40 Mile Caribou Hunt 2020 Interior Alaska

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Please read a few important thoughts I have about this hunt below:

You are going to hear some heavy breathing. It’s the mountains man, moving up and down those slopes on foot will wear you out.

The 40 Mile caribou hunt (also known as RC860 fall hunt) is strictly a meat hunt for me. Caribou are herd animals, which means when the animals are clustered together, the hunters will also be closer to each other than one is accustomed to. In the past I have been as far as 10 miles from the road and still had trouble with some guys acting in an unethical way.

This year we never made it more than about 4 or 5 miles away from the road, mostly due to time constraints. I limited the amount of footage I took because the situation just isn't appealing to me.

This is my third year hunting the 40 Mile herd myself, but in years prior I had also tagged along just to check the area out. Each of the three years I have participated in this hunt, I have either had to move quickly to get out of the way or actually hit the ground (like in this video at about the 3:00 mark) because some fellow hunters had done a poor job of checking their field of fire.

So...before the internet experts show up, I'm going to touch on the short clip I threw in there of us hitting the ground. Prior to the caribou running above us, there were no hunters on the ridge line above the running bou, with the exception of a few hunters to our East about 500 yards, and we had made some visual contact so they knew where we were. A cow and three calves came over the ridge and were moving above us laterally. At that time two hunters popped over the ridge in pursuit and didn't bother to look below them at about their two o'clock position. If they had, they would have noticed us in a wide open spot, looking over the steep draw and adjacent bowl below us. Long story short, they were acting pretty unethically. I'm no cameraman, so unfortunately I hadn't been rolling for the beginning when we realized the caribou came over the ridge with hunters in pursuit. I was rattled because I have heard too many stories about hunters nearly being shot, and having this happen again, in wide open country, makes me not want to participate in this hunt.

I don't want to be negative. Throughout the couple of days I was out there, we saw lots of hunters acting like most do, being legal and ethical at all times. With so many hunters participating in the hunt, one has to be extra careful to know exactly what is beyond where they are shooting. If you are looking to participate in the 40 Mile hunt in the future, the winter hunt (RC867) tends to be at least a little bit quieter, but will usually require a snow machine.

There has been some chatter online about pushing ADF&G to change the format of the 40 Mile hunt in the future, and I'm sure ADF&G is looking into it. Again, I don't want to discourage anyone from going up to harvest a caribou, but it is CRITICAL to read the regulations from front to back, even for a straightforward hunt like this one.

Do your best to lookout for other hunters, and help them if they need it!

Be safe out there.

Видео 40 Mile Caribou Hunt 2020 Interior Alaska канала Ptarmigan Butts Alaskan Adventures LLC