weather cancelled. We were on standby the following morning and on a confirmed flight that afternoon. We found out the next day the confirmed flight was on an Era prop airplane instead of a 737 so we had a good chance of making it to Kodiak. Craig happened to have an Air Force friend in Anchorage so our delay day turned into television, barbequed pork chops and a comfortable night in his spare bedroom. I was feeling pretty good the next morning.
Like we hoped, the next day our flight made it to Kodiak. The airport at Kodiak is quite charming. It's about the size of the main level of my house and half the residents were carrying fishing poles. My kind of place. Our transporter picked us up and took us to the airplane docks. We were scheduled for a flight to the south end of the Island that afternoon. We unpacked the boxes we had mailed a few weeks earlier and got everything ready to go. To the credit of the U.S. post office, everything had made it okay. We left our travel clothes and anything we wouldn't need in Kodiak. The float plane took off and wound through the valleys, keeping under the layer of clouds. We spent some time flying around different areas looking for caribou, but didn't spot any. There seemed to be quite a few deer around and the pilot recommended a destination that had produced well in the past. In a few minutes we were landing on a remote lake on southern Kodiak. We had the tents set up by the time the pilot left. We only had an hour or so till sunset so we set up the bear fence, threw the gear in the spare tent and got ready for bed. I might also mention here that the caribou on Kodiak are actually escaped reindeer that were brought to the island sometime in the past. I think the genetics are the same and the record books treat them as caribou regardless. The biologist at the Fish and Game office said there were only 250 on the island, so they could be hard to find.
The next morning, sunrise was at 6:30 and my alarm went off promptly at 6:00. We were both fresh and excited to get out, but as usual on the first day of the hunt it took a while to get our gear together. Craig and I started climbing the large ridge behind camp to look for deer and glass the lowlands for caribou. We spotted several deer working their way up the left side before we even reached the base of the ridge. Two were small two-points, but the third was a decent 3-point with good mass. I even removed the spotting scope to get a better look at him. It was a little early to start chasing anything yet, but I made a mental note that he was good enough for my first blacktail if I can get a shot at him. I had ready every article online I could find about Kodiak blacktails so I had a pretty good idea what a good buck looked like.
We had to go through some shoulder high brush at the base of the hills, pretty standard Kodiak Island cover from what I had read, but the real obstacle was the waist high grass and foliage growing most of the way up the mountain. Not only did it make slipping easy, but it was wet. My pants got soaked almost to my crotch pretty quickly. My Gore-tex boots and socks stayed dry for a while, but were also wet by the time we got to the top. Craig had high quality KUIU gear with gaiters so he fared better than I did. We survived, but I made a note to research ways to stay dry (or at least dry out quickly) when I got home.
Once on top, we sat to glass the miles of country. We spotted handfuls of deer in every direction. I pulled out my spotting scope to see if any were worth chasing. Most turned out to be two points or maybe small 3 points. There was one good looking buck about a mile and a half away that was wide and tall. I couldn't count points from that far, but he could be a 4 point. The does seemed to be towards the bottom of the hills while the bucks were near the top. Once we ran out of deer to check, we moved down the ridge a half mile or so and did it all over again.
An hour or two into the morning we swung around a corner of the ridge where we could see the other face and some new river bottom. I hadn't glassed 5 minutes when I spotted the caribou. It looked like 20 or 30 animals bedded a couple miles away near a bend in the creek. We quickly got out the spotting scope and could tell there were some nice bulls in the bunch. Since deer seemed plentiful and caribou scarce, we bailed off the hill and headed toward the bottom. That was my first time walking on tundra. The mogul-like areas weren't too bad as long as you didn't misstep and drop into one of the holes. I didn't care for the sections that felt like a vegetation waterbed sloshing under my feet. We picked our way along until we hit the creek. It was a lot bigger than it looked from above. There was no way we were jumping over it. We worked our way along the edge toward the caribou looking for a place to cross. About a half mile down we ran into a beaver pond that gave us a couple foot gap in only inches of water.
We had the wind in our favor so we picked our way across the flat, trying to keep some cover between us and the animals. We had to rely on the roll of the ground since brush was pretty scarce and crawling was a really wet option. The caribou didn't seem too alert though and we closed to within a couple hundred yards without being noticed. Now the hard part began since they were feeding on open tundra and our preferred range was somewhere around 50 yards. We watched the herd quite a while to see if we could anticipate their movements. It certainly looked random. Sometimes they would wander left or right for a while. Sometimes they would bed down and rest. Sometimes they would just stand in a bunch and hang their heads like they were in some stupor. All in all, I described it to Craig like a group of pigeons--pretty hard to predict.
