Full of Bull

Thank God and the Caribou for passing by us as we need them.
Our local Caribou herd, the Western Arctic Caribou Herd, WACH, 275,000 at last count migrating through the region.
like salmon, when the Caribou come through, its enmass, when they are gone, the are ......G o n e.
No one knows which way they will go each year, either.
The game Unit is larger than Illinois state and has less than 10,000 people in total of 11 villages.
Food is culture, as is its persuit.

Nothing was harvested in the making of these meats.
Were Hunters, not Farmers, our animals are wild and we have to hunt them, because its hunting. this is the cleanest, most efficient, painless method of selective hunting.

Hunting with Daughters Iri's hunny Ed, but we left grandson Wade due to illness.
The first night we were joined by the boat of daughter Carol and her BF Skyler, and got our hunt on the next morning.
Onion Portage was full of Bulls.
After making meats, we then overnighted just outside of Ambler with daughter Mary and her hunny Preston and daughter Rose. We showed up in the middle of butchering and Presto arriving soon afte with another fat Bull for them, making the visit all the more fun. Ed visited his mom and family, and gave them the fattest Bull we had.

The divvi up took care of my girls and grand kids in many many ways ......... a perfect hunt all around.



.22lr to the head, no meats wasted, no wounded, no cows or calfs, just perfectly fat prerut Bulls that will takes us until late January when theres enough sun shine and thick enough ice to hunt again, safely and effectively.

This year were making another ourselfs a sleeping bag, as ours is getting old (6 years) and starting to shed a bit, and a second one for the kids.
It takes 9-10 skins for a large sleeping bag, and we will have two made soon
Well cut our old one open and use it for a tent rug for a few more years.
The legs make great mukluks and socks. The hair wont rub off the legs or nose areas, and the thick neck of the Bull makes for boot soles.


Inside, reduction continued


The foods they eat certainly make them bloat quickly, but its not bad for them. We get to them as we do, one at a time, and being the Arctic, its no race to cool the meats at this time of year.
Sand it the enemy, so we pull them up on frozen sands with snow, or we would chop willows and pull them up on those.
We leave them in the skin to protect the meats, and only leave the heads and antlers behind.
Old men gather the heads and antlers. Antlers for selling (5$ an lb) and heads for dog feed.

We gut and keep "bible( rumenints sack)," menses fats, kidney fats, hearts and tongues, livers, often kidneys. Some eat the brains, but every one was shot there (.22lr, no pass throughs, no wounded)so theres no need to take that too.....LOL!!
Its a couple hundred pounds of fat and meat from a prime Fall Bull. More than any other time of year.
raising kids on Caribou, its easy to eat one every week and never get tired of it.
Now, we all hunt together and fill each kids house for their kids.
A Caribou in our house today lasts 2-3 weeks.
We also gave away 1/2 of our catch to relations and elders in the village.
Give what we can, keep what we must is the motto of the day. Makes you rich.



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The skins have different uses according to the time of year.

The fat meat and thick skins are the true trophys.

Its possible.
When these come home, they become the ladies, but I can score a couple more, its what I "Do", and that would be fine.
Were 'freezing up", so the ice is thin and Ill hunt Caribou again in a couple weeks or so.

This is a very brief hunt, usually less than 2 weeks in length, as the WACH Caribou herds migration is timed with the freeze up. Freezup makes travel easy for the animals, and pre rut Bulls follow the cows as they pour out of the mountain passes, headed south for the Winter.
We wait for this movement along our rivers here to the Brooks Range south.

Most of the Caribou are North of the Brooks Range in summer, but we have a few straggler Bulls in summer for fresh meats , on land or in the water , the ony difference is where we shoot them and with what gun.
Here is a vid from this summer when we crossed paths with 2 bulls and a 15 year old with a .22 and an appetite for Caribou. it was the end of a very long day and yet there they were


We wait on the south side of the rivers where the mountain ridges meet the river as the Caribou take these paths. The Caribou come from the North and gather in small herds or 10 to 500 as they travel.
We let the first few hundred go by so they establish a trail the rest will follow.
At theses spots , we watch hundreds of Cows go by and use boats to cut off and evaluate the following Bulls.

First you look at their condition, how fat and healthy they are. Then you literally give a 'sniff test" because the Bulls who are in rut put out a very foul smell, as welll as the meat smells like skunk poop with gasoline poured on it. Dogs wont eat it....no kidding, theres nothing like it.

.Oncoming rut can be predicted when the Bulls have belly's full of water and little graze. We stop hunting them when one has this, as they hit rut enmass, much like they way they calve in synchronicity.

