Jennifer Marshall With Caribou
The Twenty Year Caribou – Photos and Article By Rob Marshall, Helena, MT.
Hunting with her grandfather and dad from a very early age from south east of Helena to eventually all over Montana, Jennifer learned how to hunt and fell in love with one of our oldest heritages.
Like most of us she couldn’t wait until the next fall when opening day would approach. And over 20 years ago in the midst of hunting fever, she visualized a dream of one day going on a caribou hunt to the far north with her father.
After hunting deer in the mountains east of Townsend, taking Muley’s in the southeast foothills of Montana, going “cowboy up” in the mountains and taking an elk with one shot, and dropping three dandy whitetail bucks with a slug shotgun, she still had the caribou waiting in her sights.
After 20 years, and well, five straight days of miserable rainy cold days and hard long hikes across swampy and sponge like ground with strong and cold blowing wet winds and constant intermittent storms, traveling 3 miles in 2 foot waves on a freezing lake in a small 12 foot v-bottom boat, and a couple days later dropping off a steep rocky hill several hundred yards and crawling the rest of the sneak on hands and knees 200 yards through a bog, she FINALLY realized her dream. Honestly, I’m not sure what was longer, the 20 years, or the five days after we finally arrived to camp Lac Arbeque in Northern Quebec.
And here is how our hunt went….
We touched down in Montreal on September 24th Thursday evening and relaxed and readied our gear for the next morning’s departure north. On Friday morning we met with the guide service for a briefing and then dropped our gear off to be weighed. By early afternoon we were airborne on a 3+ hour flight towards Schefferville and arrived there just before dark and took buses to the float plane hub were we would leave first thing the next morning on September 26th Saturday.
Our first encounter with weather was when we woke up on Saturday morning. A two to three hour delay getting out of Schefferville, which impacted Saturday’s hunting. We divided our gear and figured out what groups would fly in which of 4 Otters available.
Just over another 3 hour flight north of Schefferville into camp 32 on Lac Arbeque where we would live for the next week plus. Our first evening was spent settling in to camp. The next day the 27th of September, Sunday brought good weather and we were off on our first real caribou hunt. We prepared for our first hunt and climbed aboard the float plane and taxied the lake and were soon up and in the air flying over seemingly endless small lakes that dotted the swampy landscape below us. Flying yet further north looking for caribou for another two hours, approximately 50+ miles north east of camp, we located caribou and set down on a lake to begin the first hunt.
During the day we had several caribou encounters, some nice bulls where spotted during the day. Jennifer’s brother Steven shot the first bull around noon time. We had a group of 5 hunters and 2 guides and the pilot stayed with the plane. Steven’s bull was a double shovel and decent bez with good tops and a nice back scratcher on one side. Jennifer and I had a couple nice bulls come by us at 200 yards but they were not trophy class bulls. Our first day of herds of caribous traveling past us at close range was surreal and memorable. We made our way back to camp after almost a full day of hunting, with one nice trophy bull aboard.
September 28th Monday morning, we wake up to a storm that has hit the entire region with driving rains and high winds. On Monday the rain stayed pretty constant and visibility was maybe a few hundred feet throughout the day. There was no flying due to low visibility and VFR rules applied. At times the ceiling dropped to 200 feet. At some point in the afternoon a few of us geared up for a hike north of the camp. We saw a small number of caribou, but no trophy class bulls.
September 29th Tuesday early morning, the weather only got worse. Prior to first light the sound of the rain on our cabin increased and the winds picked up. It was very foggy and mist and rain kept us socked in tight. It never stopped raining as we entered the second day of constant driving rain. The weather forecast was for it to continue for 2 more days at least. According to our camp director and guides it had been several years since being kept down like this for 4 days or more.
Again a few of us wanted to hunt and geared up for heavy wet weather. A guide and a pilot both wanted their caribou tags filled for meat. On Wednesday the 30th I was with a guide when we had a close encounter with several caribou and we filled 3 tags within 20 minutes not too far from camp in a down pour.
Somebody once said “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” We danced around puddle after puddle, because it was raining and raining.
We received a report that some camps north of us that had been there longer were actually getting ice and snow and some camps were getting over a foot of snow and running low on fuel and food. So at the moment, our camp was doing really well with plenty of food, drink and fuel.
September 30th and no let up. The sound of the rain on the tin roof was becoming monotonous and the high winds continued. There were lots of naps and card playing. Folks from West Virginia, Idaho and Minnesota that were in camp with us, and the French-Canadian and Labrador locals all learned how to play euchre. The camp cooks were incredible and I gained 7 pounds back during the week. With having a warm cabin and a nice bathroom, a hot shower, a kitchen and great meals, it kept things somewhat comfortable for being in the middle of nowhere. Many conversations and even more hunting stories passed our time. I couldn’t imagine what those who where in tents north of us were going through, everything outside was just soaking wet, a giant wet sponge.