We picked out a decent route that had some cover along small creeks and would cut the distance and headed out. We cut the distance in half when the wind shifted. Most of the caribou stuck their noses up into the wind and bunched together. Then they acted like we were a brown bear or some similar threat. They stayed downwind where they could smell us and increased the distance to a couple hundred yards. They never did really run. It wouldn't present much of a challenge for a rifle hunter, but it was pretty effective against us with our sticks and strings. We played cat and mouse with them for most of the day, but they seemed alert that we were around and we never could close the distance. We didn't want to run them off so we eventually backed off and vowed to try again after we rested them a day.
Even though the sun didn't set until almost 10:30 we headed back to camp late that afternoon. I had definitely had enough fun for the first day. I was soaked from walking through wet grass and tundra, my legs were feeling a little beat up, my ankles were complaining about the lack of good footing and my stomach wasn't happy that I hadn't eaten anything but jerky and power bars since breakfast. A couple hours later we were drying our feet and eating Mountain House dinners. Pretty good first day if you ask me.
Kodiak Island Blacktail/Caribou
We woke up at 6:00 and got our gear together a little quicker the second day. We decided to give the caribou a rest and look for deer. We headed west, swung around the base of the ridge we climbed yesterday and headed for the ridge where we had seen the biggest buck the day before. We bumped into a small buck and a doe on the ridge we wanted to climb. Once we got halfway up the ridge, we spotted the group with the bigger buck. I got the spotting scope out and confirmed that he was a small 4 point. There was also a big forkie. Craig had taken a blacktail before and was looking for a big one, but I was happy to shoot anything decent. They worked up the opposing ridge and eventually disappeared into some tall brush. The big buck was the first to disappear. He seemed to be a little more cautious than most. The majority of the deer bedded in the tall grass from what I could tell. This guy wanted something more secure.
Once they disappeared into cover, we continued our climb to get up above them. On top we could see into the next canyon and all the way to the ocean. There were a few more deer in view, but nothing of size. At one point Craig said he saw a bear. I asked him where and he pointed me all the way toward the large bay about 4 miles away. Sure enough, even in the binoculars you could see a large black dot cruising across the flats. I pulled out the spotting scope and we watched it for a few minutes. That bear could really move. I started glassing the bay and picked out several more bears working around the inlet. I remembered reading that Chuck Adams likes to blacktail hunt in late August and early September when the bears are low looking for fish instead of in the hills with the deer. Seemed like sound advice to me. We worked over to another saddle and found a few more deer including a nice 3 point. I was trying to figure out if I could close in on him with the wind.
At one point I looked up the ridge above me and saw furry black ears coming my way above the grass. My heart jumped into my throat as I thought bear cub! Before I could figure out if I should jump up and yell it turned sideways and I saw it was a beautiful black fox. He was almost the size of a small western coyote. He passed behind me about 30 yards away and headed down the back of the ridge. Not long after that, the wind shifted a little and the deer below seemed to smell me and cautiously moved up the ridge. That made the decision easier and we headed back to the cover where the nice buck had disappeared in the morning.
We eased down the ridge and it looked like there was a good bush to hide behind on the right side. Craig stayed about 100 yards up the hill and I eased down the hill. Since the wind was blowing from my right, I had to stay above where I thought the deer were but it was a good spot. I could sit down and just see over the grass down the hill. If anything came out and crossed the knee of the ridge, I should get a shot. I put on an arrow and drew my bow once for a quick check. Everything seemed good.
I hadn't waited 30 minutes when I glanced down and saw antlers bobbing. I looked in the binocs and saw the big forkie feeding about 70 yards below. He started moving my way up the hill. He fed around a patch of brush and stood broadside at 50 yards. I wanted to shoot, but the buck was still coming and 5 or 10 yards closer should guarantee a hit. He moved to the left and I drew the bow. As he walked through a gap in the brush at 45 yards, I let it go. I don't know if I hadn't compensated for the angle enough or I punched the trigger, but the arrow sailed right over his back. He jumped and ran downhill 10 yards looking around for the source of the commotion. He had no idea I was there and shortly began walking back up the hill, to the right this time. I was certainly interested in another chance. I nocked an arrow and got ready. When he gave me a quartering away shot at 45 yards, I held a little lower and watched the arrow fly true. He jumped then walked downhill slowly, obviously in pain. After about 50 yards his hindquarters started to wobble and he bedded in sight. A few seconds later, he rolled over and kicked. I had my first blacktail.
