We didn’t do too much during September due to it being my on-call month for deployment (the reason I also didn’t have any hunts planned). We decided that the camper had been sitting for too long, so a camping weekend was agreed on… but we didn’t really have a plan. A couple days before the weekend, Alaska Fish and Game extended the caribou season a week. Why not camp while hunting? Well, the main deterrent was the 5.5 hour drive. After discussing with Danielle, we decided just me and Ashton would go for a guy’s camping/ hunting weekend and the girls would stay home to do girl stuff.
Since Danielle wasn’t coming with, we didn’t have to wait for
her to get done with daycare before we left. I decided to work extra-long
Thursday and finish my work halfway to our hunting area so we could leave early
Friday.
Ashton was psyched after he heard it was just going to be us
hunting for caribou… he wouldn’t stop asking if I was excited about it and kept
reminding me of the day we were leaving. In preparation for the hunt, I took
him with to the grocery store to have him decide want he wanted to eat during the
hunt. You can imagine what we got… Doritos (he tried the Cool Ranch kind and
those are his new favorite), Sour Patch Kids, bubble gum, Scooby Snacks,
Donuts, kitkat, snickers, jerky. Those were just the snacks, we got real food
too for meals.
Friday morning came and he shot out of bed before the alarm
went off. Ashton takes forever to eat breakfast so I had plenty of time to get
some work done before he finished. I was already packed, so once breakfast was
done, we hit the road at 9AM.
Ashton talked my ear off most of the way, until he passed out
at 10:30. He woke up when we stopped at Glenn Allen. Of course we grabbed some
Tok Thai. Ashton’s new favorite dish there is the Thai BBQ Chicken (three large
strips of tender chicken and lots of sticky rice… with peanut sauce dumped on
it). I got my standard chicken pad thai.
We got back on our way shortly after and ate on the way. An
animal Ashton has been asking to see in person for a while now is a fox. We
were lucky enough to spot a fox in the middle of the road on our way there and
it stayed put long enough for Ashton to get a good look at it. He was excited
to cross that off his viewing list. Three hours later (with a 30-minute
construction delay), we rolled into our hunting area. There was a small bull
moose near the road and Ashton was able to see and admire it too.
Luckily it wasn’t raining, so we decided to get a hike in to
see if could find a caribou before dinner. I wanted to show Ashton where
Danielle shot her first caribou. This spot was located a short mile hike away
on the other side of a hill/mountain without the highway in sight. Of course,
we were hoping to see caribou, but I took my .22 handgun with incase some
ptarmigan showed up. This was also a great time to have Ashton practice his
hunting voice, aka whispering so animals and other things couldn’t heat him.
We got to Danielle’s kill site and decided to keep moving
south to another hill. We stopped and setup on a glassing hill. Ashton then let
me know… “I’m hungry.” DAD FAIL. I of course forgot to pack snacks. That’s okay
though, I just dug into the kill snacks (I always pack a full-sized candy bar
for each person to devour after an animal is dropped and before the field
dressing starts). I pulled out the Milky Ways and handed him one. This was the
first time he tried one and he loved it.
I gave him the job of holding onto and using the range finder.
He treasured it! He had that thing around his neck and was looking through it
nonstop. I’m surprised he didn’t use up the batteries with how much he was
hitting the range button. He was looking at some bushes and let me know that he
thought he saw a rabbit. I knew he didn’t really see a rabbit (since the bush
was 5 feet away) but we decided to walk in that direction to check it out.
We circled the hill and didn’t see a rabbit, or caribou, but
we spotted three moose! There was a very large bull with a couple cows hanging
out on a ridge. We watched them for a while before we returned to our packs to
glass some more for caribou.
It was starting to get late so we packed up and headed back to
the truck. We found an old moose kill skull along the way and Ashton decided he
wanted a couple teeth. He couldn’t pull them so I was asked to smash them out…
mission accomplished. On our way down the mountain, we came across a pika. This
was the first time Ashton saw a pika and loved watching it. I had to pry him
away to stop watching it. Shortly after we walked away he asked me if we could
shoot it. I asked him why we would want to shoot something like that, to which
he replied, “because I want to know what a pika’s heart tastes like.” For some
reason, Ashton is obsessed with tasting the heart of every possible animal! He
knows we don’t kill animals without the intent of eating them, but we reviewed
the need to eat all of them, not just specific parts. I let him know that we
probably won’t shoot a pika because there isn’t much meat on them and they
likely don’t taste good. He then replied with something I say a lot, “How do
you know they won’t taste good, have you tried one before?”… NO … “Then you won’t
know until you try it. You might like it!”
