Hunting with The Hubbs

Hunt 8/10/18 

Opening day for unit 13 had came. Cory asked me if I wanted to go hunting with him. It would just be the two of us. We decided to spend a night in Talkeetna and then the next morning we would drive up to the “hunting road”.  5am opening day, we were out the door. 

About 20 miles in on the hunting road, the tire pressure gauge light turned on. Yep, we had a flat tire, but Cory was able to switch out the spare in no time. Dang that gravel road. Thankfully, we were able to hunt on.

We drove quite a ways up the road and stopped numerous times to glass the land. We saw 2 porcupines, 2 moose, plenty rabbits and squirrels, and we finally spotted a herd of caribou. It took driving 80 miles in until we saw the herd of 8. They were moving west. It was exciting, but the caribou were across a slow moving river making them inaccessible to us. We decided to drive on. We got to a rest stop and was able to patch up our tire. We had a spare again (hooray!) and gained the confidence driving down the road again. 

It was about 1:00pm and we decided to make our way back and keep looking. Maybe we missed something on the way up. At about 1:15pm, we decided to pull over and walk up to a hill about 1/2 mile from the road.

We geared up and headed to our hill. The terrain was a little challenging with the low brush and marshy land.  Upon reaching our hill, I decided to find some high bushes to go to the bathroom. Moments later, right before I was about to squat down, I hear Cory call my name and tell me not to move. Well, my adrenaline revved once I saw him hold his rifle in shooting stance. We were about 30 feet away from each other and I was just standing there holding a roll of TP. I traced where he was pointing his rifle. There it was, a caribou, running and bouncing around frantically. It made its way around our hill and then jumped into some high brush. Totally hidden.

It was moving so much, we couldn’t tell if it was a bull. Male and female caribou both grow antlers. This was an only bull hunt due to emergency orders. Normally, it’s any caribou sex that you can bag here. 

Cory had thought we lost it. I told him there was no way we did because I didn’t see it leave the brush. Trying to stay positive, Cory and I decided to get our gear and hike up near where we thought it was hiding at. 

As we were hiking up the adjacent hill, I saw its antlers bouncing up again above the brush to my right. It had to be about 30 yards away. Cory was so focused on getting up the hill. Since he was walking ahead of me, I had to raise my voice to get his attention. I pointed to where the caribou was and caught up next to Cory. The caribou once again ducked into the brush. We waited until it moved. It finally stood up and moved up in a spot where he was more clear to see. 

Both of us were peeping through our binoculars, zooming in between its legs to see if it was a bull. He showed his butt to us and it was a clear view of its genitalia. We both confirmed it was a bull. Boy, I never been so happy to see a pair of balls. 

We were about 50 yards away from it.  The front quarter of the bull was covered with brush and his rear was in the open.  Cory pointed his rifle and traced where the kill shot should be.  Cory did not hesitate and fired. Clean shot. I watched it all happen through my binoculars. It was instantly down. 

We looked at each other with excitement. High-fived. It was time to walk over and see our bounty. I let Cory walk ahead of me so he can have his moment with the caribou . He called me over. I thought he found it, but as I got closer to him, he had walked about 10 feet too far. It was right next to me and I watched it try to stand up. I told Cory where it was and he immediately fired again to end its suffering. 

Walking up to it, looking at its size, looking at the wound, I apologized to it and thanked it for its meat. It’s like he came to us for a reason. 

It was 2pm. It was time to go into overdrive and start field dressing. Cory knew what to do in this process. He has experience hunting in Oregon with his family. He got to work and I assisted within his orders. After field dressing and quartering the meat, we were ready to pack the caribou out. It took took us two trips to get to the 4Runner. By 5pm, we were ready to make our way back home.

According to AK fish and game, "The dressed weight of a 400-lb caribou is about 240 lbs. This equates to about 100 lbs of meat."  We were able to obtain about 90 lbs of meat after we deboned the caribou in our garage.  So this caribou had to be about 360 lbs total.  Not too shabby!

It was so surreal. My first time being a part of a successful big game hunt. Just the two of us.  We were a team. We knew exactly what needed to get done and everything just flowed between us.
I’m so proud of how we handled it all. I’m happy to be my husband's hunting partner for life.