I waved Craig down and we took pictures. Then we cut up the buck while looking around occasionally for bears. We hadn't seen any activity, but in a place like Kodiak you never know. Craig offered to carry my bow and spotting scope so I ended up with about 60 pounds on my back. The walk back to camp was pretty uneventful. We ate some Mountain House meals in good daylight and talked about strategy for the caribou the next day.
Morning found us slogging across the tundra looking for the caribou again. We spotted them after a while only a few hundred yards from where we left them. They were once again in the middle of open ground with minimal stalking cover. We closed the distance to a couple hundred yards again without detection. The wind was in our faces this time and seemed steady. Craig had come to Kodiak for a caribou, so I told him to try the stalk. I would swing around below them in case they changed direction or maybe for a follow up shot if he got one and the herd came my way.
I could see Craig pretty well. He belly crawled 100 yards closer and the herd seemed oblivious. Every once in a while I could see his head come up as he found the herd and ranged them. Then the herd started wandering right toward him. My heart was pounding just watching the imminent encounter. Craig obviously noticed too since he hunkered down and tried to disappear in 6 inch tall cover. It was hard to tell how close they were, but suddenly one of the bulls pegged Craig. The standoff began as more bulls walked to the front and also began to stare. Then the group started easing away and Craig realized he had better act. He told me later that he had been trying to range the bulls, but the grass was interfering with his rangefinder. He finally came up and drew his bow.
I couldn't see the shot, but the herd suddenly shuffled off away from me. I kept glassing to see if one would fall, but didn't see anything. I walked up to Craig and he said he had missed low. He thinks they were about 45 yards when he first got spotted, but they put some distance between him before he was able to get off a shot. The herd didn't go more than half a mile so we kept after them the rest of the day, but again it seemed like they knew we were around and stalking was tough. We ended the day vowing to get them next time.
As before, we gave the caribou the next day off and went looking for deer on day 4. We had glassed a really large buck a few miles away on a couple small peaks. Craig is a small, fit guy and he can really cover ground so I told him he should go after the buck himself. There wasn't any need for us to stay together if we were deer hunting. Packing a deer back to camp was a one man job. I told him I would get up top and go down the ridge above camp that we never checked after we found the caribou the first day. I was pretty sore so I hung out around camp and ate lunch while some rain rolled through that morning. I fashioned some improvised gators out of a waterproof pack cover hoping that would make the wet foliage tolerable. After lunch I headed up the ridge. About the time I got to the top another rain storm arrived. I found a comfortable seat and pulled on my poncho for about an hour wait. When it cleared I hiked up to the ridge top.
The clouds were hanging low and I couldn't see much. They would raise a little at times and I saw a couple deer across the bottom. Before I could really confirm the size on anything, the rain and clouds arrived again. I set my poncho out on the ground and rolled up in it. After another hour wait, it cleared but the deer disappeared so I kept easing up the ridge. I got caught one more time in rain before it finally cleared up. The wind was blowing pretty hard, but at least I could see. Half a mile or so down the ridge I peeked over the ridge top and spotted a nice forkie bedded about a hundred yards down the ridge. I wanted something a little bigger for my second and final deer so I kept moving.
Once they disappeared into cover, we continued our climb to get up above them. On top we could see into the next canyon and all the way to the ocean. There were a few more deer in view, but nothing of size. At one point Craig said he saw a bear. I asked him where and he pointed me all the way toward the large bay about 4 miles away. Sure enough, even in the binoculars you could see a large black dot cruising across the flats. I pulled out the spotting scope and we watched it for a few minutes. That bear could really move. I started glassing the bay and picked out several more bears working around the inlet. I remembered reading that Chuck Adams likes to blacktail hunt in late August and early September when the bears are low looking for fish instead of in the hills with the deer. Seemed like sound advice to me. We worked over to another saddle and found a few more deer including a nice 3 point. I was trying to figure out if I could close in on him with the wind.
At one point I looked up the ridge above me and saw furry black ears coming my way above the grass. My heart jumped into my throat as I thought bear cub! Before I could figure out if I should jump up and yell it turned sideways and I saw it was a beautiful black fox. He was almost the size of a small western coyote. He passed behind me about 30 yards away and headed down the back of the ridge. Not long after that, the wind shifted a little and the deer below seemed to smell me and cautiously moved up the ridge. That made the decision easier and we headed back to the cover where the nice buck had disappeared in the morning.
