For this caribou season, our family had the option of hunting the Nelchina herd off the Denali highway, by hunting with a proxy tag, bull only. A proxy means hunting the caribou for someone else. Our neighbor qualifies since he is over 70 and disabled. Or hunting the 40-mile herd off the Steese highway, bull only, limit of 2. Decisions, decisions. We have hunted the Denali Highway, successfully, numerous times before and is only about a 4.5 hour drive versus this being our first time to the Steese and it is about an 8 hour drive. Each hunt had a pretty low quota of caribou that Fish and Game were allowing to be taken, for herd management. Also, each herd was still migrating back to the hunting area, very slowly. So we would be looking for resident caribou that didn't leave with the others. So we decided to wait until last minute to decide which location/herd to hunt, depending on each herd's proximity and also the weather. Alaska weather can make or break your hunt, especially with children along.
In the end, we decided on the Steese Highway. Proximity of the herd hadn't really changed, so we'd be looking for the few and far between resident bou either way. However, oddly, further north was forecasted to be warmer and dryer, which equals more comfortable for the children. Another factor was that we had just lost our sweet Tundra boy and this would be our first adventure, without him. We thought it would be best to go somewhere new, without any memories of being there with Tundra in the past. Tundra had been to the Denali Highway more times than I kept track of (and loved every minute of it)
Off we went, with the cabover camper, hauling two wheelers and two meat wagons for an 8+ hour drive north. We had hopes of at least finding one caribou, cow or bull, just for the experience for the kiddos. We had high hopes of finding at least 1 bull to harvest and bring home for us and our neighbors. We had super duper high hopes of finding and harvesting 2 bulls. One for each family.
Our little fashionista. Ready to hunt with her dress and pretties on. There was this awesome stream right next to our camp spot. We saw a nice grayling caught from it and spent all of our non-hunting time here, throwing rocks, wading, catching sculpin, and playing with new friends from the North Pole.
Oh, and how could I forget?!?! A whole lotta fishy kissing!
The hills and mountains go on forever
We are so very proud and impressed with these two. They rode hard on the wheelers, long distances of rocky trails, no trail, steep hills, and knocking helmets! Ashton is more cautious of the two and was not a fan of the steep hills. But by the last trip down the trail, he was doing much better and understood it wasn't as bad as it seemed. (As we reiterated that we would not put him in an unsafe situation)
Trail leading to up and over the mountain
Ready to go up and over. There were a few technical spots where we had to unload the kids, ride through/over and then reload for the next part. But we made it safe and sound.
Since we weren't going to be bringing home a caribou, we decided to hit the water and try our luck with our poles. We tried a river that was easily accessible and caught quite a few small grayling once we found the right holes. It was fun, but they weren't keepers.
Adam was determined to get us parked near the river; a place NOT easily accessible but also not too daunting of a hike for Ash and Jos. We found the perfect spot; space for camping and only about a 1/4-1/2 mile hike through some thin woods. It was a gorgeous day, maybe even a little too hot. 70 degrees in Alaska feels like 80 and it was a 72 degree day. We weren't prepared for those temps. We all took turns fishing, Josie played in the sand, Ash made a trap for minnows, and I explored a little.
Reeled it in on that adult fly rod! HA!
On my exploration, I found a wildlife watering hole at the confluence of this river and a small stream, about 30 yards away from our previous fishing boundary with the kids. Wolf, bear, and moose tracks galore! I/we were really missing our guard dog at this point in time. I had also found a continuation of these wolf tracks at the back of the peninsula we were fishing off of. Good thing our kids are loud!
YUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMY! Fresh grayling, fried in butter on the cast iron! Ashton devoured his and then took some from daddy's plate! He often talks about it. I tried to do the same with rainbow trout on a later trip, but it just wasn't the same as grayling.
Ashton had the opportunity to shoot his new 4-10 shot gun. Bapa and GG had both found him some ammo in the lower 48, thank goodness, because there were no boxes to be found in Alaska. In fact, Adam even reached out on a hunting forum and one gentleman generously shared some of his 4-10 ammo for Ashton's sake. He didn't like the kick at first, but got use to it and was a pretty good shot! Lots of holes in that pop can!
We had a blast. Even though we didn't return with red meat for our neighbors or us, we were grateful for the gorgeous weather (which, ultimately, was probably a factor in the poor hunting/movement of animals), the grayling fishing (as the kids are most familiar with salmon and rainbow trout), and a positive first adventure without our Tundy.
Turns out, only a few caribou were taken in this area that first week of the season. We were expecting it to close after only a couple days, expecting the quota of 492 (ish <I do not recall the exact number now>) to be met. This meant we potentially had another chance to come up when the caribou moved closer. We also had a moose hunt coming up, another chance for red meat.