October 1st and it’s still raining, and coming down steady. The winds have let up a little and though there are still two foot waves rolling on the lake the white caps have subsided. Our guide decides we can take a boat NE out of camp to the other end of the lake about 2-3 miles, and then trek into the foothills to find caribou movement the hard way. In a small V-bottom boat which was not the best ride in the world under those conditions, very cold in the low 30’s with blowing rain, we headed NE against the waves. Jennifer, Uncle Steve and I end up being the only ones to go from our cabin and we headed out with Medrick and Tommy.
We landed on a small sandy beach (not a whole lot of sand in this part of the world) and made our way across a large swamp, sinking at times a foot into the sponge like bog as we made our way. We finally reached the bottom of the ridge and started up out of the swamp covering. About a mile to the top, we started encountering caribou. Many close calls and several hundred caribou later there were no trophy class bulls, but many good sightings at less than 40 yards, and some good bulls, but just not good enough.
A few hours later, the weather starts to improve and break a little as we head back, soaking wet and cold. With the winds down and the water calmer it makes the boat ride a little more tolerable.
October 2nd, Friday morning, we wake to silence, no more rain, no more wind. Still low visibility but it’s starting to clear. At breakfast we are briefed by the camp director. Today is the day we were originally scheduled to fly back thru either Schefferville or Lac Pau and head to Montreal to go home. However, with the storms basically holding everyone down in all camps across northern Quebec from Leaf River to Labrador, there are logistic problems with too few planes and pilots to move everyone at once.
So the decision is made for us to hunt two more days while priority hunters that had been here even longer than us by the time the storm hit, are to go out first. Since we are on a guaranteed hunt for 2 trophy bulls each, they want us to tag out if at all possible.
Friday late morning it has cleared and visibility is above a few hundred feet and we are informed to gear up and make ready to head NE about 80+ miles. By early afternoon we are flying over several small herds and starting to get into a larger number of caribou. After flying over 100 miles NE and then crossing back south we start spotting several nice bulls and locate a lake to put down on just ahead of the movement.
At this point in the trip since departing Helena, Jennifer and I have made 24 take offs and landings, with several more still to come. We head up the ridge away from the plane and cover close to 2 miles across the bog and swamps to the larger part of the herd movement. Again, several hundred caribou and some dandy bulls, just no trophy bulls can be located. We end up coming back across the bog and swamp to the ridge above the lake we landed on and the movement there had picked up. We have now spotted several bigger bulls with a couple possible trophy bulls headed our way. We are into the late afternoon and are starting to run out of time. Earlier in a location to the east of us Uncle Steve took a good trophy size bull. The guide and Steve were quartering this animal and heading back to our location.
It’s now Friday late afternoon when first Jennifer spots a nice trophy bull, and then the guide and I see the trophy caribou headed in our direction. The guide takes Jennifer and me in the direction to head off the bull and get into position for a possible shot. We actually close the distance to 100 yards and the decision is made for me to shoot. This is a nice caribou bull with good tops. One shot and the bull travels only a few yards and goes down. I have taken a decent trophy bull with good tops, double shovel and small bez with back scratchers on both sides. This is a good representation of a Labrador caribou bull from this region. We spot a couple more bulls after quartering and capping my bull, but the guide insists they are not trophies. We head back to the plane to load up and go back to the camp. This was a good hunt.
It’s October 3rd Saturday early morning and our last day to hunt. Five hunters and we still have 7 trophy tags unfilled. We would head out this morning the earliest of all days we have hunted so far. Our game plan was to go in the direction we went yesterday as there was increasing movement in that area. After about 70+ miles and just over an hour, we were seeing many caribou and we spot several good bulls and one really good trophy bull. We set down on a lake nearby. This caribou bull has Jennifer’s name all over it. We head up the ridge away from the lake and quickly hit the top of the hill and have caribou streaming past us. We literally have to walk between the caribou to get on top to the point of the ridge. We are now glassing SW right above another smaller lake below and in front of us. On the next ridge over you can now see the large bull cresting the top and heading down into the field below. This field is about 600-700 yards out in front of us, above the small lake. As we wait for him and a couple other small bulls and several cows to slowly make their way across the field, he and another small bull and four cows bed down at 580 yards away.