We eased down the ridge and it looked like there was a good bush to hide behind on the right side. Craig stayed about 100 yards up the hill and I eased down the hill. Since the wind was blowing from my right, I had to stay above where I thought the deer were but it was a good spot. I could sit down and just see over the grass down the hill. If anything came out and crossed the knee of the ridge, I should get a shot. I put on an arrow and drew my bow once for a quick check. Everything seemed good.
I hadn't waited 30 minutes when I glanced down and saw antlers bobbing. I looked in the binocs and saw the big forkie feeding about 70 yards below. He started moving my way up the hill. He fed around a patch of brush and stood broadside at 50 yards. I wanted to shoot, but the buck was still coming and 5 or 10 yards closer should guarantee a hit. He moved to the left and I drew the bow. As he walked through a gap in the brush at 45 yards, I let it go. I don't know if I hadn't compensated for the angle enough or I punched the trigger, but the arrow sailed right over his back. He jumped and ran downhill 10 yards looking around for the source of the commotion. He had no idea I was there and shortly began walking back up the hill, to the right this time. I was certainly interested in another chance. I nocked an arrow and got ready. When he gave me a quartering away shot at 45 yards, I held a little lower and watched the arrow fly true. He jumped then walked downhill slowly, obviously in pain. After about 50 yards his hindquarters started to wobble and he bedded in sight. A few seconds later, he rolled over and kicked. I had my first blacktail.
I waved Craig down and we took pictures. Then we cut up the buck while looking around occasionally for bears. We hadn't seen any activity, but in a place like Kodiak you never know. Craig offered to carry my bow and spotting scope so I ended up with about 60 pounds on my back. The walk back to camp was pretty uneventful. We ate some Mountain House meals in good daylight and talked about strategy for the caribou the next day.
Morning found us slogging across the tundra looking for the caribou again. We spotted them after a while only a few hundred yards from where we left them. They were once again in the middle of open ground with minimal stalking cover. We closed the distance to a couple hundred yards again without detection. The wind was in our faces this time and seemed steady. Craig had come to Kodiak for a caribou, so I told him to try the stalk. I would swing around below them in case they changed direction or maybe for a follow up shot if he got one and the herd came my way.
I could see Craig pretty well. He belly crawled 100 yards closer and the herd seemed oblivious. Every once in a while I could see his head come up as he found the herd and ranged them. Then the herd started wandering right toward him. My heart was pounding just watching the imminent encounter. Craig obviously noticed too since he hunkered down and tried to disappear in 6 inch tall cover. It was hard to tell how close they were, but suddenly one of the bulls pegged Craig. The standoff began as more bulls walked to the front and also began to stare. Then the group started easing away and Craig realized he had better act. He told me later that he had been trying to range the bulls, but the grass was interfering with his rangefinder. He finally came up and drew his bow.
I couldn't see the shot, but the herd suddenly shuffled off away from me. I kept glassing to see if one would fall, but didn't see anything. I walked up to Craig and he said he had missed low. He thinks they were about 45 yards when he first got spotted, but they put some distance between him before he was able to get off a shot. The herd didn't go more than half a mile so we kept after them the rest of the day, but again it seemed like they knew we were around and stalking was tough. We ended the day vowing to get them next time.
As before, we gave the caribou the next day off and went looking for deer on day 4. We had glassed a really large buck a few miles away on a couple small peaks. Craig is a small, fit guy and he can really cover ground so I told him he should go after the buck himself. There wasn't any need for us to stay together if we were deer hunting. Packing a deer back to camp was a one man job. I told him I would get up top and go down the ridge above camp that we never checked after we found the caribou the first day. I was pretty sore so I hung out around camp and ate lunch while some rain rolled through that morning. I fashioned some improvised gators out of a waterproof pack cover hoping that would make the wet foliage tolerable. After lunch I headed up the ridge. About the time I got to the top another rain storm arrived. I found a comfortable seat and pulled on my poncho for about an hour wait. When it cleared I hiked up to the ridge top.
The clouds were hanging low and I couldn't see much. They would raise a little at times and I saw a couple deer across the bottom. Before I could really confirm the size on anything, the rain and clouds arrived again. I set my poncho out on the ground and rolled up in it. After another hour wait, it cleared but the deer disappeared so I kept easing up the ridge. I got caught one more time in rain before it finally cleared up. The wind was blowing pretty hard, but at least I could see. Half a mile or so down the ridge I peeked over the ridge top and spotted a nice forkie bedded about a hundred yards down the ridge. I wanted something a little bigger for my second and final deer so I kept moving.
