← Live Wild with Remi Warren
Live Wild with Remi Warren
Ep. 199 | Of Bou and Bulls - An adventure in NWT
01:24:51
In this episode of the Live Wild Podcast, Remi Warren shares his thrilling adventure of hunting mountain caribou in the Mackenzie Mountains. He discusses the importance of preparation, physical fitness, and the logistics involved in hunting in remote areas of Canada. Throughout the episode, Remi recounts the challenges he faced, including wildlife encounters, equipment mishaps, and the emotional rollercoaster of bow hunting. Ultimately, he reflects on the lessons learned and the fulfillment of achieving a long-held dream of hunting caribou with his bow.
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Foreign I'm Remy Warren and I've lived my life in the wild as a professional guide and hunter. I've spent thousands of days perfecting my craft. I want to give that knowledge to you. In this podcast we relive some of my past adventures as I give you practical hunting tips to make you more successful. Whether you're just getting started or a lifelong hunter, this podcast will bring you along on the hunt and teach you how to live wild. This podcast is brought to you by Mountain Tough and Yeti. A lot of the tactics I talk about here require you to be in top physical shape. So I partnered with Mountain Tough to help get you ready for the mountain with their science based hunter specific training app. You'll get in shape and mentally tough able to tackle any hunt. Because we really believe this will help you be more successful As a listener to this podcast, we're giving you six free weeks to get you started. Just use code livewild. Welcome back to the Live Wild podcast, everyone. It is already September. It just seems like all this planning and prep and in my mind it just seems like, okay, archery at my first archery elk hunter. My first kind of hunt of the fall is so far out and then it's all of a sudden here and it's go time. I know for a lot of people if you got an archery elk tag this podcast, you're probably listening to this podcast on the way to the field. Maybe you got a deer tag or an antelope tag, something like that coming up. You're probably, you know, in the field or headed out listening to the podcast. Now there's a lot of people too that, hey, your season doesn't start till September, like end of September, October maybe you've got, you know, an area where you hunt and it's like rut white tails, November or even into December, right? And then there's a lot of people as well, that season's already passed. It's been an August tag. Their tag was for early season antelope, mule deer, maybe even an early elk tag. And that season's already coming on black tail tag, stuff like that. But for me, one of the fun things about getting into the season or the fall season is getting to share as well. Not only just the tips and tactics, but what I like to call like a hunt update. And so I had my first real big hunt of the the fall season here already. I just got back and it was really a dream hunt of mine. One of the things that was kind of, I hate to say bucket list, but it's just been something that I've always wanted to hunt. And it was a mountain caribou in the Northwest Territories in the Mackenzie Mountains. And for me, you know, this hunt's been, been a dream for a while and so I got to, got to do this hunt and it was incredible. So today, this week, we're gonna, we're gonna share the hunt with you. I'm going to share the story of the hunt. The other thing that I like to do is, you know, obviously kind of dissect the hunt at the end of it and let you know what went right, what went wrong. Sometimes in my opinion, the best way to learn something is from someone else's mistakes. And this hunt, something happened that has never happened to me before. It's funny because somebody even asked a question about this problem and it was like, when it happened it. Well, we'll just tell the story, but I think you're going to learn a lot from this hunt. It was an epic one for me and just an awesome adventure. So we're going to jump in a mid season hunt update and share the story of mountain caribou in the Mackenzie's. So one of the things someone told me quite a while ago, I guess is probably almost 10 years ago, probably eight, nine years ago, something like that. They said it was someone that I knew fairly well and they, they'd done a lot of hunting, different kinds of hunts and we were talking about different hunts and things. And one of the things that he mentioned kind of stuck with me at that time. He said, if you want to hunt caribou, do it now. And I, at that point, I'd never hunted caribou. I was like, you know, here's. I think caribou hunting would be awesome. Like I remember just watching videos, real tree videos, them hunting like the Leaf River Herd, I think it was, and video like Eastman's would come out. It was like Cam Haynes and the Eastman guys bow hunting caribou. And even just other videos and stories and pictures of caribou hunting, seeing mounts in the sporting goods store and thinking, man, that would be awesome to hunt these one day. And actually having hunted in Alaska in a lot of places and just never having a caribou tag, seeing caribou, but either hunting out like in an area where whatever, you know, the season wasn't open for him while I was hunting something else, or just having tag focusing on something else, whatever, but caribou was like one of those things that, that I thought, okay, this would be awesome hunt and you Know, he says, he's like, if you want to hunt him, hunt him now. Because, like, there at the time, there's some pretty good, you know, you could, like, get on some pretty good hunts, some pretty good deals. There's, you know, DIY hunts you could do in Alaska. There's other, you know, like, other hunts in other places that were not crazy expensive compared to other stuff. And then it kind of like, in the midst of this, so I started. I planned my first caribou hunt, which was a. Well, actually, yeah. I mean, I'd hunted, like, with my dad, who had the caribou tag and took him, but I. I'd actually. I'd been on successful caribou hunts, but never had a tag myself. He had a draw area. And so, you know, I was in the process of planning my first DIY caribou hunt for myself. And so, like, kind of, I think, I guess it would been the same timeframe that that hunt kicked off. Like, Quebec closed the season for Quebec. Labrador caribou shut down. So that then it became very apparent, like, yeah, if I want to hunt different species of caribou, I just got to, like, figure out a way to make it happen now because it's just only going to be harder in the future. And. And honestly, like, I think I got in at the right time because I see, like, you know, some of the other trips and things like the price on them is astronomical now at this point, like, you know, when I started, it really wasn't crazy, but it's just because I think the opportunities are getting more limited and. And whatever. I. You know, people listening is like, is it too late? No, it's not too late, but, like, it's not what it was 10 years ago or whatever. Just as far as, like, availability of hunts, I think maybe just because demand and then I don't. I don't know. But anyways, at the time, I thought, man, it would be cool to hunt all the species of caribou available. And actually, you know, at that, it was like. And I really wanted to do it with my bow. So, like, we'll call it a caribou slam with the bow. Like, I just. I thought that would be, like, a really cool goal and get me into some different country and get to hunt some. Some really unique stuff. And the cool thing about caribou is they're in that far north remote country. Like, there's very few caribou hunts where you're not in the middle of nowhere, right? And there's just something kind of really cool about that. So, you know, fast forward I guess, eight or nine years later, whatever. I actually successfully hunted all the other species of caribou except the mountain caribou. Now the mountain caribou, they're kind of in that Yukon Northwest Territories area. The cool thing about mountain caribou, I mean like their namesake is like they, you kind of picture them in iconically in the mountains while, you know, a lot of caribou. Seems like every caribou that I've hunted actually been in the mountains. I haven't really hunted them in the flat tundra so much, but I guess the woodland caribou did. So there's like the woodland caribou, there's the barren ground caribou, central barren ground caribou, there's Quebec, the Labrador caribou, there's other caribou species that there aren't open seasons for, and then the mountain caribou. And so one of the, one of the things about the mountain caribou is the fact that like they, they do get themselves in some pretty good mountains, but also they've got like really awesome antler configuration. It's like a lot heavier than some of the other caribou species. So they seem like, I don't know, just more massive in the antlers and in my opinion just more going on and like definitely bigger bodies than the other caribou species as far as I know. They just look like bigger. Right. They just kind of like. If you're thinking of like an awesome caribou adventure, then the other thing is they live in some of the more remote places of North America. So just to get there is an adventure. For this, for this particular hunt, I think it was like we had scheduled four days of travel to get there and four days of travel to get back. It's just eight days before you even start hunting. And then I had 10 days in the field to hunt. So for this I really also wanted to go to the Mackenzie Mountains because the Mackenzie Mountains, you know, I've just heard stories of just how it's like this iconic place not just for sheep, but for moose, caribou, other animals. I've heard it's just a pretty incredible place. As far as mountains everywhere you look like fairly untouched. It just feels like you're going back in time and it's been a kind of a place of as much for me as mountain caribou hunting was to be able to hunt in the Mackenzie's and see it for myself, experience it for myself. So for this trip, you know, There's a lot of, a lot of logistical travel kind of stuff going on. The interesting thing for those that don't know, like hunting in Canada isn't the easiest per se. Like you, you have to have a guide, whether even for like if you're a Canadian, if you live in Canada your whole life, to hunt the Northwest Territories, you have to live in the Northwest Territories, which very few people do. Those that do are very fortunate. I think they have some phenomenal hunting. But you know, for the, like anybody else, you have to go with an outfitter, a guide. One of the, I mean for me it wasn't really. I didn't like look around too much on who I'd hunt with. I, I went with Arctic red and river for a couple reasons. I knew a lot of people that had hunted with them before and you know, I, I like seen them like they donated, they've, over the years, like in our Reno area, they've donated a lot of trips to our Nevada Bighorns Unlimited. Everyone's like had great trips and great adventures. Like