Anyway, once cut off in the river with a boat, looked and smelled allright we pop the swimming animals in the brain with a .22lr. No wounded, no pass through shots, no bad animals for dinner.
20 feet is about the normal shot as getting close and not running the animal over is the goal.
POW!! and a pithed, dead carcass of wild, nutrisious hormone free fat meat is floating in the river.
The cows, calfs and unwanted Bulls swim on in thier tight bunches and hit the willow lined shore, to instantly dissaper into them.
We are allowed 5 per day, each. 5 is about 3 hours total work for me and 3 people in the boat fills it.

We share our meats with the babysitters, the gas buyers, the elders the brothers and sister and those who are away at work as well as just because they need to eat.
These animals are wild and free untill we cross paths, and it is Hunting in the oldest way.

My wifes great grand father hunted Caribou from a kayak with a spear, her grand father speared and later shot them from a kayak.Her father shot them from a kayak and later shot them from a powered boat, my wife has shot them from a powered boat....the hunt is still viable and able to change with the times. Fewer caribou are taken as dog teams are pretty much past us and they eat as much as a grown man each day, and 12 ever hungry mouths is no easy task to feed.....and then theres your own self and family.
They not only shot and speared them, they also lined the willows along the shore with snares, taking a boat upriver each morning and from the end of the line, lanced the Caribou (to save bullets) worked them, put them into the boat and worked.
The men hunted up river of their homes too, shooting Caribou and in the river and rafting them all tied together to be worked at home.

As well, there are fewer Hunters out on the lands and waters than even 30 years ago. Fewer people fishing for themselfs too, but that changes with economy, when food gets expensive or gas does.
You cannot buy Caribou meat in a store, no matter how much money you make and food is culture.
My wife had fairly old parents who grew up in fur, and passed their knowledge and work to her. We made killer $$ filling in museum displays for a few years, untill my writing caught up to me and we landed filming contracts.
Its crazy what caribou hunting leads to.

For years we lived from Caribou and what we made with their skins and antlers.

Shooting Caribou is WAAAAAY different than shooting a person.

However, KY is right that its not sporting, and Im not a sport Hunter. You cant feed a family hunting for trophys. I am but one of many fellow Hunters that make a living around here, and none are "Sports" hunters.
I dont shoot animals to look cool, show off or hang on a wall.
Bacon is the about the only meat I buy in the only store in our village. Ill buy a Turkey once a year too.
Gas is 9$ a gallon today and where we caught those Caribou, people pay 14$ a gallon, today, so whats left for food anyways?

When ever I see Caribou swimming, Ill get them if I have time , room and they are legal. We dont deliberatly hunt them this way untill the migration moves through, but now and then we cross them swimming the rivers, lakes and ocean. Nothing like fresh meat!

Its a subsistence hunt and the pile of antlers is left behind on the beach and the meats fill my belly and many others. We hunt for ourselfs and others/
Every give away 1/2 your pay check? Thats what makes us rich, giving and sharing nutritious food.

I would have to kill more animals if I had to shoot them in the chest/meats, to get the same poundage of meat as I get from an entire Bull thats brain shot...... and I prefer the quick, painless death the Bulls are subject to , rather than a chase across the Tundra as they bleed out terrified and in pain.
I get to do that stuff the rest of the year, but for a week or less, the bulls are right there to see and smell and not in rut. The second rut is detected, its over. Smell and a belly full of water and not moss,lichen,sedges is the sign, and thats that.

I prefer to be as close as possible and look the animal over and make a certain shot.
I prefer keeping them in the skin as they freeze and I thaw them one at a time over the winter, the animals hanging in my meats shed all fresh and clean.
Take the skin off and you have to deal with the meats, skin on the animals , birds and sand stay off until you use them.
Freeze up is the perfect time to hang a whole carcass and save more for later.We eat a Caribou a week , easily in our house, and it used to be almost 2 when we had all 7 kids in the house.

If you think this is fish in a barrel, we get those in a net, and I kill the animals that my foot hold traps keep animals from running away from me, because this is the way it is. There no running them off cliffs, if that makes you feel better.
Making meats at the perfect time is Hunting, perfected.

Im on TV because I have skills and talent. That makes money, but the hunting and fishing is just me doing my thing, which makes it all so easy, its almost like stealing. I used to love taking the pictures and vids, write about them and all, but now we dance between them filming and me posting here like this thread, where they didnt follow.
I get to do something I love and am good at, so the rest is just bonus, shared out among my family just like the meats from that hunt.
We cant buy Caribou in the store, either.If the money evaporated tomorrow, and some day it will, this dont cost me any thing more than before.

If your interested, heres a link to how we lived before the show came along and made us wealthy
https://forums.outdoorsdirectory.co...-life-as-a-subsistance-hunter-fisher-gather-r