Kodiak Island Blacktail/Caribou
I peeked over the top again about 100 yards later and saw a dandy buck standing on a small point 70 yards below me. He was looking down the ridge and probably had four points per side. I eased back and dropped my pack. When I peeked over again, I saw the buck bed down. He must have been bedded and stood for a minute to look at something below. It was a lucky break for me since I could only see his rack now and probably wouldn't have spotted him. The route to the buck was open, but he couldn't see me over the foliage without standing so I had a chance. I got into a crab crawl position and started easing down the 70 degree wet slope. After 5 yards or so the wet grass squeaked against my boot soles and the buck's rack turned my way. I froze and after a few minutes they turned back downhill. I ranged the rack and at 65 yards knew I wanted to get closer. I tried easing downhill again. My butt was getting soaked, but slowly I was closing the distance. After 10 more yards, the grass squeaked again and the buck's rack swiveled. I froze for 5 minutes before he relaxed this time. I ranged him and at 55 yards I thought I was close enough. If I tried to get closer I might alert him. With the steep angle of the hill, I should have a solid 50 yard hold. I made the decision to wait and got comfortable with my bow in my lap and an arrow on the string.
It only took 30 or 40 minutes. The buck stood and casually looked down the steep slope. He was totally exposed and quartering away. I aimed the pin for the bottom of his off-side shoulder and squeezed the trigger. The arrow zipped away and looked like a perfect dart. It arced into the buck and made a solid whack. The buck lunged off the point and disappeared. I was worried about finding a blood trail in the tall wet grass so I hustled down to the point to see if I could spot the buck. When I got there, I could see the deer down and kicking only 100 yards below.
I went back up and grabbed my pack excited about making a great shot on a great buck. When I got back to the point it was easy to see the buck's path. He had sprayed blood all over and the trail would have been an easy one to follow. As I continued down the hill the blood only got better. When I got to the buck, I could see why. My arrow went right through the buck's heart and exited just below the front left shoulder. The entry was high on the right side of the rib cage. I couldn't have placed the arrow through the buck any better. I took pictures, cut all the meat off the carcass and began the pack to camp again. It was a mile and a half walk and I got back to camp around 10:30 right around sunset. I was whipped but ecstatic. Craig was already at camp and said the buck was a dandy and way over the P&Y minimum. He had seen some deer, but the big buck was nowhere to be found. He had watched a sow with two cubs running from a big boar.
We went to bed anxious to get after the caribou again. Unfortunately when the alarm went off it was pouring rain. We went back to sleep and awoke a couple hours later to the same. It turned out to be a long day in the tent. I was pretty wiped out from the hiking and packing so I didn't mind. Craig and I got caught up on hunting stories from the past 20 years. We were getting picked up the morning of day eight. That meant we only had two more days to get a caribou. If we wanted to pack them out without a very long night, we needed to get 'em tomorrow. Hopefully the weather would break and give us a chance.
When morning of day six arrived, it was still foggy and rainy. We made breakfast and hoped for the best. Around noon, the rain stopped and the fog lifted a little. We knew about where the caribou would be so we figured it was good enough. We pulled on our wet weather gear and headed for the river bottom. We spotted the caribou before we even hit the creek. With visions of antlers dancing in our heads we made it to the creek quick enough, but found things had changed a little. All the rain had swollen the creek and there was no way we could cross at the beaver dam, not even in hippers. We knew the creek only got bigger below from previous walks so we headed upriver.
About a mile of walking and an hour later we had located a couple spots where we could jump the creek. We had to go above a split which shrunk the creek size considerably. We headed back toward the caribou with renewed energy. We closed to within a couple hundred yards again and faced our familiar dilemma. The bou were out in the open. We watched them for a while to see if they were moving any particular direction. It was hard to tell, but maybe they were coming our way a little and they were moving more uphill than any other direction. The wind was blowing mostly toward them so I told Craig one of us should swing around and follow the creek until we got on the other side of them. Craig said he would take the direct approach and I should swing around.