the way that they do things, like they could helicopter people in for sheep hunts and other things, but they do it the hard way. They, they want it to be a hunt, you know, which I think is really cool. Like just the way that they go about doing things is just, it's all about the resource, managing it, you know, being good stewards of what they've got and providing incredible hunts and incredible adventures. And so for me that's like, that's where I went. That's, that's who I was going with. And so to get there, you know, it was like I flew from my home to through Vancouver to Yellowknife, going to overnight in Yellowknife, then fly from Yellowknife to Norman Wells. Norman Wells. You overnight there because you just like, you got to catch the flights. Right? Right. There's only a few flights get up into this part of the world and then from there you fly on like a smaller plane. Like planes progressively get smaller the whole way up. Fly on another smaller plane into base camp and then from base camp probably like a cub out to your hunting location. So it could take you know, three to four days to like get your feet on the ground and hunt. You can hunt on or you know, might maybe you could get into camp that your base camp, night weather depending, and then you can hunt the next morning. It's like 12 hour or 24 hour, I think 12 hour wait time in between your flights and when you can actually hunt. So Being airborne and then hunting with anything like this, like, the logistical stuff, it's not like just loading up your truck and going. You know, there's the. The fact of, like, you're going to a remote place, you got to have all your gear situated, and your gear kind of needs to show up for the most part, you know, there's things you can do without. For me, the goal of this hunt and the kind of the dream behind it was to do it with my bow. And for some reason, I don't know, maybe I just put a lot of pressure on that. Like, I. I really want to bow hunt it. I, you know, love bow hunting. And when I'm packing my bow, you know, a couple of thoughts ran through my head. I was like, man, I should probably. Like, I just had this weird feeling of something was gonna happen to my bow. And I'm like, well, I have a backup bow. I generally don't take. And this is maybe not a good idea, but I generally don't take a backup bow. But my thought was this, like, I'm backpacking in. Okay? Like, having an extra bow probably isn't going to do much. And if the bow case gets lost, like, a backup bow doesn't really matter at this point, right? Because, like, it's either all or nothing. You're getting it or you're not. So I don't know. I just had, like, this bad feeling that something was going to happen to my bow. And. And kind of like, I. I started to set up a backup bow because I. My other bow I didn't have with me. I let somebody. A friend borrow it. So it was all changed up, and I actually had got a new bow that I was going to set up, but just kind of, like, got it and then didn't have enough time. So. So I was. I'm like, it's. It'll be fine. So that's in the back of my mind, right? So get to Yellowknife, and I'm waiting for the luggage. Everybody's luggage shows up. My bow is not there. Okay, Well, I mean, it's really not a problem at this point because, like, the part of the reason, too, that I chose these particular stops is, like, I looked and made sure, hey, there's. Between when I'm flying to Norman Wells and whatever, there's two more flights, right? Like, something happens. There's two more flights to get your stuff. Like, I think about all this logistics stuff. I mean, I spent a week figuring out what. What flights was the best option to, like, get My gear and what have you. Now, I hate throwing anyone under the bus, but I was like, I flew Air Canada and I didn't really realize that they were going to be striking here pretty soon. So this was like, just pre strike, but yeah. So anyways, get to there and I find out, like, my bow is just sitting in the airport. Nobody grabbed it and put it on the next plane. So we're like, cool. There's another flight coming in tonight, and that's four or five hours away. Can we get in on that? And then. And then, worst case scenario, like, there was another flight the next morning coming in, and then another flight, two more flights that next afternoon. So it's like there's ample opportunity to get the bow. And the guy flying with me, Zach, who's doing the filming, like, his boots were missing. So he was missing a bag, I was missing a bag. We flew from two completely different places and just. I don't know why, like, all right, so, like, oh, yeah. Well, the show must go on, right? So we actually have like a. We're switching kind of airlines to a smaller airline to get to Norman Wells and do the whole, like, whole deal. You know, they're looking into it. They know where the bag is. All someone has to do is grab the bag. There's plenty of time. And. And when this is like, when you're waiting, like, you just get. You're like, man, this is so. I think it'll be fine, but we'll just see what happens. And so that night, Bo didn't make it. Next morning, Bo didn't make it. So now we've got to board our other flight. And it's like, well, they're gonna have to figure out how to get it to us. Like, they can. There's a potential. We talk to someone and, you know, whatever, whatever. We also have a charter flight that we're splitting with other people that are going to the camp. Charter flights are not cheap. So I guess worst case scenario, they would probably have to put it on a charter flight. But my guess is they would just say that it got lost and not pay to put it on a charter flight. Right? Like, that would just be the deal. It's like, hey, if it was a. Anything else, it wouldn't matter. I'm at this point, like, looking for. I'm like, okay, is there any options? Anybody have a bow? Like a stick bow, a long bow? Anything? It doesn't matter. Anything. I'll take anything. Anybody coming off of a hunt that has a bow? No, no bows to be found. So make it to Norman Wells. You know, we're supposed to fly out into base camp the next morning and it's not like a thing you can really change. We talk with them like, hey, you know, we're able to like, they're like, it looks like there might be some weather so we'll actually bump you to a later flight. And there's two flights that come in, you know, like if they can get it. So next morning, you know, the. They got my bag in Yellowknife. It's a lot of bag, like a lot of travel chalk talk. But I don't know, I think it's kind of sets the, sets the tone, right? What went on. Not to be a complainer, but you're, you're just like, you're pretty worried about this kind of stuff when you go, dude, we're about to leave and they have the, the, the. Oh. So the, the bow made it right and they just need to put it on another plane again to get to us. Nothing in the place we were staying. The lady knew someone in Yellowknife. I'm like, this, the flight up here is leaving. Like if that bow's not on it, I don't know what's going to go down. She called the friend. Her friend like went to the airport, practically stole the bow. I don't know. I'm not even, I don't even know what happened. I mean, just like drove from her house, went to the airport, was like, hey, these people need this thing. I'm taking it. I'm going to go put it on this flight. And they're like cool and did. And without her doing that, like so thankful generosity of a stranger that didn't know me. And like in order for her to do that, she had to like pay to get it on to the next flight with her own money from somebody that she did not know. Like, man, it was, it was incredible. Like the fact that somebody was willing to do that and did that. And so the bow showed up like the se. Like as we were getting on our other. On our float plane flight to go fly into the base camp, which was pretty incredible. So I'm like stoked. I'm like, all right. The worries of. I was worried about the bow. Like even just packing and thinking about the trip, I was worried about the bow. I don't know why. It's like, you know, it's kind of like that self fulfilling prophecy. You think about it so much that it just ends up happening. And I'm like, okay, well, what are the contingencies and all this stuff? I thought I'd planned for everything and thank God it ended up working out. And so it's like, all right, we got to go and get all this stuff together, get on the flight, fly in. We ended up dropping off some stuff in the base camp and then that plane we're on floats and we're going to a lake. Was able to take us in that night. So we, we then land and get in and our guide was already at the cabin. I think he flew in the morning before or whatever. So we, we meet up with our guide Colin. We've got like this cabin on the lake and then our plan is to kind of, kind of spike out from there. So I mean this, the, the setting is phenomenal. Like as we are flying in you kind of go from this, I don't know, like spruce forest, tundra, not tundra, like more spruce forest, northern country, kind of flat stuff, moose country, right to all of a sudden you like hit the Mackenzie's and it's just like mountains, mountains, mountains. And it becomes more and more and more and more mountains. And I've been in a lot of different mountains. There's just something different about these mountains. It's almost like, like they, it's weird in a way because there's not like a predominant ridge it seems right. It's like there would be a drainage. Like drainage is running in every direction. It's like a. The way that I would think about is if you were to look at a mountain range with a mirror, two mirrors back to back and just that bouncing like that infinity range, it just, it, it literally is this infinity range of mountain ranges. It's just like so. In so many different types of mountains. Sheer drop off cliffs to these green rolling hills. To like just the magnitude of it was just, it just never ended. It was really, really impressive. And the interesting thing is just like how the direction of all these mountains going, it was almost confusing in a way. I mean you had your major river valleys and things obviously fed into that, but some would flow one way and someone would be another. It's like the glacier just glacier carved in a really old range. So it's really broken down in, in a really unique way. Right, right off the bat I'm like all right, it's, it's, it's like what everybody says it is. It's just, it's incredible. So we're on this lake, we decided we, we pop up and do a little like dinner scout because we got in Pretty late. So we can't hunt, but we're just, you know, looking around, scouting. So we hiked up above the cabin all the ways, set up tripods and dinner and just had some peak meals and glass and glassed up a couple bowls that looked interesting. But, you know, I mean, I'm like, I. I'm not just going to go shoot a caribou, right? Like, I got to. I got to hunt this country a little bit. Like, I got to look around a bit. So the plan was there was a lot of country, like across the lake that we could hunt. So the next day we're going to. We're going to pack up our stuff. But there's