Finished with our winter caribou hunt at the tree line of northern Canada. 40 below dark zero was the word. Plauged by bitter cold resulting in constant equipment/mechanical problems. A few rifles would not even fire if you can believe that. 10 guys took 16 caribou. As the "crow flys" 537 miles north of my home. GPS coordinate of: 57.51975,-100.58244 if you care
Ted
-- Edited by M12Shooter on Monday 11th of February 2013 05:52:02 PM
-- Edited by M12Shooter on Monday 11th of February 2013 06:27:50 PM
Curious. Did your group leave the firearms outside when you were inside? We used to do that during (Army) winter training to prevent condensation from freezing the moving parts. It's a whole different game at those temperatures, for certain!
Nice photos.
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Ted Your making me jealous getting out and camping that far out into the wilderness and bagging some winter meat. Being that cold you need to watch what kind of oil you use on your gun and dress warm enough to be able to shoot straight. What was the average yardage of the shots taken? Thanks for shareing the story & pictires. Pat
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Looks like an incredible hunt. Thank you for sharing with us.
We had clients that hunted in subzero climates bring us their rifles to completely tear down to the last pin, screw and spring, clean and degrease everything so not a spec of oil remained inside the rifle, minimum amounts of the right kinds of oil on the outside for rust protection. They would go hunt, bring us back the rifle, we would tear it back down, clean and oil. Then they would repeat the process before the next hunt.
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Today in my geography class we are going to find where you hunted. We have been learning latitude and longitude, so this will be a nice refresher course.
The Winter Caribou Campaign is always tough one. Being ill equipped or foolish can easily cost one his life. All rifles stay in the cold throughout the duration of the hunt. I strip my bolt down and trigger beforehand and clean all oil residue with solvent. Never had ant trouble with my Sako but a couple guns refused to fire or hang fired. I would suspect oil in the bolt and around the firing pin/trigger group was the cause.
Highlander, the animal in the photo was shot at 180. Most shots are closer than this as caribou are dumb as posts. I would suspect many never seen a person before. They go out onto lakes when the sun is shining for the solar gain. One can simply drive slowly toward a group with a snow machine. They will stand or walk off in single file. If the leader is shot the rest will mill about in confusion.
Not a sport hunt by any means but a "meat hunt" as we say. All the big bulls have lost their antlers by this time as well. My friends and family will eat well now. Caribou is delicious, IMO the best eating big game animal. Meat is mild like veal, light is color and fine grained.
Ted
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Ted I'd think caribou would be tender, they don't look like they are out there running all of of the time. I don't know anything about them, just asumptions. I'd think they mill around when in searh of food. Having them available as a food sourse is a good thing, same as the salmon.
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