During this evening hunt, Ashton had a VERY hard time remembering
to use his hunting voice in the appropriate places, but he got better at it.
Caribou don’t really care too much, but in preparation for our bison hunt in October,
if one of those guys were to hear even the slightest peep out of him, they
would be miles away in a heartbeat.
We got to the bottom of the mountain and raced to the truck to
see who would get there first. I won this time… another thing we are working on
is to channel his competitive spirit and a resulting loss on not whining, but congratulating
and trying harder next time. It didn’t matter though; he was having so much fun
I don’t think I could have upset him even if I tried.
We packed up the truck and drove west to find a camping spot
for the night, looking for a place overlooking a field to watch while we hung
out around the fire and did the truck camping stuff. We found the perfect spot,
but it didn’t have any caribou.
I got a fire started while I tasked him with digging a deep
hole in the ground. I knew he would have to poop at some point, so he was
digging his own outhouse. Of note, I didn’t take any toys with on this trip, but
he did fine playing with anything he could find.
The fire was blazing and we sat around flames joking and
enjoying each other’s company. I cooked up four hotdogs, one for him and three
for me. He then opened his bag of blue Doritos excited to try another flavor. He
instantly fell in love with them and declared the red Doritos as far inferior
to the blue. We lounged a while stuffing ourselves with chips until I
introduced him to toasting. I told him how toasts work and when you do them. He
loved the idea. He proposed his first toast… “We had a good day hiking, the hotdogs
were yummy, I like doing stuff just you and me Dad, aaaaaand caribou hunting is
fun… Cheers!” NAILED IT! He then asked to do a toast every 10 minutes after
that, except he kept forgetting what the word “toast” was so he called it, “the
cheers thing”, “bread”, and “drinking words.”
The sun went down and it started to get cold. We put
everything away and jumped into the camper for a movie on his tablet before
bed. He was excited to sleep on the big Queen bed with me because he is usually
forced to sleep on the foldout bed with Tundra when the whole family uses the
camper.
The plan for the next day was to wake up early, drive further west,
find a trail to hike north and then go from there. I explained to Ashton that
when we hunt, we wake up before the sun and get ready to hunt once the sun
rises. I let him know that when I tell him it’s time to get up, he can’t fuss
and we need to get ready fast. He understood
Just before bed Ashton looked over at me and told me he was
sorry we didn’t see a caribou today. He then gave me a big hug and let me know
we will probably see one tomorrow. This kid is the sweetest… but he was a liar!
It got fairly cold overnight and even snowed on us. Thank
goodness for a cozy camper with heater!! Ashton popped right out of bed at
6:45AM when I poked him to get up. I let him know we don’t have time to do our
normal morning camping routine of watching a cartoon show and playing with toys.
Instead, he had to down our breakfast and get going. He then asked if he could
have Doritos for breakfast. I said no, and then put a gigantic chocolate donut and
milk in front of him 😊
We hit the road shortly after, keeping our eyes peeled for any
movement along the road. We didn’t see anything during our drive. I got a
message from Kevin that they dropped a caribou a couple days ago so we decided
to stop by and chat for a bit. The bull was taken by Brittany and it was a
dandy! They were on their way out so we told them goodbye and planned out where
we would hike.
It rained overnight so
all the brush was soaked, leaving us with the need to stay on a trail for a
long hike in order to stay dry. The trail we started on was a small game trail that
eventually puttered out. We were then forced to hike through the brush, and to
my surprise, the brush was dry. The unfortunate part about this kind of hike is
that the brush is as tall as Ashton. He had a hard time pushing through the vegetation,
the limbs poked him in the face, and he needed to high step over branches. I
ended up putting him on my shoulders for most of the hiking when there was no
game trail to follow.
We got about a mile into the alpine and found a small hill to
setup on. We decided we would hang out on the hill for a while and see if a
caribou ventured close to us. We spotted a couple moose, and other hunters, but
no caribou. The lack of action and it being close to noon made Ashton tired. I
put all his layers on and made a tundra bed for him to take a nap. I glassed all
around us for two and a half hours while he was sleeping and again, saw zero
caribou.
Ashton woke up ready to hike, so we made our way back toward
the truck. We took a different route hoping to spoke a caribou, but only saw hoof
prints, bones, and game trails. We did see a duck on a pond and decided we
would try to go after that once we retrieved a different gun from the camper.
Once we got to the camper, we realized the duck was a diver and not ideal for
eating, so we left it alone.
