Snow

I went out hunting again this past Saturday with neighbor Kyle and our principal. I was hoping that we could catch some cows this time. The bulls are still extremely skinny from the rut and there is not a whole lot of meat on them. We finally have some snow on the ground, and you wouldn't believe how much better the trail is. Last time I was bumping over, around, and through the tundra tussocks. This time with all the snow we just glided right over them. As soon as we got over the bridge we started seeing tracks. We went up on a hill over the lake to see if we could see anything from up there. There were no caribou in sight, so we went over the first row of hills and saw a couple of high schooler's cutting a couple of caribou. We went and talked to them and they told us that the rest of the herd, five bulls, had headed over some more hills just a little ways. We headed over the hills and there they were. I checked to make sure that they were in fact bulls. We didn't really want the bulls, but Kyle wanted meat in the freezer. We did a quick loop up the next set of hills to see if we could see anything else. There were no more caribou in sight, so we decided these ones would have to do. We cruised up to them. The caribou didn't really run fast or far because the snow was so deep. We stopped a hundred yards broadside. I told Kyle I would shoot the lead one and he said he'd take the second one. I shot and my caribou dropped, Kyle shot a few times and had two caribou down. Craig shot a lot of times and got one. There was one left after the shooting. I was worried we were going to run out of daylight but Craig must have wounded it when he was trying to get one. I went over and shot it. This was the first trip that I brought my 22-250 out. I sighted it in earlier in the morning. It was dead on. I don't think I missed this time. A far sight better than last time I was out an almost ran out of bullets. I wouldn't have made it as a Sackett. Craig has never gutted an animal before, but it was getting late and I didn't want to be out after dark. I told him to cut it from butt to chest and then pull the guts out. Trial by fire I guess. I went and gutted the last one I shot. Then I went and got the sled to load the caribou up. The deep snow made for easy hunting, but tiring loading them up. The caribou Craig shot was in and almost neck deep drift. I got stuck about five times before we were finally able to drag the sled out. We loaded up, and headed back just as it was getting dark. Five caribou in all, not a bad day.