Hey TT,

Not exactly an ideal hunt.......bummer. I'm glad y'all got to at least take a bull.

Send me the photos and I will host them at my PhotoBucket.com account and post them for you.

Good Hunting,

Bob
bobcat50@satx.rr.com

Sh!t. Ofoto pictures can't be linked, and hunt101 won't let you upload pics any more. I'm tired of joining these rackets just to host pictures. So, without any photos:

We hunted 75 miles west of Illiamna, on Old Man Creek, just west of the Malchatna River. Dates were Sept 10-16. We hunted with Tony Lee of Westwind Guide Service, on an outfitted drop camp.

The Good:

We saw lots of caribou.
The equipment provided was good (9x9 tent, cots, stove, lantern, etc).
Weather...only two nights with rain, and a couple of hours on two days. 20s two nights, otherwise 30-55 every day.
Iliamna Lake Lodge was a neat place, if you ever overnight in Iliamna.
Plenty of food provided.
Cabela's MT050 hunting and rain gear were perfect. Very impressed (all three of us used the stuff with 0 flaws).
Danner boots stay waterproof and provide really good support.
Sierra Designs sleeping bag.
Nikon ATB 8x40 binocs.

The Not-so-good:

There were NO big bulls, period. I shot the biggest bull we saw in 6 days of looking at every bull that came through.
Food selection left something to be desired.
Our camp location was terrible. We had to hike 2 miles out/back each day across rotten tundra to get to a vantage point (and where the 'bou were).
Wolverine boots-leaked first day and no support.
Mountain Hardware sleeping bag.


Overall, it was a very enjoyable hunt. We hunted damned hard, and could have shot many smaller bulls. I shot mine because we had made a long, exhausting chase over terrible ground to catch a herd that was traveling, trying to get a better look at 3 bulls in the herd. It was the second day, and we wanted some meat to eat while we were in camp, so I shot the biggest bull (the biggest one we saw, it turned out).

After about 3/4 mile of hard double-time walking we got to a vantage point on a hill the herd had worked around. The bull was moving quartering away at 375 yards.

I held 12 inches into the wind and on the top of the back with my battered 300 RUM. The bull dropped like he was hit by lightning. The bullet had hit the spine at the top of the withers.

It later occurred that I had compensated for the 20-30 mph wind, but not the steep downhill angle, which is the reason for the high hit. I should have held just high of dead on.

The 180 gr Partition did just as it should have, although I'll note that the top 1/3 of both shoulders were shredded, along with quite alot of neck and back meat, as well as the paunch being ruptured badly.

Cost ex Anchorage (per person):

Pen Air to Iliamna - $388
Air Taxi Iliamna to camp - $500
Outfitted drop hunt - $1400
2 nights Iliamna Lake Lodge - $200

Total is about $2500 per person, plus incidentals and $75 for back-haul of meat to Iliamna. We donated the meat there, and I shipped the antlers home as a check bag (they were small...just split 'em, wrapped in cardboard and tape, and checked the package).

As a note, I think that this is not a good value for a hunt, even if we had gotten 3 big bulls. We basically paid $5200 for a tent, cot, freezedried food, etc. The outfitter didn't provide any flying, since we paid for that ourselves from Iliamna.

If you have any hunting experience at all, you should be able to ship a crate with your equipment to Iliamna, and just hire a bush pilot to fly your stuff out to where the caribou are (they should know).

If anyone wants to host a picture for me, I'll email it to them.

Has anybody seen any big bulls in the Malchatna herd this year? The outfitter said they haven't seen ONE YET.

Here you go, TT:

Nice antlers and fine animal

Thanks Bob!