BD
11-25-2007, 10:32 AM
Jeez, a guy goes hunting for a week and the old place for posting inane ramblings is up and gone.
In any event I just got back from a very succesful caribou hunt in northern Quebec. We were lucky this year in that the migration stayed very well consolidated all the way down to the Quebec Hydro road. It is really something to see a million animals moving across the terrain together. In the two days we hunted the migration I got to watch between 8,000 and 10,000 animals pass within 100 yards of me, at times within 5 yards. In this situation shooting the animals is definately secondary to experiencing the migration.
Hunting the migration is really more about driving than hunting. "Camp" is a 42 hour drive north of where I live and the migration hit the road 175 miles east of camp, leading to a seven hour round trip to hunt each day. I filled my tag with a pair of two year old bulls the first day, and spent the second day helping out the other guys and just watching the show.
There was the usual amount of road hunter a**holery occuring along the hydro road, but if you bring a sled to pull the animals out you can leave all of that behind and hunt undisturbed animals just by walking in a mile and hunkering down in the snow. All five of us filled our tags in three days and by working at night we had the 10 animals skun out, quartered and packed by the end of day three. Any thing you leave for the next day will be frozen.
This is off topic as I was hunting with condoms because in years past, when we didn't hit the migration, shots have been long in pretty windy conditions across frozen lakes. I think it's time for me to come up with a cast boolit rifle more suitable to this task as the Canadians are definately not letting handguns in for hunting any more. A young guy with us was using a borrowed 35 rem which seemed well suited for the situation. I'm thinking a .358 win would be ideal. Any thoughts on twist? I'm thinking a bolt gun with a relatively short barrel and a low power scope. I've heard the lever action model 88's are pretty accurate, but I have no experience with one.
Although the weather was unusually warm this year, the waist deep snow and frozen lakes were a welcome chnage. It's become clear to me that my heart is in the mountains and north country. Time to start planning the end of my sojourn in the southeast.
BD
In any event I just got back from a very succesful caribou hunt in northern Quebec. We were lucky this year in that the migration stayed very well consolidated all the way down to the Quebec Hydro road. It is really something to see a million animals moving across the terrain together. In the two days we hunted the migration I got to watch between 8,000 and 10,000 animals pass within 100 yards of me, at times within 5 yards. In this situation shooting the animals is definately secondary to experiencing the migration.
Hunting the migration is really more about driving than hunting. "Camp" is a 42 hour drive north of where I live and the migration hit the road 175 miles east of camp, leading to a seven hour round trip to hunt each day. I filled my tag with a pair of two year old bulls the first day, and spent the second day helping out the other guys and just watching the show.
There was the usual amount of road hunter a**holery occuring along the hydro road, but if you bring a sled to pull the animals out you can leave all of that behind and hunt undisturbed animals just by walking in a mile and hunkering down in the snow. All five of us filled our tags in three days and by working at night we had the 10 animals skun out, quartered and packed by the end of day three. Any thing you leave for the next day will be frozen.
This is off topic as I was hunting with condoms because in years past, when we didn't hit the migration, shots have been long in pretty windy conditions across frozen lakes. I think it's time for me to come up with a cast boolit rifle more suitable to this task as the Canadians are definately not letting handguns in for hunting any more. A young guy with us was using a borrowed 35 rem which seemed well suited for the situation. I'm thinking a .358 win would be ideal. Any thoughts on twist? I'm thinking a bolt gun with a relatively short barrel and a low power scope. I've heard the lever action model 88's are pretty accurate, but I have no experience with one.
Although the weather was unusually warm this year, the waist deep snow and frozen lakes were a welcome chnage. It's become clear to me that my heart is in the mountains and north country. Time to start planning the end of my sojourn in the southeast.
BD