a. Like a big drainage on the backside behind the cabin. So the plan was, like, we're going to hunt that the first day and really just scout it out, see what we see, glass from distance, and kind of decide, is that the way that we want to go, or do we want to go up this other direction where people in the past had had good success. Right. And so this area, like, you're. You're out there, you're essentially hunting. Like, they don't. The cool thing about Arctic red, they don't, like, hunt two places in a row. Like, they. They don't even hunt the same place every year. Maybe not even every, I don't know, some place, maybe not even every other year. It's like there's places that just don't get hunted, you know, and it's an area the size of, I don't know, probably Yellowstone with six people in it, something like that. So you're like. It's just so vast, so remote. You're like, you can go anywhere and do anything. And it's pretty, Pretty incredible experience and feeling knowing that. So that day we. We go into that next day, we get up, I would say we got up with sunrise, but, like, the sun never set, so it's like, it's pretty bright. Each day it added, I think, like 10 or 12 to 15 minutes of dark. So it was like, no dark and then light dark and then. And then like by the end of the 10 days, there's probably like a couple hours of it, something like that. Hour and 45 minutes of dark, something like that or darker. But, you know, so it's like it didn't really matter what time we got started because it's like, it's always light. You can hunt. If you wanted to hunt for 24 hours straight, you could, which is cool. So the next morning, ish, like yeah, it was morning. It was like 7am or something like that. We. We hiked up the back side of the mountain, mountain behind the cabin and got into that canyon. Just so we crest over the top and spot some antler tips, like, ooh, bowl. And so we, you know, we could see that there's one. But like, often they should be bachelored up and they're probably going to be up in the mountains. And this is like they're up in the mountains. So that's not like, you know, like we'd spotted some sheep, like doll sheep way off in the distance. And like the caribou were above the doll sheep. It's pretty cool. So we get up to the top, bump over and in this big valley and there's a glacier kind of like up at the top and so seeable. And decide to. We. We want to see if there's another bull in there. So we back out. He was like 200, maybe 300 yards away, something like that. So we back out, we make a big, like, the wind's good. We make a big loop back up the way we came. Get higher, cruise around, like, keep him out of sight. I know where he is. And making sure we don't skyline ourselves all this stuff. Okay. Get to a nice ledge where we'd be able to look down into this basin. Start to pop over and that care. Before I could even like, get in there, look in there. That caribou is just dead. Run. And I'm like, what happened? Did somehow he catch our wind? I mean, he's like, at this point, he's a ways away from us. Did he see something? Is there another predator down here? Like, did he get a whiff of a wolf? Is there a bear? Like, what's going on? Because this thing is just hauling. And he's running down the valley, like goes through these cliffs, hits the river and just doesn't stop. And I'm thinking like, this is. This stock was blown. It wasn't even a stock. It was just. I'm like, I don't know if I'll never know why that carry we ran. Was it us? Like, did something happen? Did he catch our wind? Did he see us at one spot? And. And that's how skittish this thing was. Like, here I'm. I'm on the mountain thinking, yeah, fairly, you know, like, probably, you know, caribou can be dumb. And then now I'm thinking, these are. Are these the most skittish animals on the planet? What's going on here? It's One of those things, you got a bow in your hand. You're like, all right, well, it's okay. It's not going to be easy. Or if they're all going to act like that, we are going to be in trouble. We got our work cut out for us. But. So we sit there, you know, it was like, I would say the weather each day was just. It was kind of always rainy, but not raining hard, you know, so rain gear on and off a lot. And we're sitting there, you know, having noodle lunch, whatever, glassing. We're like. We'd seen some cows and some small. A group of small bulls or whatever. And then it's kind of like, all right, let's. Let's pack them, go somewhere else. I feel like we've seen everything and start to pack up and look below us and here comes some caribou. Like, there's just so many folds in these mountains that they just. They hide in there. Like, oh, crap. Okay. And then sit there, watch those for a while. Give it another whatever hour or something. Like, haven't seen anything. Okay. We've definitely seen everything in this canyon pop up. It's like, oh, there's some more over there. Oh, that's a better bowl. Okay. Geez. Like, you just start to realize how big this country is. And you kind of think, like, you can see it pretty easy. Oh, they'll stand out. But their coats right now, they aren't. They haven't started to turn white yet. They're very brown and like, it's. Everything's wet and they just blend in, man. They just, like. Nothing really gives them away. A few of them have, like, the white on the butt, but they just. They just blend in. You really had to pick everything apart. And then there's so many undulations and draws and drainages that are way deeper than you think. Like, everything isn't straight or linear. It just. Everything curls around and makes a crack and then comes back out and there's cracks in the cracks. Man, it was like. It was pretty interesting country. Like, very intriguing country to look at. Like, you think you can see everything and you just can't. So. So we hunted that for a while. Didn't see anything that we'd say, like, first day shooter, right? And so we. We ended up working down the ridge, covering quite a bit of country, too. Like, popping in and just getting different angles on everything. I. I like to glass far away. So I was kind. The stuff that we were going to go into tomorrow, the next day too, just to get an idea of where groups were at and saw, you know, one group of bulls, some cows. Wasn't like seeing hundreds, you know, we probably saw seven or eight bulls that day. Maybe one group of seven, like some really small bulls, and then maybe three, four, you know, okay. Size bulls. So it was a good day. We put in a lot of miles, some good vertical gain, and dropped back down. And we're like, all right, hey, cool. We got a cabin we can actually stay at, which was pretty rad. So got in the cabin. And then the plan now is we're going to. We're going to spike out. We're going to go like five, six days, something like that, Because I think that's how much country was where we could go for the most part. And then that gave us an option to kind of maybe go back down and just completely bomb out or know what's around at that point. Right. So the next morning we loaded up our packs and we. We started to head off into the new zone. So there's all these, like, different draws, and thing about it was we had to kind of go up a ways because the. Where the river had carved out is just impassable. Like, as we flew in, we could see it was just sheer cliffs down to this thing. It was like a flat spot and just drop off. So you. So if we were gonna go, like, down the river, we'd have to go up to the head and around, and there's all these different, like, head basins in there. Just so many. So many different drainages, really. And so the plan was to, like, work those drainages, which I loved that I thought, that's. That's great play. That's a great plan. So three of us went in there, and so we're walking around. So we've loaded up, we're walking around the lake. And I should mention that I also had a wolf and wolverine tag in my pocket. Like, just incidental. You never know with a bow. The odds of either of those is pretty low. So we're walking, and we're about to finish going around the lake, and there's like a caribou trail that we're gonna pop up. And I don't really know. Like, I. I don't think I. I had some water, but look, we're going up the mountain now. And the day before yesterday, we didn't really have that much water. We thought we'd run into water, and we didn't. That's like the story of my life when it comes to hunting northern countries, like you always think there's water until you need it, right? Like, there's water everywhere. And then when you're thirsty, you're like, dang it, where's the water? Or it's, like, bad water or something. So I decided I was gonna fill up my bottle at the lake before cruising up the other side there. And so I'm filling up my bottle. I got my pack off, and I strapped. I never strapped my bow to my pack. We were just joking about it. Like, I'm like, yeah, I never do this, but it has, like, you know, whatever. I feel like we can see stuff pretty good. So I got my bow on my pack. I'm filling up my water, and across the lake, like, we're at the end of it. We gotta. You know, we have to, like, go around the end part there. There's, like, a trail kind of thing, like, just from Caribou. Not like a hiking trail or anything. But I'm filling up my water, and a wolf pops out across the lake. Like, I don't know, maybe. Let's call it 500 yards away. And it's on that kind of trail. It's coming toward us, I think, just, like, trotting along, like, w. So we all get down. We're kind of in the open, but there's a little bit of COVID behind it, you know, like, up above, behind, but not really. I crawl my boat, get it off, get. Like, my release is not even. That's the other thing. Like, I always hike with my release. My release is not even off on my wrist, but I had time. So I get my release on. I get arrow on. Like, I'm like, all right, he's coming. And I range across. I'm thinking, like, it's gonna be a little. Like, everything looked closer than it was. I don't know why. It's just like there's some country that you're in. Like, something. You look at that. You're like, oh, that's probably 50 yards. And it's 100 yards. You're like, whoa. My. My guesser's off here. So I arrange. I'm like, okay, we might have a shot here, you know, because it's gonna see us at this. This spot. I'm like, I might have to take a little bit further shot at him, but I don't know. We'll see what happens. So he's coming. She's coming and going down the trail. And about 250 yards, she sees us. And it's, like. Slows down, and it's like, Eyes locked. You just like these bright yellow eyes. Like these things are just piercing us. Just bright yellow, black. A black wolf. So it's black wolf, just bright yellow eyes. And she's looking and her head like goes down in that like sneak mode, you know, like when someone's like, what? I'm trying to figure that out. I think you're thinking like, is that something I can eat or is that danger? Like, what is that? So she's doing that like head down look and like moving in, head low and then up and looking. And now she's coming. So she's like, I'm gonna. I don't like a curiosity. I didn't, I didn't think like