We are positioned on a rock outcrop right above the bedded caribou and the big trophy bull. The guide makes the decision to leave Bob (Jennifer’s dad) and me behind and take Jennifer on a sneak to get a better position and closer to have a shot on the bull when he stands back up. Jennifer and Medrick (the guide) head down the ridge to the right to walk across the swamp and skirt the lake and move closer to the bull. All of this is in full view of Bob and I as we sit on the large rocks situated 500 yards above everything that is about to unfold. I am now videotaping the entire hunt from about 450 yards above them
They have now dropped down the ridge and are making their way across the swamp, and the bull is laying quartering away from their movement. The sun is reflecting nicely off his tops and you can see this is definitely a trophy class bull. They have now made it out of the swamp and are coming into the field 250 yards away from the bedded caribou. There are four cows that bedded about 40 yards to the west of the two bulls.
Medrick led the way with Jennifer right behind. As they came thru the bottom of the field, there were several bushes that were 2-3 feet high that covered the field and they moved slowly and quietly thru those bushes and stopped behind a small clump of pine trees, about 200 yards in front of the bulls. The wind was not exactly in their favor as it moved off to the SW, the caribou were more to the west.
They were now less than 200 yards when Medrick decided they should start crawling. Hands and knees in the spongy wet bog, they carefully moved about 20 yards at a time. Somewhere about 100 yards away the cows in the back, which Medrick and Jennifer could not see, stood up and were nervously sniffing the air and staring directly in the direction of the two hunters. The bulls remained bedded but were now turning their heads east and alerted. Another move and Med and Jennifer are now within 75 yards and the cows are starting to nervously walk off, from my position above I thought Med and Jennifer could see this, but later I found out they never did see the cows.
Another move and they are now approximately 60 yards out from the bedded bulls. The cows are now moving quickly out of the area and the bulls stand and are looking around.
I can see hunter orange and not sure exactly what Jennifer is doing, and I can see the bulls plainly and the bigger bulls antlers still reflecting the morning sun. The big bull is quartered away looking at the cows that have now walked away quickly. The bull is offering no shot and time seems to be growing longer and longer. If the bigger bull starts walking away there will be no shot offered. The smaller bull walks past the bigger bull and behind him and the bigger bull turns perfect broadside to Jennifer, again time just seemed to take forever, nothing happening yet.
Probably only a minute or two passed, but seemed like a half hour, and then – the bull dropped to the ground…………. Seconds later – finally the repeat of the rifle could be heard.
One shot, and twenty years raced by, Jennifer had taken her trophy caribou bull with a successful sneak from 500 yards! Very nice tops and good mass on the main beams with a back scratcher and big thick bez on this old bull. This is a very nice trophy caribou that will look great on the wall and many memories that will come for years. We hurried down the ridge and across the swamp to meet one happy hunter and a happy guide. We helped cap and quarter the caribou bull and head back across the swamp and back to the top of the ridge and had lunch. The whole time several more caribou could be seen moving directly above us and off to the east. We made plans to get back to the plane and fly to our last spot and an attempt to harvest our last caribou.
Back on the plane and headed towards camp we actually put down less than 10 miles from camp and found what would end up being over a thousand caribou. Bob was yet to fill a tag and Uncle Steve wanted to tag out. Making it to the top of a ridge above the lake that we sat down in, we were quickly covered up with caribou that headed NE above us in two groups at 100 and 200 yards. One nice old bull, not the biggest trophy we were looking for, but with only an hour left Bob decided to harvest a wide old bull that had a great white main. The bull came out of a small ravine and Bob put him down. There was a similar nice bull with big bez and long main beams right behind that Uncle Steve ended up taking. The guides quartered those bulls as we moved forward a few hundred yards to glass for possible trophy bulls coming off the ridges In front of us to the west.
Medrick had finished first and came back to take me north about a half of a mile to watch a movement coming off another ridge. We saw some nice bulls but nothing close to a trophy class. We had run out of time and were not going to take another caribou.
As we headed back to the plane, we all watched to our west as the sun was setting. Several hundred caribou came off the ridge in front of us and were jumping into a lake to cross it. Watching that many caribou together swimming across the lake was something to behold – you would have had to be there – it truly was something amazing to watch.
Now back in the Otter and flaps down we climbed up out of the lake and flew right above the big herd crossing below us, and headed back to camp.
Looking back now, there were so many memories and moments those are amazing and will last a lifetime.
Between 5 hunters in our cabin, we took 6 bulls, 3 of which were really good trophy representations from the Labrador herd. The other cabin with 6 hunters tagged out with 12 bulls, but several of those were smaller bulls.
Because of being able to only effectively hunt less than 3 full days, and having 4 unfilled trophy tags, we get to come back to finish our trophy caribou hunt over the next couple years. We look forward to returning, and hopefully with good weather.
I think Jennifer’s 20 year wait was truly satisfied when she finally held those large caribou bull antlers in her hands. Her smile was – priceless, while her dad was clearing his eyes to take more pictures of his daughter’s trophy caribou. I of course enjoyed every moment from behind the video recorder.