I got down along the creek and had pretty decent cover. A couple animals looked my way once or twice, but I was at least 200 yards away and in good cover. I found a great draw behind the herd and moved up the hill and got directly opposite of Craig on the other side. I crawled up until I ran out of cover and spotted the herd about 120 yards away. I watched them for 20 or 30 minutes trying to figure out what they wanted to do. I even crawled to one end of the cover and back trying to anticipate their movement. Eventually I concluded they weren't really going to come my way and seemed to be drifting uphill. I needed to swing around and get above them.
I reversed my stalk and got down along the creek again. This time I went up close to the cover along the base of the opposing hills and swung above the herd. I couldn't see them, but knew they had to be right below me. When I eased around a patch of brush, I saw antlers about 100 yards below me. The herd was milling around in the same bottom I was in. Now if they would just come my way. I snuck around to the end of the cover and positioned myself behind a patch of ferns. I was right in the middle of the bottom. The herd drifted right for a while and I thought they might head towards the brushline I had just left. Then the big guy swung them my way and here they came.
That brings us back to the start of this story. The bull Whitey and the herd kept coming. They were spread out in front of me and coming at a steady slow walk. Whitey was facing me and he didn't offer a shot as he closed to within 50 yards. Then he turned broadside just as another bull stepped right behind him. I had no shot since I was almost guaranteed to pass through. I was getting nervous with bulls almost 180 degrees in front of me. The wind was good, but the bulls on the right could hit my scent at any time. I ranged Whitey again at only 45 yards. I scanned the rest of the herd. The young bulls were to my left. Then I saw the second biggest bull in the herd. He was straight ahead, 45 yards, broadside and all alone. I decided he would do just fine. I drew the bow and sent an arrow right through his heart.
The bull jumped and the herd bunched together about 50 yards away. My bull was jittery and knew something wasn't right. After a few seconds he must have realized he was in trouble because he took off like his tail was on fire. He only made it about 5 seconds before piling up in sight. The rest of the herd watched nervously and made their way back towards Craig. I thought he might be in position to drop a bull of his own, but he had backed off when he realized the caribou were heading my way. He came walking up when he saw me looking for my arrow. We took pictures and cut the bull up for the trip to camp.
The amount of fat on the bull was amazing. It must have been 2 inches thick on top of his backstraps. By the time we got him done, it was around 10:00 PM and it started raining again. The hike back to camp was nothing short of miserable. We were tired, the ground was wet, it was raining and in the dark we couldn't navigate through the tundra very well. We kept running into holes, creeks, beaver tunnels and every other thing you could fall into in the dark. We got back to camp around 12:30. We just cooked up some Mountain House and went to sleep exhausted.
The next morning we slept in and got ready for a fast meat run. We brought the bear spray and shotgun just in case a bear had found the carcass during the night. We made it to the kill site in about an hour and 45 minutes this time. That was 45 minutes faster than our miserable night hike the evening before. We approached the carcass cautiously, but didn't see any bears or sign that they had been there. We did find a very brazen fox that would sneak in and grab a bite of fat with us 10 feet away. We loaded up the last of the meat and the antlers and made a pretty quick trip back to camp.
Craig still had the second half of the day to get a deer so he ate a quick meal and headed up the mountains. He spotted a few and tried one stalk, but nothing came together. While Craig hunted, I tried to pack things up in preparation for the plane. We finished packing in the morning and the pilot showed up right on time. The weather got better and better as we flew north. By the time we got to Kodiak, it was a beautiful blue bird day. The view from the plane was stunning. I asked the pilot how he would get the antlers back. The blacktails would ship back easily, but the caribou was enormous. He thought I might be able to check it as baggage. He thought that stood a better chance than shipping it.
We got all our gear packed up back at the transporter's office. They ran us to the post office to mail things home then to Henry's for lunch. The food was awesome and the place was packed for a Tuesday afternoon. It looked just like a Friday night at Chili's or Applebee's back home. Then he dropped us off at the airport for the trip home. I had decided to try to check the antlers as baggage. I had already wrapped the points to protect them, but the ladies at the airport said the whole thing had to be covered. I told them we didn't have a car or anything to go get supplies. They were very helpful and brought out boxes and tape for me. I spent an hour wrapping the antlers into a giant, crazy looking cardboard sculpture. The TSA guys were not thrilled, but it passed inspection and actually made it home intact. I don't know that I would recommend that method, but it was a lot cheaper than having them crated and shipped home.