we're in danger, but I. You kind of what your thought is like, well, she probably thinks we're. She's investigating whether she can eat us, you know, like she looked pretty skinny, to be honest. I looked like a hungry wolf. I wasn't like, oh, this wolf's gonna get us. But I was thinking like, this wolf is Definitely curious at 2 as to what we are. We aren't moving. We're. He's like, what is this? You know. So she comes in and. And she's moving like she stops peas, marks their territory kind of thing and then kind of goes back to it. So I'm knocked in ready. And Colin and Zach are a little bit further up, like to my right. So they range and she's like trying to cross the hill. I'm like, what's the range? And they whisper back. I can't remember. You know, they whispered like 60 something yards. And so I added. I was probably about five yards past them. So she kind of hit a part where it was like, she's either going to be 20 yards or go up, investigate and try to catch our wind. And because she can see us clearly sitting here now, you know, move to position. And she starts to move up and off the hill like she's going to get into some thick stuff, catch our wind and this is going to be it. So Kong gives me a range. I add the 5 yards that I think that we are at 67 yards. And I give her the. Like a coyote. Like what you do for a coyote. Like a little squeak, like a kind of sound and stops and then looking and then moves up and do it again. And at this point I'm at full draw. She's. She's giving me like a pretty quarter to front on type shot. So I just put it right where, where I want it and release the arrow. Hoping that my yard guess is right, based off of the yardage that I got and what I think she is. And just that perfect sounding thwop. And she wheels around, runs over the top. We can see that it went essentially the length of the wolf and goes over the top. So we know about 99% sure that the. She's going to be right there at the top where she ran over. And we're looking at her like, that's crazy, man. Like, that doesn't happen. How often does someone get an opportunity to shoot a wolf with a bow? Like, especially unbaited. Like, it's just, I mean, pure happenstance for the most part. But what are the odds, right? So we go up and. And she was there, like, so we aren't too far from the cat, you know, it's like a, say a mile, mile and a half, something like that, you know? So it's like we're thinking, okay, well, we're gonna go up this. This thing. We might as well. We're gonna skin, obviously tag and skin it out. And then turn, turn the ears, turn, turn everything. And then we'll. We'll hike back to the cabin. Because we had a bunch of salt there. It was like, because it's our base of where we're gonna get picked up, so we might as well salt it, take care of the. The hide and prep the hide and then head back out. So we have to carry the wolf around for. For the week. So. So we. We take care of the wolf, you know, and skinning and taking our time. We weren't in a major rush. It's actually the weather's pretty decent at this point, so we're doing that. And while we're doing that, Zach's kind of just looking around through the spotter or whatever. So skinning and. Exactly. Yeah. I got a pretty good caribou up on this ridge. And one of the ridges way in the back, like, it's just like this knife ridge where it looks like you're like, I don't know what's on the backside, but if the backside matches the front side, you're like, how the heck did this caribou even get up there? But often you realize, like, okay, maybe there's a grassy slope or something like that. We later found out there was no grassy slope on this. It was just like this sheer shale knife ridge. And there's a bull bedded there by himself and skyline miles away. I don't know how many miles. Three to five miles away. He looks good, right? So we're like, well we have somewhere to go now. Let's go deal with this wolf. And then we'll, we'll go back up and start working our way that way. So hike back, drop the wolf off, hike back out. And now we're in route to Caribou camp, you know, Spike camp number one. So we're moving up and we've got like, we get to, we can't. As we move closer to the mountain, we can't see the car. When we got back to where the little wolf was, we do see that he's still up there bedded. So we figured let's like at least go look at him. Like take a look. He looks good. So we're going. And our, our plan was this is like we were gonna go look at him. We could cross over this like river and go up the other side, maybe see him glass across. But at least our like Spike camp or our tent would be pretty centrally located for three drainages to hunt and. And the other thing is like you've got a really good view. So whenever you're you know, before bed eating dinner or whatever, we bring our dinner on the mountain. But like getting up, looking around like you've got a good view. You can kind of base your plays off of like a good location, right? Just being able to see. So we're thinking like okay, maybe we will cross over. And you know, we're pretty close to where the like below where we would start going up to the bowl. Like maybe a couple miles, but mile and a half, something like that. Probably more like a mile and a half. So we're going to drop down into the the river and as we pop over it's like boom. It's just like splashing below us. And there's two grizzly bears, a sow and a cub. Just this fuzziest looking sow I've ever seen. So we're like, well okay, I probably, probably shouldn't go down that way. And as we're kind of debating, they decide that not because they know we're there, just like they're coming up toward us, they're only 80 yards away now they're, they move. Grizzly bears move fast. Just walking like it's like oh shit. So now it's time to put a little distance between us and the bear. So we back out, try to keep a good view. Because last thing you want to do is if that sow came up first and passed us and then that or the cub rather, you know. And so like for bear protection I have bear spray, but it's like expired bear spray that had been in a cabin for a long time. And, and Colin has a, like a. Call it like a sawed off shotgun. It's a, it's called the Churchill. It's a 12 gauge with I think probably, I think it was slugs in there, maybe a round of buckshot, but slugs. So we do have bare defense, but not, not every, you know, we've got, we've got something to defend ourselves, but that's last case scenario, worst case scenario. So we back up, give them some room. They pop up like exactly where we were. They drop back down. Now they've disappeared. And so we're standing of on the edge again. We're like, okay, we don't see them, they're coming this way. So we back out again to get up on the up higher where we can get a good vantage and they popped back right out where we were just after that. So that was all just coincidence really. It's not like they were knew we were there. They didn't know we were there. So we decided, okay, we're going to work up and around and now just camp on this side below where the caribou's at. We get up, we cross a creek. We're kind of walking through some thicker brush and stuff and we get to somewhere we can actually see and we're like, well we might as well drop our camp instead of climb this, this, you know, all this vert with our packs on because we're gonna, you know, we might not want to even set up camp there, somewhere that's visible. We'll probably want to be back here depending on if we don't want to go after that carry where he's not there, whatever. It gives us more options. So unload our packs, set up our tents. While we're doing that, a siren cub pop out like below us maybe 200 yards. Like dude, those bears came back this way. But this one's like, the first one was very fluffy, this one's very scruffy. So it happened to be another Samhain cub. Sor. Right, we're in, we're in grizzly territory here. But I think it's better to see him than not see him. Like you saw the sign of him, but here at least we're seeing him. So we, we drop our stuff, we move up the mountain to where that kind of like working up the creek, up the hillside, gain some elevation, get to where we can see that caribou bull and he's A and get the scopes on him and everything. He's like a great bull. Like he's just honestly better than any bull that I ever killed by a lot. As far as like the other caribou species, like score wise, right? But it's kind of like I just shot a wolf. We've only hunted one full day. It's a great caribou and I would not be disappointed. Take that bull. But also like I kind of just had to see what else was around. Like I wanted to feel like I knew what was there. And we're in the land of like absolute giants, right? They're in this area like for score wise, like just thinking about, I think like 900% positive. Don't quote me on this, but like I think like Boone and Crockett award is like maybe 360. All time is like 380 or 390. And then like this area has killed like 420 and some world record caribou. There's just some giant caribou in this part of the Mackenzie's. So you know you're like, you're in the land of giants. And this one was like probably right at that 360 mark. So you're like it's a Boone and Crockett award type. Like it's a comparable to shooting like a 180 mule deer or like a 160 whitetail, something like that. Like you're like that's crazy for passing, right? Especially bow hunting, right. You kind of need opportunities in some ways, like stocks can go wrong or whatever. But I just like, man, I. I don't know. It's a tough decision, but I think I'm just gonna have to pass knowing that that might be the last time we see that bull or might be the best bull that we see. Who knows. But I just got to see what else is around. So we go back to down. We make a play the next day to like really go kind of steep and deep and just cover like three big canyons. I don't know how many. Seven to eight miles, ten miles out, something like probably seven miles out, something like that. Like a big loop, you know. So we do that. So the next morning we gear up for that, have a few more encounters with bear. Just like seeing bears actually. We got up above them and they ended up cutting our wind and blowing out of there, which was nice. So we're covering a lot of amazing country over here. There's like the water's real reddish color, like real minerally sulfury kind of gross. I ended up drinking out of one of those and so did Colin. Zach was like I couldn't. The taste of it was real bad. Like I tell a lot of stories of drinking weird water and then everybody knows like the story after, right? Like okay, I'm sick. But I don't know. It was like just. It was real minerally. We were getting it at the head of it. But not great water. I know that's relevant but it's part of it. So we, we continued on. I did find these really cool like I'm always looking for cool rocks and I did find these like per, like in this one creek. Just perfectly round rock, like like perfect spheres everywhere. It was really cool. I, I thought that was like, that was pretty interesting because I didn't see it anywhere else. And I don't know if I've been anywhere where I've