guided caribou hunt?

[verg]

Hi,

My father and I have been discussing saving up and go on a caribou hunt. He is in his early 60's now so I think it may be something we do in the next year or two. Can someone recommend an outfit that you trust as far as the class of people, success of hunt, price, accomodations etc?

I looked on the net and have found many many advertisements but is so hard to judge.

thanks for any insight.

[fishermann222]

Are you looking for guided or just outfitted?

I would recommend hunting the herd out of Kotzabue. My Live near the Mulchatna herd and I have hunted that herd on fly out hunts and I hunt the herd every winter for meat, Not many large bulls left.

If i was going to spend the money to fly all the way up here, i would go out of kotz and i would just go with an outfitted hunt, not a fully guided one. If you want I can put you in touch with a good outfitter out of kotz who you can talk to and get you set up with a pilot. At this time of year you will be booking for 2010 most likely.

[FL SNIPER]

I agree with fisherman222. I was up hunting caribou this past September with three friends...out of Kotzebue. You could look at my other post about it. I'd suggest going there...we had good success. We were not guided...but outfitted (tent and transportation in). I believe you could hire a guide thru the same outfit as well.

[verg]

thanks guys.

I am going to save your info and probably pm you or whatever whenever the time comes. We are not looking for some world class operation. We would just like to have an enjoyable safe hunt. Would like to shoot some nice bulls but I guess they don't have to be world class by any means.

thanks

[Wanderer]

If you think you might want to make the trip up to Kotz, you can contact Dave Leonard. He has a guide service called Mountain Monarchs. He works management units 23 and 24.

We used Northwestern Aviation for bush pilots when we were there. Jim Ruud was the owner/operator but he quit the business a few years ago. If someone took it over they probably have his favorite spots in their book now.

If you don't want to go that far North, I would look for someone to set up across Cook Inlet, maybe the Illiamna area. That's an area I would like to try sometime. Some big bulls over there last I heard.

Problem with that area is that its steeper. That might not work out for a senior hunter.

Just some ideas.

Hmmm. I just googled Northwestern Aviation and found the company to be in operation but the site doesn't even mention hunting being offered. You could call and find out but it don't look like the same business Jim ran.