Rain was moving in and that meant poor hiking conditions. We decided
to drive and road hunt by slowly moving along the road and stopping often to
glass open areas. Ashton loved it because I didn’t make him buckle up (we were
moving at a max speed of 10mph). He was bouncing all over the truck trying to
find something moving in the fields outside. He also waived at every single ATV
and vehicle that passed us, filling with joy when they waived back.
We drove quite a ways through some torrential down pours and
beautiful rainbows. We didn’t see a single caribou but of course, we saw a
handful of moose. We also didn’t see any meat in camps, which indicated poor
hunting everywhere. Right when we decided to turn around, we noticed that
almost every vehicle in a parking lot had caribou meat hanging. These cars were
parked at a trailhead with ATVs on their trailers, most likely shooting the
caribou dozens of miles off the road.
It was close to 6PM at this time so we needed to find a place
to camp, cook dinner, and settle down for the night. We turned around and found
a great place overlooking a large lake with terrain that would filter caribou
in front of us if a group moved our direction. The rain stopped as we pulled in
and the skies cleared up. I got the fire going while Ashton tried catching bugs
and digging holes.
Dinner was the same as the night prior and Ashton didn’t care
at all. The conversations were great and the 20 or so toasts Ashton proposed
were all amusing. After dinner, we checked out another lake on the other side
of the road. This lake was beaming with life. We saw a beaver, ducks, and tons
of musk rats. One duck was very close so we went back to grab the gun, but upon
our return he vanished.
The fire started to dwindle and darkness began creeping in on
us. We spread out the fire as the moon peaked over the mountain. Retreating to
the camper, we initiated the typical nightly routine of junk food and a movie.
This night got a little crazy… we stuffed ourselves with Scooby snacks, sour
bright crawlers, and sour patch kids. I ate so many my stomach was cramping!
Before dozing off, Ashton made sure to tell me multiple times
that he loved me and that he liked doing things with just me (it melted my
heart each time).
We woke up Sunday before sunrise. It dropped a little below 30
overnight and everything was crusty with frost. We spent the morning looking
over the field in front of the truck while we ate our breakfast and prepared
for a partial day of hunting before we drove home. I was hopeful the full moon
allowed caribou to move overnight and since no hunters were out to impede them,
perhaps we would get lucky with one moseying in front of our camp… no such
luck.
We jumped in the truck to road hunt for a ways until we got to
a new trail I wanted to check out for an AM hike. The plan was to hike a couple
miles on the trail and hill ridges, glass for a few hours, eat lunch, and then
return to the truck for Ashton to conk out while I drive. The new hiking area
was very nice, unfortunately, it was more of a moose area than caribou, but
then again, that was pretty much everywhere this year.
Ashton doesn’t really glass or look for game for much longer
then a couple minutes. He does a great job of keeping himself busy though and
never whined about staying in one spot for multiple hours. He would play with
rocks, dig with the trekking sticks, jump on my back, and beat up bushes in the
area. If he got a little too loud or crazy, it only took a small reminder to
simmer down.
This was our last hope to see a caribou, and it didn’t pan
out. We returned to the truck and headed home.
I promised Ashton that if he was a good little hunter, we
would stop at Long Lake to look for baby fish. He earned that title and the promised
reward that accompanied it. After a good three-hour nap, we stopped at Long
Lake to look for the baby fish. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a single minnow to
be found. He was disappointed, but he understands that is part of fishing.
We decided to stop at one last trail for a quick hike and the
potential to bring home a grouse. It only took 50 feet into the trail before a
grouse flew in front of us. He sat on a log about 20 yards away and I pulled up
my 22LR to shoot him. I released 5 shots and I couldn’t hit the damn thing! I
was so pissed after it flew away from getting too nervous. I have no idea if my
aim was terrible or if the gun wasn’t shooting straight. After that poor
performance, I vowed to add different sights to the gun. Ashton gave me a good
razzing too and kept reminding me about how I couldn’t hit the grouse… that
turd. We hiked a little further on the trail without seeing another bird.
Deflated again, we turned around to head home, empty handed.
We may not have brought any meat home, but MAN was that a fun
weekend of hunting and hanging out with Ashton (huge success). It was probably
one of my favorite hunts I have ever done, that’s how much I enjoyed it. I later
reflected on how much fun I had with Ashton and realized that if I shot a caribou
prior to this weekend, I would have never had that Dad/ Ashton time. No, we
didn’t really need the meat, but it would have been nice to supplement our
freezer and our neighbor’s freezer. I really wanted Ashton to see the whole
process of shooting something, field dressing it, getting it home in perfect
condition, and then processing it for the freezer. It’s OK though, we still
have the bison hunt and I am very confident in our success probability for that
hunt.
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