seen like so many perfect spheres. It was pretty interesting. Like I wish I would have just filled my pack with them actually because it's like they're pretty cool. I don't, I wonder if I even took a picture of them. But anyways, so I, I work up and we keep going and we don't really see much. Like it's really good looking country but we haven't seen anything. A couple cow caribou, pretty dang slow. So we get to essentially where the last place that we could go before it is in a valley. And you're kind of out of that caribou country. We make it to the end. Some cows, no bulls even. It's like the weather's not great. You make in glass and see but you know, just wet or whatever. So our plan is now to just start working back. So we're working back practically the same way we went. Pop over the top and I catch antler tips like oh geez. Like fairly close, 2 or 300 yards. So we quickly back out, get the wind better, go way around, pop up to where we can get a good look at them, crawl in and there's two bulls. And one of the bulls looks pretty dang good to me. I'm like I, you know, I'm not. Here's the thing that I said like when I pass the other bowls, I'm like I'm not. I, I know that like there are is the potential for giants, but I'm just like I really want a good one and I kind of will just know like based on what it looks like if it's the one or not. And this one looked, I was like, this one meets that expectation. It's a good. It's a good bowl, you know. So there was a. Like a big one and a small one. So starting to rain. The wind's good for us, and they're kind of just like on a caribou trail, feeding. So the plan is, like, it's. There's a lot of open. So I'm like, all right, we're going to. We're going to. We're going to try a stalk here. We're going to. We're going to try to cut these ones off. So we're trying to, like, stay above where we can stay out of sight, because there's a lot of distance between opening, cover, and so they're in, like, a gut and they're below us and kind of feeding, and they're moving and feeding. And then they kind of stopped and started feeding pretty intently in one spot where it kind of flattened out and then dropped off on both sides. So we're above them. We got the wind good, just watching, kind of being patient, waiting for them to make mistake. Well, the bull kind of disappears, walks back kind of the way that we started because we're moving down, trying to shadow him. Probably 120 yards out. 100 and 150 to 120, something like that, maybe a little further, depending on when they. Where it was. And so he moves back. So we go back up, and the hill's real steep, so you can't really see right below you. And then anytime there's a bench, you could, you know, that would be where you'd get to cover some distance. So we move in, and we see that the bull, like, I can see now, I could just see the small bull, and he's bedded, like, facing. We've got, like, this slope. So we're up above a bare slope down, and it benches off. And then there's like, another flat spot below that bench, and the smaller bulls, like, on that flat spot looking back at the slope. And we got the wind in our face. And the big bull, I look down and I can see his antler tips, like, below the next bench, and I range it. I'm like, man, if we got to that next bench, we are 20 to 30 yards from that big bull, and I think that it would cover, like, our approach from the little bowl. But we've got this, like, 40 to 60 yards of just open hillside that this small bull is looking at. So we sit there and wait and watch. And then the small bull, he's bedded. They're both bedded, like, puts his head down and just closes his eyes. I'm like, ooh. Okay. If he falls asleep. Thinking back, I've stalked caribou that have been sleeping. I think we can cover the distance while he's sleeping and get into position. Cause once we get to that next bench, we're out of sight of both of them. We can wait there. As soon as one gets up or whatever, we're gonna have a play. We'll have a shot. Like, this is good. Now in my head also, I go, like, this is also a very risky stock, okay? Like, this is not high percentage stock here. This is a low percentage chance. Because if that little bull wakes up while we're moving and we don't freeze, right? Or something happens, game over. So we're moving now. There's three of us, though, right? So probably I think it would have been a great stock if I was by myself. And sometimes I kind of forget. When you're with other people, you gotta, like, stock for three, not for one. It was a great play for one person. So we're moving down, like, scooting, inching, you know, going real slow, making sure, like, you know, if he would kind of move and, like, okay, freeze that whole thing, right? We're scooting, and now I'm like, out of. We've made it for the most part. Like, I'm out of sight, but the other two guys are. I just, like, got out of sight of the bull. I can see his antler tips. We can't see his eyes. And he whips his head up. I don't know if it was, like, a whiff of wind, right? Because it's kind of stormy. Like, there's swirling winds in these scenarios. But he's definitely locked into something above. Whether it was a noise, whether it was movement, I don't know. You know, I'm thinking, well, how skittish are they going to be? And the answer is very skittish. Because he just blew out of his bed, like, dead run. Took the big bull with him. They actually ran to our left. They actually kind of ran underneath the lip and then popped out closer, I think, than where they were. So they, like, were probably a hundred. And like, that little bull was probably, like, 130 yards and, like, ran and now popped out probably, like 90 yards. And then those two are now, like, looking our direction, and then they catch our wind and then they blow out. But I think it was, like, wind from where we were or something. I don't know. But they. They Smell it. And now they. It is dead. Run. And they're running and running, and they, like, run up and over the ridge and down the ridge. And I remember watching these things, like, we pick them up like, a mile and a half, two miles away, still running. Like, some animals, like, you spook, you know, mule or elk or like, you think, like, oh, maybe we'll get on them in the next drainage. These things just out of the zip code. I was like, all right, well, that sucks. I was pretty mad at myself. Just like, that was a dog. Like, I could have been more patient and probably picked a better play. Like, there was another play from coming up from the bottom. But I'm like, that's the way that they might be looking. Maybe I just could have waited and seen what they did. Because, like, if they already got up and both of them fed out underneath that, we would add an opportunity. So it's like, damn it. Okay, well, now we're here. We are, right? Like, there was a good bull, but we know what the potential for the area can hold. So it is what it is. So now it's time to hike the long hike back to. To camp. So we hike back to our base camp or our sorry spike camp, move in, you know, get there, and then, like, the next day, plan on just checking out some new country kind of glass and just kind of hope, like, maybe you'll see those other ones again, but nothing. So we go up, we see a few small bulls, cover a lot of country, climb up some big mountains, just really awesome country. Get into this spot where we get some good weather, wait it out, climb up, like, I guess. So this is like, day four or five. Climb up to the saddle to that kind of pops over into where that ridge bowl was that we pass up. Because I'm like, well, we had a play. Now we're kind of at, like, day four or five. If we see that ridge bowl again, it might be time to try to make a stock, because it might be a couple days before he gives us a stock. And you think about, like, okay, you've got 10 days to hunt, but of those, you've got days. You have to pack out days you have to fly weather days, right? Like, there's. We don't know. You don't know. Like, you could get. One of the mornings we woke up and you couldn't see five feet in front of you. It ended up clearing. Like, this particular day, it was like, the morning wasn't great, but it started to clear. You don't know if it's going to clear. So you just kind of start to think, okay, well, we're. We're almost halfway, or more than halfway, realistically, logistically, for getting in, getting out, doing the whole deal. So it's probably time to start making some BO stocks. So we go. We don't really see any bulls, some cows, and some cows move out. And we get up to the saddle. We're sitting glassing these cows. And I kind of am looking above the cows way off in the distance, like, mile, probably five miles away. And I spot two. Like, if I wasn't looking through my spotter, I would never have seen him. And probably because I was looking at these other cows that I kind of was like, oh, look over there, too. I see what looks like a good bowl. And then like, another bowl that I think is, like, good but smaller. And the thing kind of stood out to me of the smaller bowl is like, he had a really white neck. None of the caribou that we'd seen had really had white neck, like white bells. So I was like, man, that one looks like this is. You've got, like, in a weird way, like, the. The rain and the fog and almost like a heat wave, too, from the hill in between and the major distance. You can't really. But I'm like, man, that just looks like a good bowl. And I'm thinking to myself, this is not. Like, it wasn't like I was looking back to where those caribou that we stocked two days before were, But I'm like, I think that that's that same bowl. I just have this feeling that's that same bowl from the other day that we stocked. I'm like, did we. So I look back at a picture on my phone, and sure enough, the small one had, like, a real white neck. So I'm like, I kind of think. I mean, it's like, it's a long shot. Completely different, you know, sort of different country. I guess it's logical that they could have gone over there, but, you know, it might be worth getting a closer look. So we're doing that, thinking that. And then all of a sudden, from below us, the ridge bowl from three days before, I guess, or two or three days before, pops out. And he has a bunch of cows with him this time. And we figured out how he got up on the ridge. He just, like, had made his own trail up this scree through the cliffs and all he goes up there and all the caribou follow, and they park it up on the top. And there is no good approach, right? So it's like we. We don't have a good approach. The. The thought is like, you know, I was like, I will stock that bull, but I'm not going to do something stupid. I'm not going to blow him out. And now I kind of have in the back of my mind that there's some. Those other caribou across the way. But those other caribou and this caribou are in two different zip codes. So we got to make a decision. So my decision is like, let's go back down toward our bait, our spike camp, because we'll have a better look at those two across if we can relocate them. And then we can make a decision whether to go after this bull or go after those bulls. So