Yesterday evening after one of Sara’s boots proved shorter then the water depth, Wade considered remaining on the boat with her and hunting more the next morning. But with the high winds in the next day’s forecast, Wade decided to check out an additional bay a couple miles away, so that more of tomorrow could be devoted to moving or more scouting in a different anchorage. The two mile dinghy trip involved looking at steep slopes and cliffs so there was not much hope of spotting a caribou along the way, more mountain goat country, except there are no goats on this island. As Wade reached the bay of his destination he scoped from the dinghy and saw a few caribou laying on a hill side a quarter mile away. He quickly retreated to be out of their site and took the dinghy to shore to hike a few hundred yards to a ridge for to be close enough for a shot. Surely one of the group of caribou should have decent sized “horns”? As Wade crawled to the top of this ridge he could see the caribou and then moved a few feet to the right so that grass stems would not affect a shot. Placing his gun over his pack bag he studied the group of caribou who had not moved a bit and were laying down for to perhaps stay there for the night. Four of the group had horns, but one was significantly bigger, but the big one was laying behind a smaller one such that only his horns and part of his head was visible. This other caribou did not seem to want to move out of the way of the big one, nor the big one move, actually none of them showed any signs of moving anytime soon. Using his range finder, several times for to be sure, Wade verified the distance to be 260 yards, not as far as he thought. This would be a pretty much zero on, no hold over shot, but which one to shoot? A few minutes went by and Wade pondered how to get them to stand but not run and he also zoomed in on the partial head of the big one. Maybe he could do this? This led to practicing pulling the trigger with the safety on, it seemed all the time in the world was available except for that sunset was coming and a successful shot would mean trying to get the animal home before dark. Wade repositioned himself for to be more steady with less weight on his chest to affect his breathing. The wind was five miles per hour or less and Wade’s rifle is a 1000 yard competition bench-rest rifle and Wade had shot groups half the size of a dime at 100 yards so he knew the gun would do its job if he could. Wade chambered a round just in case he wanted to take the partial head shot or an easier shot on one of the other ones. Wade zoomed to around 35 times magnification and aimed for what looked like where the brains should be. Mostly it was the antlers that were visible and most of the head was partially obscured by grass. Unable to resist anymore, Wade pulled the trigger. Surprising to him this bull caribou wobbly stood and almost fell over doing so. Wade knew he had hit it, but was it a quick lethal kill? To be sure Wade shot again as he now had a broadside shot. At this power in his scope he could see the impact of this second shot right where he wanted. The bull staggered a few feet and was out of sight. The rest of the caribou were not sure what happened and finally started trotting off a hundred yards up hill and then stopped to look back and remained there looking back. Wade gathered his two empty cartridges, tried to mentally mark the spot the animal would be, and walked back to the dinghy as there were intense rocks between him and the caribou. The quickest and safest way to get to the animal would be to take the dinghy further down the shore nearer the animal. About 50 feet of shallow rocks prevented Wade from getting the dinghy entirely to shore, but he could rock hop and wade through less then knee deep water to get to this shore nearer the caribou. He climbed a short hill about a hundred yards from the water and there it lay. The first shot had gone right through the brain and Wade already known where the second shot had hit, but he now knew the second shot had been unnecessary, yet it is good for to be sure because he would not want it to suffer. A short hundred yard drag down hill and a 50 foot pull through the shore water and the caribou was at the dinghy. Everything had gone right including dropping it near shore. It took all Wade’s strength to lift and roll the animal in the dinghy. If the caribou had been bigger, Wade thought he might not have been able to get it in the dinghy, but yet Wade was expecting it could be a 400 pound plus animal, but it was not that big, big but not 400 pounds big. Wade felt so happy that his dream rifle had made a very accurate and humane kill. To use the words of Wade’s high school friend, Todd, rifles that are not highly accurate are boring. It is nice when a hunt comes through so perfectly.
Cheers,
Wade and Sara
Bluefox Bay Anchorage 17 feet Sand 52° 04.894’N, 174° 46.429W
No VHF Weather Signal, Great SSB Signal, We have sent the Iridium No Go off for repairs
To find where Wade, Sara, and SV Just Drifting were at noon, type/copy these coordinates 52.081566667,-174.7738166667 into Google Maps!
