Haul Rd 2017

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Bring a wolf tag, never know! Stalked this one and the stars aligned.

We killed another big caribou on our first stalk, my buddies first caribou. Awesome trip, until the fog settled in which is a bummer when you only have a day and a half. I passed a few stalks on decent sized caribou hoping I'd see a giant.

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Spent 6 hours per day, for three days up there this past weekend. Very few hunters. Saw two bulls and three cows. Pass is fine, road isn't too bad, didn't go past Ice Cut though. Snow is falling.
 

robAK

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Flew over the Brooks last night coming back to work. Looks like heavy snow all the way to the road. Hopefully all the sheep hunters got out OK. A co-worker last year was stuck in his 1-man tent for 8 days and ran out of food while waiting out the storms.
 
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How did Colonel do?

Saw a few this past weekend, nothing to write home about, weather isn't the greatest and road is a sloppy mess.
 
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colonel00

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Man, it was brutal. We managed to time it perfectly to hit the worst weather possible I think. Long story short, days of cold rain and low visibility leading into heavy snows, broken tent poles, soaked clothes, bull running basically through camp, wolves creeping by camp in the night, hiking the tussocks wasn't fun enough so we did it in about 6-9" of snow too, etc. etc. :D I'm still waiting for all of the feeling to come back to my toes.

On the bright side, we did catch some huge Grayling and hammered some salmon the last couple days of our trip. I'm still going through all of my photos and video but I'll put up a longer story at some point. Look for a thread called "How to not hunt caribou on the Haul Road" :)

A couple pro tips:
When you pack all your gear at home, double check to be sure you included your gloves.
Before setting out on a 3.5 mile death march across the tundra in rain and snow, make sure you grabbed your bino pouch and rangefinder.
 
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When were you up there? I think I've only missed a few weekends since first week of August. I love bowhunting up there, really nice to not have the long hike into tundra nothingness.
 
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colonel00

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When were you up there? I think I've only missed a few weekends since first week of August. I love bowhunting up there, really nice to not have the long hike into tundra nothingness.

Oh, two weeks ago I guess. We went in on Friday the 25th. Bowhunting is fun but for us non-res, it's getting a bit too expensive and time is more limited. We had a good plan of floating and hiking in and then a float out. For the route we took, even the hike wasn't all that bad. Just one day of no rain or snow would have made a huge difference.
 
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Yeah, the weather up there is unpredictable for sure, this year the weather early on was damn nice, glad for that... past few weekends I've went up it's been hit or miss and mostly less than desirable.

I was up there the 25th-27th and we only saw three bulls, none of which I cared to go after... weather wasn't very good either.

I will say this, I've seen FAR less people up there this year than any of the past 3.

How is bowhunting more expensive than rifle hunting?
 
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colonel00

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Bowhunting isn't more expensive, just referencing that tag costs have doubled and the cost for a non-res to get up the haul road isn't cheap and time is usually fairly limited so, while we had bows, the focus was getting 5 miles out and getting one with a rifle. Not that rifle hunting is a guarantee, obviously, but if you can get out there, the odds are a little more favorable to fill a tag. I'd love to be able to get up there as much as you do as it would be fun to just chase them with a bow all the time.

I agree, it seemed like the number of hunters was pretty low. When we came through the pass it was snowing. There was one camp in that valley by the research area and there was another on the north side of the road down a little ways. Other than that, we didn't really see anyone until we got to Ice Cut and further north. I think more folks showed up as we saw a few more after we came out on the 30th I think it was. It took a little while for me to hitch a ride from Happy Valley. Still not like the first time I was up there 5 years ago though where it seemed like every pull-out had someone camping in it and there were tons of truck cruising up and down the road.

I'll also add that while I've seen some people talk about using a "regular" rental car or a U-haul van/truck for getting up the Haul Road, I sure was glad we went with a rental from GoNorth when the weather was unfavorable. I'm sure "regular" vehicles do just fine when it's dry. We actually saw a bunch of Uhaul trucks at what looked like one of the road crew camps. But, I'd still rather have a vehicle that was setup to take the abuse of the road and sloppy conditions.
 
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Yeah, the tag costs are pretty unreal all of a sudden, no argument there. I think folks may get more bang for their buck in terms of experience if they flew out, but that's certainly not a budget hunt like the road offers. Do you plan to come back and hunt the road in the future? I've heard lots of complaining this year about numbers of caribou, but I do not think that most understand the level of luck involved in being in the right place at the right time when herds come through. There really is no way of doing anything at all to time it perfect. Sometimes it happens and other times it doesn't.

See any bears?
 
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colonel00

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Honestly, I'm not sure if we'll try the road hunt again or not. It's definitely a ton of fun and the drive itself is something that everyone should do at some point. I think it just comes down to cost and time. With the increase in the tag prices, one must now consider if they are willing to spend $650 on a tag that isn't easy to fill. Tack on top of that the other expenses for a non-res like $1500-2K for a vehicle rental (3-4 guys) plus airfare, baggage, fuel, etc. Plus, you also need a good week and a half to get up the road and back and still have some time to hunt. It's just a lot of time and money to commit to a hunt that, as you appropriately point out, depends a lot on luck. If it was just the cost of the tag and a regular rental car, I'd do the hunt again for sure, but with everything else, it's hard to justify. That and it's more and more difficult to get a group to commit to this hunt due to the time and cost. There were only three of us this year and I don't know that I could get one or both of them to go back anytime soon.

A fly out would definitely be good option but that's not cheap and with the weather up there, you had better plan a lot of padding. We talked to some guys in Happy Valley that had bee on hold for several days and still didn't know when they would get out. I couldn't imagine planning a 12 day fly-out hunt and having it shortened to something like 5 days due to weather. Plus, we still like the idea of doing stuff ourselves whenever possible.

Didn't see any bears though we couldn't really see much of anything most days. When we floated out, we camped next to another pair of guys that had seen a pack of wolves chasing a bear that day or the day before. Plenty of fresh tracks though. As mentioned, I think it was Tuesday after the big snow, we had fresh wolf tracks around our big tent.
 
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Sorry if it sounded like I meant flying in up there, I think there are much better places in the state to hunt caribou at the moment and I'd go there if flying in.

I can't imagine the costs involved as a NR to come up and do that hunt, with rentals and airfare to boot. I fill up my tank, plus two 15 gallon jugs and head up... Loaf of bread and some meat/cheese, water and chips. I'd likely spend more money around town in the same amount of time I am gone up there from Fairbanks.
 
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colonel00

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Oh yeah, I hear ya. We may start putting in for some draws and look at other options in the state.

Yup, it gets pricey fast. Just luggage on an airplane gets expensive. For the hunt only, three guys, we had a bow case with 2 bows, a gun case with 2 guns, another case with a bow and a gun, a duffel with 2 PR-49's, another bag with a Kork raft, 2 coolers and at least 3-4 duffels of gear and other stuff. Even flying on Alaska Air where the extra bags are cheap ($75), that adds up quickly. Other folks that fly Delta or other airlines are hit with $150-$200+ for extra bags. Add in some fishing gear and checked baggage alone costs a pretty penny.

Hell, we were driving a F-350 and I think it was well over $100 just to fill up in Coldfoot twice and once in Deadhorse.
 
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