I'm walking away from this bull again, which I'm like, maybe it's a good play, maybe it's not. So we drop down, get to our camp. We don't see those other bulls, and then we start glassing a little more, and sure enough, they pop out. And I'm like, those are the ones that we stocked. So we'll kind of make the decision that I'm gonna abandon the bulb. We'd like to call Ridge Runner because it's the, you know, the best. But we're starting to see, like, we've seen caribou at this point. Like, all the caribou that we've seen, we kind of started either saw on the first day or within these days, like, we're repeating, seeing a lot of the same caribou, just maybe in a little bit different place or the same place. So I feel like at this point, we've covered kind of the huntable country in this little zone, and that other bull kind of ticked all the boxes. But here, right, you're gonna have to pick up camp, relocate and. And hope that he's still there in the morning. So we get up in the morning, he's still there, and we. We pack up and we're gonna. We're gonna bomb over there. We're gonna drop our stuff at the base and then climb up after him and. And hope that he's still kind of bedded in there, because so they end up disappearing en route and we are, like, moving in. So we get in, we get over there, and it takes a little not. Doesn't take crazy amount of time, but we get over there and drop our stuff and go light and fast, just packs and essentials, dinner and whatever, and go up, climb up to these. Like, there's There's a couple. There's like, where they kind of moved into. It was just sheer cliffs below. So I'm kind of thinking they either gotta wrap all the way around the mountain to kind of where we were the first day, or they're going to be right in there and move out the direction we're going in. So we go up there, we get to the, the top, essentially the bench, start moving that direction, and I spot to the two bulls. Like they're there. They're kind of in this little flat. They were standing. I can't remember, maybe one was saying, I just saw the antler tip. So we, we go down, we. We drop down out of sight, drop our packs. I get ready just in case, like they're coming, coming around our way or what have you. And we, we creep in. So it's myself, Zach and Colin. So we, we get in. I. I crawl up and look over and sure enough, they've bedded there. So they're, they're in a good spot. They're like in the open, 150 yards from any cover. Like, no real play on them, right. So the game is now I'm not making a stupid stock. Like, I could go around and get like, there's a cliff behind him. And I'm like, okay, that'd be like 80 yards. But the wind isn't great. And like, no, it's just. We're just gonna be patient. So we're sitting there and the game's just going to be sit until they do something stupid. Like they're. It's open. At some point they're going to move. Hopefully they move toward us. It was like on and off, raining, whatever kind of Good, good. Stronger wind today. The thing about this country too, the other day is, like, it was very quiet still. You could hear like your neighbor could hear your thoughts for the most part. Which maybe made it like even that stalking that first time, like the littlest noises seemed like it just echoed through the canyons. Like you could hear for a long ways. So the little bit of wind I felt like was going to help conceal our approach a bit. So everything is, is pretty much perfect. And we've got time. Like we. It doesn't really get dark. We've got time is on our side. If we can be patient, wait for the right play. This is gonna happen as long as something crazy doesn't happen, right? So we're there and I realized, like, where I'm. We're at was kind of like on the knob of this little knoll. And I thought if they get up, depending on which way they go, we might get pinned down here. Let's. And I. So I crawled up a little more and could see, like, to the right. There was a little more topography. We'd be further away, but have more opportunity with the topography. So. So we. So we back out. And, like, I decided we're gonna, like, sneak back into that spot and sit and wait there. We'll. We'll still be, like, within 200 yards. But I just feel like if they go that direction, there's more plays. If they go another direction, we have, like, more opportunity to, like, run and cut them off and get out of sight faster. And we got a good view still. So we get over there, and. And I'm moving, so I've got, like, stocked in, because you don't know they could get up and walk at any minute and be within range. So I had a broadhead on my bow. So I'm walking over, and I decided, like, I'm like, oh, I should make sure this broadhead's tight. So I, like, tighten the broadhead, what have you. And I'm holding the bow, and then I'm, like, walking now. And I've got it there, and I'm gonna put it back in my quiver to kind of, like, re. Crawl in. So as I'm doing that, the arrow. And maybe I even thought of this as it happened, hits the side of my quiver and lances over and clips my yoke cable and cuts it. Not all the way through, but cuts it, and my heart just sinks. Like, I put the broad in the quiver, and I can see. So for those not familiar, the yoke cables, essentially what works for the tuning and timing of the cams. And it's split, so, like, the strings, what you pull back. But this. This cable that I cut is, like, where it. Where it forks off. And then it's very. It's our. It's already very thin there, so. And. And so I cut through probably at least half of that, and I'm like, immediately go to their. It's starting to unravel. I'm like, hey, does anybody have chapstick? Because I don't carry chapstick. I'm like. So one time in my life, I'm, like, begging for some chapstick. Zach had some, like, Burt's bees and, like, bir peas for the win here, right? So I take the chapstick, and mind you, we're like, midstock. We are. We're waiting on these caribou. They are within 150 yards or so, whatever. And I'm like, having a mild panic attack. Like, the. This, the act. Like, the fear that I had pre hunt of something going wrong with my bow is now realized. So I take the. The chapstick and I. It's glad it was really waxy. And I like, rub it into the string and then start, like, twisting the string back because I don't want it to unravel and get into the working mechanic part of the bow. This is, like, almost the worst thing that could happen. The worst thing that could happen would be that I completely severed this. Now I think that, like, had I completely severed that cable, the bow wouldn't have exploded, but it would just, like, poof up and it would be inoperable. So now I've got a bow. Like, the wax, like, held it from unraveling. I know that I wasn't about to start pulling things apart and see how much damage it did. I'm like, okay, I know that I have a bow in my hand. We are within the stocking potential. It's going to happen here pretty soon of this caribou. And I don't know what's going to happen. Like, am I going to. When I put pressure for the draw, is this thing just going to pop and go off? Like. Cause, like, maybe some damage to myself, to the whatever. Is it on the shot? Is it going to go poof? Is it going to be completely fine? Like, I do know that, like, I'm not wrecking. Like, I do know that having some strands, like, is a good thing, but also, like, it could be a bad thing, right? Like, don't. I'm not. Maybe I should rephrase. Like, be smart and be safe, right? So don't shoot a bow that, like, the string is damaged. However, I'm in a position where I'm like, I don't know what's gonna happen. I would think, like, my thought was this. I was like, I think that it's gonna hold for at least the shot. I think that the tuning will be off. Like, the cam timing for sure is gonna be off. Because just by cutting that, it loosened some things. I don't know, like what. But it also might be fine too. Like, so these things are running through my head. My stomach is sick. My dream of hunting a mountain caribou. And maybe this being my. My chance to do, you know, like, this is clearly a good chance to do it. I'm within. This is the stock. We have no backup bow, no backup rifle. We have a sawed off shotgun with some slugs, which I'm like, I really don't want to have to shoot a caribou with a shotgun. This kind of defeats the purpose of coming out and bow hunting this caribou. I mean, like, it's just. It's all going through my head. So we're just kind of at this point, like, well, what can we do? You know, thinking of potential things, like, potential fixes, like, do you have some dyneema cord? I should look. I mean, you can say what you will. Like, I should have had a full set of replacement strings and cables, because I could take that bow down and, like, field in the field and do that and replace it. Yes, I could. I think from now on, on those kind of trips, I absolutely will have that kind of stuff with me, especially because the. The Matthews bow, that, like, this. The system, like, you can do it, right? I could do that. But whatever. It doesn't matter. I didn't have that stuff right. And I thought about it, like, it was just, like, eating at me before the trip. Sometimes you just get, like, a weird premonition, and you just think, like, oh, my gosh. But thank God it didn't sever all the way through. I think maybe if it did, I don't know. I maybe could have. I didn't want to figure it out in the time, but, like, maybe I could have used the dynamic, got it working, and would have to shoot it and all this stuff. But I also didn't want to just, like, take a shot. But, like, not, like, just a practice shot just to see, because I'm like, that might be the shot. Like, the impact of it going off might further damage it, but it might. That first shot might be fine, but the subsequent shots might not. These are all the things that are running through my head. So we move into position. We're like, oh, we're gonna wait and see what they do, see if we can get a stock. So we're sitting there. We're sitting there for a little while. I'm toiling with what just happened to the bow. Thankful it didn't sever all the way through. Like, mad at myself for something like that happening. Like, just not taking the time to just be patient. Like, I was, like, moving, and it was just like, when. When you doing something and it. Something like that happens, and you go, like, almost serves you right for the way that I did that. To be honest. Like, I. I mean, I've put a arrow in my quiver one million times, probably. I mean, I don't Know, a million, but probably a lot of times and in the field and whatever and never had an incident. And now I had an incident. So it's funny because earlier this year somebody asked me a question, like, sent me a message about some. A similar situation, like, are you ever afraid of this happening? And I was like, I'm not. Well, if you're this, that person listening, I am now. Yeah. So I always have, like, have string protectors on my. That's why I always carry my bow in that. In the bow sling that I sell because it protects the strings. Like, I think the strings are the most. They're delicate and like, thing that you need to protect the most