All in all, the trip was amazing. Like I said above, I've never had as much success in as little time. Kodiak is certainly a beautiful place and I'll be back. I'm sure Craig wants some revenge on the caribou too. I'll get the deer and caribou scored in the near future. Based on the examples in the airport, my four point buck is probably in the mid 90 inch class. I have no idea about the caribou. He'll look really good on the wall no matter what. Just for reference, I shoot a Bowtech Allegiance, Easton full metal jacket arrows and G5 Stryker broadheads.
Jason Juliana is an Air Force mechanical engineer currently stationed in Virginia. He was born and raised in New Mexico and loves chasing elk with a bow every September the Air Force will let him. He is a true DIY hunter who has never been on a guided hunt. He has taken big game from almost every Rocky Mountain state, Alaska and a handful of states east of the Mississippi. He also enjoys bird hunting, fly fishing, long range rifle shooting and taking his wife to dinner since she lets him hunt s
It only took 30 or 40 minutes. The buck stood and casually looked down the steep slope. He was totally exposed and quartering away. I aimed the pin for the bottom of his off-side shoulder and squeezed the trigger. The arrow zipped away and looked like a perfect dart. It arced into the buck and made a solid whack. The buck lunged off the point and disappeared. I was worried about finding a blood trail in the tall wet grass so I hustled down to the point to see if I could spot the buck. When I got there, I could see the deer down and kicking only 100 yards below.
I went back up and grabbed my pack excited about making a great shot on a great buck. When I got back to the point it was easy to see the buck's path. He had sprayed blood all over and the trail would have been an easy one to follow. As I continued down the hill the blood only got better. When I got to the buck, I could see why. My arrow went right through the buck's heart and exited just below the front left shoulder. The entry was high on the right side of the rib cage. I couldn't have placed the arrow through the buck any better. I took pictures, cut all the meat off the carcass and began the pack to camp again. It was a mile and a half walk and I got back to camp around 10:30 right around sunset. I was whipped but ecstatic. Craig was already at camp and said the buck was a dandy and way over the P&Y minimum. He had seen some deer, but the big buck was nowhere to be found. He had watched a sow with two cubs running from a big boar.
We went to bed anxious to get after the caribou again. Unfortunately when the alarm went off it was pouring rain. We went back to sleep and awoke a couple hours later to the same. It turned out to be a long day in the tent. I was pretty wiped out from the hiking and packing so I didn't mind. Craig and I got caught up on hunting stories from the past 20 years. We were getting picked up the morning of day eight. That meant we only had two more days to get a caribou. If we wanted to pack them out without a very long night, we needed to get 'em tomorrow. Hopefully the weather would break and give us a chance.
When morning of day six arrived, it was still foggy and rainy. We made breakfast and hoped for the best. Around noon, the rain stopped and the fog lifted a little. We knew about where the caribou would be so we figured it was good enough. We pulled on our wet weather gear and headed for the river bottom. We spotted the caribou before we even hit the creek. With visions of antlers dancing in our heads we made it to the creek quick enough, but found things had changed a little. All the rain had swollen the creek and there was no way we could cross at the beaver dam, not even in hippers. We knew the creek only got bigger below from previous walks so we headed upriver.
About a mile of walking and an hour later we had located a couple spots where we could jump the creek. We had to go above a split which shrunk the creek size considerably. We headed back toward the caribou with renewed energy. We closed to within a couple hundred yards again and faced our familiar dilemma. The bou were out in the open. We watched them for a while to see if they were moving any particular direction. It was hard to tell, but maybe they were coming our way a little and they were moving more uphill than any other direction. The wind was blowing mostly toward them so I told Craig one of us should swing around and follow the creek until we got on the other side of them. Craig said he would take the direct approach and I should swing around.
I got down along the creek and had pretty decent cover. A couple animals looked my way once or twice, but I was at least 200 yards away and in good cover. I found a great draw behind the herd and moved up the hill and got directly opposite of Craig on the other side. I crawled up until I ran out of cover and spotted the herd about 120 yards away. I watched them for 20 or 30 minutes trying to figure out what they wanted to do. I even crawled to one end of the cover and back trying to anticipate their movement. Eventually I concluded they weren't really going to come my way and seemed to be drifting uphill. I needed to swing around and get above them.
I reversed my stalk and got down along the creek again. This time I went up close to the cover along the base of the opposing hills and swung above the herd. I couldn't see them, but knew they had to be right below me. When I eased around a patch of brush, I saw antlers about 100 yards below me. The herd was milling around in the same bottom I was in. Now if they would just come my way. I snuck around to the end of the cover and positioned myself behind a patch of ferns. I was right in the middle of the bottom. The herd drifted right for a while and I thought they might head towards the brushline I had just left. Then the big guy swung them my way and here they came.