on your bow. And here I just sliced half of them, so half the cables, at least. So we're sitting there with caribbeer doing their thing. One of them starts to get up and get antsy. I'm like, okay, they're up. This is after maybe an hour of sitting there, I don't know. And so we. So there is between us and the caribou is like open. Almost the exact same setup as they were the first time we stocked, but just a different spot. So there's like, we're up on a bench, there's a downhill, then another bench, and then like a bench below that. They get up, they start moving into the wind and they duck below. Both of them duck below that other bench. It's like it's go time. Zach and I, like, it's just not that far. So we're like, okay, we gotta, we gotta move. So we, we. We bomb off them like the spot we're at and drop down onto that other bench to get into position. So I start crawling up. Zach's right behind me with the camera, and I can see the antler tips over there. I can't see the little one. I'm like. But I see the big one and he's right here. I range him, he's like. I'm like, he's a little too far, but he's moving our direction. So it's going to happen so long as the little one doesn't pop out first and blow it. But even then we've got like a better setup. So sure enough, he. He starts feeding toward us, feeding toward us. And now he's within range. He's like 40 yards, 40 something yards. And now I'm much. Now I'm just waiting for him to turn broadside. So Zach, as soon as he turns broadside, like I'm gonna draw and shoot. So I draw Back he. He feeds, turns broadside. I've got my perfect shot. Like, I don't know what it's like 43, I can't remember, but 40 something yards. A very, like, almost a chip shot at this point. Like, I'm on my knees. I've got everything, everything's right. I draw back. Zach goes to, you know, whatever. The Caribbean doesn't know we're there. And so the way that this is like, there's the hill, you know, and I can kind of. I can see like, where I'm aiming and where I want the arrow to go and. And where I put my pin. And so I shoot. That arrow releases and it's like, it just seems to like, fall short. It falls off and I'm like, is it. The speed is like the arrow shooting low. Like, the left and right was absolutely perfect. Couldn't have placed any better. It's low and I don't know because, like, the. Where the hill was. I'm like, I don't know if this is if it hit. Like, was hard to tell by the sound. And the bull runs out. Like, it runs out and almost is now level with us. And he's just like, shaking weird. It's like, I'm like, I mean, I kind of. We both are. Like, I don't know if it hit, but based off of the way that he's acting, he's hit somewhere. And my guess is it's pretty low. Like, not in the heart. I don't. I'm. I'm looking. Like, I don't see blood. Like, at this point he's hit. That's my bull. But, like, I don't know what's going on. So we. We go down and. And now we're going over to where he, like, dropped off the mountain. And I'm going down the shale and all three of us are going down the shell. And sure enough, like, there's a pretty good blood trail. So at this point he's like, okay, well, maybe it's not so bad. Like, we don't see him running in the flat. There's a good blood trail. Like, I mean, if he was hit pretty decent like this looks like there's a lot of blood coming out. So. So we see. So we're moving down so steep. You can't see very, like, below you. You can't see below you far, but you could see, like, in the. Out the flat. So we get toward the bottom and like a hundred yards away, I see the bull. And he doesn't look like he's doing great. He's by himself, so he definitely held back. Like, okay, well, he's 100 yards. I'm not gonna shoot 100 yards, like, and I don't have any cover. So we're just gonna sit and wait. He doesn't know we're here, so we sit and wait. And all this is kind of happening fairly quick, you know, it wasn't like we weren't, you know. So we're sitting watching him. I'm thinking, well, maybe you'll bed right here. And he ends up, like, going into the wind, like, picking a trail and, like, nose to the ground. I can't tell if he's, like, eating what he's doing. He just like. Like he looked sick and now he looks normal. What the heck? So he's like, working his way toward this lake and he's cruising and then he, like, gets to the edge of the lake and goes for a swim. And I'm like, thinking, oh, boy, here we go. Like, try to swim across this lake like that. So you think about it like a caribou. That's their natural instinct to get away from predators, which is like their predators. Like, this caribou thinks a wolf was there. Like, we were the wolves. Like, this is just the natural thing that they do to lose wolves. So it goes out. But I'm thinking, like, you know, in. In retrospect, I can kind of, like, figure out what was going on. But in the moment, you're like, what's. What's gonna happen, right? So he swims out a little ways, kind of u turns back in, like, doesn't go very far. Just swims out a little. He's like, trail swims out a little ways, comes back in beds. Watching his back trail, like, man, this thing is so smart. My guess is like, well, maybe, you know, in retrospect, like, didn't have the. You know, like, he's probably on his way out, but I didn't really. Like, I was kind of assuming, like, watching him going, like, dude, this thing is probably. This thing could go forever. Maybe I didn't hit anything good, what have you, right? Not an ideal scenario. But he's very alert, you know, he's watching his back trail. He's smart. Like, I'm thinking, if I bump this thing again, we may never find him. I didn't really realize how good the blood trail was till after, when we got like, to him. So. So I'm like, okay, now we gotta restock in. So we're restocking in. We're Crawling in. And as we're crawling in, like, there's some bushes and. And what have you. And, you know, I'm down, crawling and get into position, and like, at this point, I'm like, I've run out of COVID and. Oh. So in the process of this, like, he's putting his head down, but it looks like he's like, sleeping. I'm like, man, this is kind of weird. But, like, he was sleeping for a long time earlier. Maybe he's just like, cool, we're just gonna catch up on some rest. Like, you just don't know, right? I treat every, like, recovery stock like this isn't this. The time frame isn't crazy long here. We're talking within 40, probably 40. Within 30 to 45 minutes of when I. That initial shot. I'm guessing maybe it seemed longer, but, you know, the more I kind of like, look at it, it's like, yeah, it was probably. It was pretty close time frame. So it's like, got his head down, but I'm stalking in, treating it like this thing's even more alert and gonna blow out of there. And if you mess this up, it's gonna be all over. So I get to like 70 something yards. And I. I'm like, there's no way that I can actually get like, he's. He is picking his head up and down, like, looking. And there's one part where it got quiet and I could think he heard something and kind of picked his head up. So then he put it back down and we moved in. Was like, we were probably 100 and something yards out at that point and then moved into the 70 something yards. And it's like, this is it. Like, you can't get any closer, unfortunately. Like, there's just. Just not an opportunity for that. So. Well, I'm going to. I believe that it's five yards off. I'm going to, like, try to put another good arrow. I've got, like, a really good way that he's laying down. Like, I have an open shot. I add the five yards. So I set my pin to 78 yards and settle in. Shot breaks perfect. And that arrow hits exactly where I was aiming. Like, on the spot. I was like, aiming at a tuft of hair, and it slices through that tuft hair, and the bull just kind of like rolls over dead. So I think if I didn't, like, make that shot, probably would have expired within 10, 15 minutes, to be honest. Like, he was on his way out, but in the, like, in my head, you know, going through like what's going on in my head. Like, I didn't know where I hit. Like, I didn't know if it was good based on the blood. Like the blood was really good. But we had a good blood trail. Like, and then falling where the blood was was like okay, he. It wasn't terrible. Like, it seemed like he went a long ways, but he just dropped off the mountain. And then you know, button hooked around like. But. Because you could see it and like the panic of what was going on and the fact that the. The arrow did hit low like all that, you know, all is like that roller coaster of bow hunting emotions. It's. It's the highs and the lows. Like the high of the stock. The low of like things going wrong or cutting, almost cutting a string. And then like the shot that you think is like not gonna. Wasn't good. You know, it turned out. It all turned out okay. Okay. Like, I think even without that recovery, we would have probably like had we whatever would have recovered that caribou. I like the blood trip. We would have like, even through that like tundery stuff, the blood trail is very apparent. Like we could have followed it for very long ways, which was good. He was hit low enough that like the blood was like. It was a left a really good trail. But yeah, so it was like, all right. I. I mean honestly, like, like the whole time all this was going on, I was like, I. I just blew it. Like, this is. You just think of the worst case scenarios and fortunately it. It worked out right. Like, I think sometimes, like, yeah, I mean, I definitely. I like. I'm. I like to be pretty transparent. Like, I actually. I hold myself to a very high standard of like I want things to go right and generally they do. Like 99.9% of the time I make the right call and things. Things work out. And in this scenario, I don't even know if I really made the wrong call because at the time, like afterwards I'm like, well, I don't even know if the. If the string would have, you know, like the cable. Like it. It's more. Would it have affected the up and down of the arrow? Because at the time I'm like. I'm kind of going back and forth. Like if I cut something else, I would know, like, yeah, that that would be. That would affect that. But the cutting that yoke cable, I'm like, I don't know if it would. It would just more affect the timing really. Which it did. It affected the cam timing. But if you Know, in hindsight, I actually. We put it on drawboard and it affected the. The timing of the bottom cam, which made it shoot low. So there's that. Right. But, you know, it walking up on that caribou, like, that rush of emoji, like, that's why I love bow hunting. That, like, you don't think it's going to work and it ends up working out or like, the. The scenarios and the opportunities and the encounters and all the things that go right and all things that go wrong. That's hunting. Like, if you are someone that tells me that you hunt, nothing goes wrong. I'm like, do you even hunt? And I. I hunt a lot and I. A lot of times things go right, but there are times where things go wrong. And, man, I don't even know. Maybe it's more times things go wrong. I don't. It's hard to. It's hard to gauge right. It's always something. But I caribou, like, mountain caribou down and like, the dream of fulfilling all the caribou species with my boat was, like. It was like, pretty surreal. It's like, it was pretty cool to know that it worked out. Incredible stock. Incredible caribou, like, you know, it was everything that I hoped and dreamed from a trip to that. That particular place. And as we're like, you know, cutting it up and processing it and getting ready to pack it back to camp, it was pretty cool. It was like the rain kind of like was in and out, in and out and over the lake behind us. Just like these two epic rainbows. It's weird. It. Like in this country, you know, rainbows are always in the distance here. It's like the way that the mist in the mountains and how low the sun is, it appears as though it's like you can touch it. It's very weird. I've never been anywhere else like that. Like, you are kind of like in the middle of this, you know, it's always like the pot of gold's all way over there, and you can never catch it here. You can catch rainbows. Like, it's very weird because it's like you see it in the lake and then it just goes right to where you're at. Pretty wild, you know, thing. I've only experienced that, like, one other time, one other place on a mountain where it's like. It's. You're kind of like in the mist. It's pretty weird and pretty incredible, too. Just like, looking out over this valley of the lake and in just that Whole scene, very surreal. So we got the caribou back, packed him back to camp there. We had, like, the base camp, you know, salted the hide, turned the ears and lips, you know, injected the velvet with, like, some, I don't know, velvetan formaldehyde kind of stuff and. And prepped everything, Made a big dinner of caribou steaks. It's kind of funny because, I mean, like, that's the best part, right? Like, eating and just filling up, because you've been on dehydrated meals for six or seven. Six days. Seven days, whatever. And then, you know, it's like, oh, real food. Steak, that was awesome. The next day, I don't know what it was from, whether it was something we ate. Like, we both have different theories, right? Whether it was the caribou meat itself and. Or the water that I mentioned earlier, the weird water that we drink. Because Zach didn't get sick. But Colin and I both violently ill. Like, both throwing up. Both, like, just both sick for about 24 hours. So I don't know if it's, like, gestation period of that weird water or just, like, eating too much meat. I don't know. Like, I've never had that happen from eating meat. But he's talked to other people that have had that. Like, it was. It was bad. We were pretty. Pretty sick. Like, I haven't. I was, like. I was glad that we didn't have to pack out for another two days because we were both, like, down for the count. But, yeah, I worked out, like, flew back to base camp, you know, hung out there for a bit, and then. And then flew back and made the journey home. Like, there's a lot of logistics and other things, you know, in that process of getting back, but, man, it was just like, an incredible experience on. On every. Every part. And of course, you know, you want everything to work out perfect, but sometimes when it doesn't work out perfect and it still works out, like, there's a little bit more story and adventure there. I know this is like a long. This is like an hour and a half. Sorry. And I think we're gonna make probably a pretty long film out of this one. But, you know, it's kind of fun to just, like, recap the story and tell it in length. That's what one of the things that I like about being able to do this podcast and share some of these hunting stories. Like, I hope you guys enjoy the story. Like, it was an incredible adventure, and I think that's one of those things. It's Fun. Like I learned from, you know, what was my mistake? I think one of the things is like, you kind of get an inclination in some ways. You almost just gotta like, prepare for it better. I, I should have had some kind of backup. Now everyone's gonna go in the field, like, worried, like, I need a backup everything. And I don't know, you know, like, I don't know if that's the case. This is, this is different. You're so far removed, so far remote. I think on any big crazy trip like that. Again, absolutely. If I'm like driving and even in the wilderness and I like drove there, there's always that ability to like hike out and go figure it out, right? Like in worst case scenario, day hunting or whatever you can, there's. But when you're that remote, that far removed and something goes wrong with your bow or something like that, it makes, it makes a big difference. I almost think I'm like, I'm just gonna throw like a stick bow in my other luggage. I wish you could like, carry a collapsible stick bow on me. Don't try that. Like, all right. At least I'd have something done with. But there's some places you go and it's like, man, if whatever you're hunting with is integral to the hunt, that's really hard if it doesn't show up or something happens to it, right? You just, you really rely on that gear and that equipment. I think in, in the worst case scenario, like, I think we would have to like text and be like, is it legal to hunt a caribou with a shotgun? Like a short barrel shotgun or whatever? You know, as long as it was legal, I would have done it, but I would have been kind of bummed about the, the bow not working out. Right. So overall though, like, just an incredible place, incredible hunt, incredible animal. I was so thankful that it worked out and, you know, is born like it. It was actually like from the time that I shot the bull to the time that like walked up and recovering was pretty quick. Like, it wasn't like, it was like, you know, hip bad suffering for a long time or anything like that. Which you're always thankful for as a hunter because you, you want, like, I practice a lot and I like, I really do, you know, try to make sure that every shot that I take is that one shot. And then things. Sometimes it just does not work out, you know, I mean, whatever, from, from wherever you're at, you know, people will probably say like, oh, well, you shouldn't, you shouldn't have shot and this, that and the other thing, like, that's. I don't know. I think if I went back in time and like, like, even not knowing the outcome, I think I would have. I did what I thought was the best course of action. And it, like, honestly, you know, I think if I was like, even maybe, maybe if I was like 10 yards closer, it would have not made a difference because that shot would have been an inch higher and would have hit the heart right. Like, or if that caribou didn't feed really hard that day before, it probably would have like, whatever. You just don't know, right? Like, there's just like so many unknowns and that. And that's part of it. Like, so I, I don't know. It was overall an epic adventure in just an epic place and I'm, I'm thankful for it. Like, I very. It was, it was one of those trips for me that is like, been a dream trip. And it was everything that I could have hoped for and more. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that. Like, after post hunt update, it's always fun to be able to share those hunt stories and I'm excited for the video to come out and have you guys be able to watch this hunt. If you've tuned into my YouTube channel, there's been quite a few videos. We did some, some elk videos, ibex video with Pedro, Friend of mine's traditional bow hunt. So there's. There's been a lot of videos from past season, this last season, and even some very recent that have been coming out. Thank you guys so much for those that have left. Awesome ratings, comments, you know, subscribe to the YouTube channel. We always appreciate it. I just want to say thank you guys for that and excited to, to release, you know, stuff that you guys and hopefully enjoy watching, get you fired up and maybe learn something as well. So thank you guys. I just, I just appreciate it. And for the podcast, the, the comments and the ratings and all that stuff just goes a long way. So we, we always appreciate that. Or I always appreciate that. Another thing I want to mention too, an awesome supporter of this podcast, Montana Knife Company. You know, they just make incredible products. I. I've used them. Like, I got my first one from my buddy. I was actually caribou hunting in Greenland, Cole Kramer. And he's like, dude, you got to check this knife out. And I was like, okay. And then I used it. He's like, use this knife. I was like, this is a great knife, dude. And then I started, I started you know, like checking out like understanding Montana knife coming. Saw some videos. Josh Smith, like, he's like, look at the flex on this blade and how strong it is and then how, you know, and just like, okay, cool. Like just really diving into their knives and, and then started using them and man, like, and then to, then to even be able to, to design a knife with Josh and be like, this is what I really like. And he'd be like, yep, cool. Let's make that just, just an incredible company with some incredible products. For those of you that don't know, I mean, I'm sure most people do by this point, but they do. The way that they do their, their new blades or release blades is by drops. But they also been, you know, really stocking up their inventory, like in stock knives as well. So I went on there. I'm on their website currently. They've got a drop coming out here the day that the podcast releases. I think it is pretty much they do their drops on Thursdays. Looks like they have this, this. What is it? The, the chopper. It's like a, like a bush tool blade, like a camp blade. It's pretty sweet looking. But also they have like a couple of the things that I really like their. I've got their culinary set out of those, man. I don't know. I, I like the. I probably use the smaller knife the most, but they do have some of that cut bank paring knife on here. They've got a few of the, the speed goats and then the stone goats still in stock. Some. A couple of the blaze ones and then some magnacut ones as well. So there are, there's a pretty good, pretty good like cross section of some awesome blades available in stock right now as well, which is awesome because you can see that they've. They've really been building that up. I think as the season goes on, those start to get, you know, bought up or whatever. And then they just, you know, keep replacing it and then doing the drops. But if you're in the market and you're like, hey, I want a Montana knife. There's. There's some available right now. And, and then also you can just, you know, pay attention to the drops as well. The easiest way to do that is just be on their email list. You can get. Just go their website, Montana knifecompany.com and check it out. I'm just gonna say until next week, have an adventure out there, guys. I, I'm sure a lot of you are going to be hunting. You know, things are going to happen. Take it with a grain of salt. Good, the bad, the ugly. That's hunting. And at the end of the day, it's. It makes the stories and just have an adventure. We'll catch you guys later.