That brings us back to the start of this story. The bull Whitey and the herd kept coming. They were spread out in front of me and coming at a steady slow walk. Whitey was facing me and he didn't offer a shot as he closed to within 50 yards. Then he turned broadside just as another bull stepped right behind him. I had no shot since I was almost guaranteed to pass through. I was getting nervous with bulls almost 180 degrees in front of me. The wind was good, but the bulls on the right could hit my scent at any time. I ranged Whitey again at only 45 yards. I scanned the rest of the herd. The young bulls were to my left. Then I saw the second biggest bull in the herd. He was straight ahead, 45 yards, broadside and all alone. I decided he would do just fine. I drew the bow and sent an arrow right through his heart.
The bull jumped and the herd bunched together about 50 yards away. My bull was jittery and knew something wasn't right. After a few seconds he must have realized he was in trouble because he took off like his tail was on fire. He only made it about 5 seconds before piling up in sight. The rest of the herd watched nervously and made their way back towards Craig. I thought he might be in position to drop a bull of his own, but he had backed off when he realized the caribou were heading my way. He came walking up when he saw me looking for my arrow. We took pictures and cut the bull up for the trip to camp.
The amount of fat on the bull was amazing. It must have been 2 inches thick on top of his backstraps. By the time we got him done, it was around 10:00 PM and it started raining again. The hike back to camp was nothing short of miserable. We were tired, the ground was wet, it was raining and in the dark we couldn't navigate through the tundra very well. We kept running into holes, creeks, beaver tunnels and every other thing you could fall into in the dark. We got back to camp around 12:30. We just cooked up some Mountain House and went to sleep exhausted.
The next morning we slept in and got ready for a fast meat run. We brought the bear spray and shotgun just in case a bear had found the carcass during the night. We made it to the kill site in about an hour and 45 minutes this time. That was 45 minutes faster than our miserable night hike the evening before. We approached the carcass cautiously, but didn't see any bears or sign that they had been there. We did find a very brazen fox that would sneak in and grab a bite of fat with us 10 feet away. We loaded up the last of the meat and the antlers and made a pretty quick trip back to camp.
Craig still had the second half of the day to get a deer so he ate a quick meal and headed up the mountains. He spotted a few and tried one stalk, but nothing came together. While Craig hunted, I tried to pack things up in preparation for the plane. We finished packing in the morning and the pilot showed up right on time. The weather got better and better as we flew north. By the time we got to Kodiak, it was a beautiful blue bird day. The view from the plane was stunning. I asked the pilot how he would get the antlers back. The blacktails would ship back easily, but the caribou was enormous. He thought I might be able to check it as baggage. He thought that stood a better chance than shipping it.
We got all our gear packed up back at the transporter's office. They ran us to the post office to mail things home then to Henry's for lunch. The food was awesome and the place was packed for a Tuesday afternoon. It looked just like a Friday night at Chili's or Applebee's back home. Then he dropped us off at the airport for the trip home. I had decided to try to check the antlers as baggage. I had already wrapped the points to protect them, but the ladies at the airport said the whole thing had to be covered. I told them we didn't have a car or anything to go get supplies. They were very helpful and brought out boxes and tape for me. I spent an hour wrapping the antlers into a giant, crazy looking cardboard sculpture. The TSA guys were not thrilled, but it passed inspection and actually made it home intact. I don't know that I would recommend that method, but it was a lot cheaper than having them crated and shipped home.
All in all, the trip was amazing. Like I said above, I've never had as much success in as little time. Kodiak is certainly a beautiful place and I'll be back. I'm sure Craig wants some revenge on the caribou too. I'll get the deer and caribou scored in the near future. Based on the examples in the airport, my four point buck is probably in the mid 90 inch class. I have no idea about the caribou. He'll look really good on the wall no matter what. Just for reference, I shoot a Bowtech Allegiance, Easton full metal jacket arrows and G5 Stryker broadheads.
Jason Juliana is an Air Force mechanical engineer currently stationed in Virginia. He was born and raised in New Mexico and loves chasing elk with a bow every September the Air Force will let him. He is a true DIY hunter who has never been on a guided hunt. He has taken big game from almost every Rocky Mountain state, Alaska and a handful of states east of the Mississippi. He also enjoys bird hunting, fly fishing, long range rifle shooting and taking his wife to dinner since she lets him hunt s
