gebo824
AH senior member
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2015
- Messages
- 72
- Reaction score
- 91
- Location
- Floresville, TX
- Media
- 43
- Member of
- SCI,DSC,RMEF,MDF,NRA
- Hunted
- US, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, New Zealand, RSA, Namibia, Zambia, Mozambique,Tanzania
This trip report is for a hunt I just completed for a Quebec Caribou with Leaf River Lodge. This was booked through Worldwide Trophy Adventures (Cabela’s), getting in on a cancellation. I have the various caribou species on the bucket list & had originally thought I’d do the Barren Ground or Mountain caribou first, but since Quebec closed hunting of the Quebec-Labrador species as of next year, this moved to the forefront. The opening I got in on was early in the season & I was concerned that I might not have much success, so had contented myself that any representative caribou would be good enough. I have also never hunted in Canada nor hunted caribou. Thus, I created a thread on this website called “Quebec Caribou Tips?” to gather information from the experienced hunters participating & contributing to this website. I received valuable suggestions & recommendations, which contributed greatly to my success. Thanks to all for the help!!!
Gear: I took my Savage 116 Bear Hunter in 300 Win Mag. I brought this mainly because I had the 4457 form for it from a prior Namibia hunt (separate trip report to come). I bought the Cabela's MT050 gore-tex bibs & jacket in the O2 Octane pattern, which worked great. I also bought the Cabela's Instinct stalking pants in the same pattern, that are water repellent & were awesome, loved these pants!!! I only wore the bibs the day I fished & the Instinct pants kept me dry in the scattered rains experienced. I’m a bit conditioned to the cold after living 7 years in Laramie, WY (now 4yrs in Denver, CO) & tend to overheat fast when hiking. So, I didn’t mind the cold boat rides as I did fine with the Instinct pants & thin long johns. Someone from southern climates might want to wear the bids, at least on the boat rides. I also wore the Under Armour Cold Gear mock shirts, which worked great & the mock turtle neck keep the black flies from crawling down my shirt. On top of the cold gear mock, I just wore thin Under Armour henley shirts (black & green). My old Danner hunting boots are so worn the waterproofing is gone. So I bought some Cabela's brand rubber boots, which were very comfortable but slipped on the heel & didn’t give any ankle support. I should have got a half size smaller but anticipated wearing thick socks (which weren’t really needed during my hunt). I was glad to have the rubber boots for on/off the boat, muddy swamps, & creeks crossed while stalking, but weren’t friendly for long hikes on rocky ground. Good water proof hunting boots probably would have worked fine, but would have to be a little careful where stepping. I did get blisters on the ~3 mile hike with my trophy rack due to heel slipping. I also bought a Browning waterproof duffle bag, which did well keeping my stuff dry as bags did get exposed to rain during multiple transfers on planes. I wish it had wheels though, as 44lbs of it & a Pelican rifle case made for a sweaty trek through the airport on initial departure. I later rigged up some paracord to strap it on the rifle case for easier pulling & that worked well. I took some DEET spray & also some Natrapel wipes. The black flies did get bad at times when the wind was calm, worse at camp, but mostly an annoyance. The wipes worked good, & only used the spray when fishing or the one calm day. I do have some itchy bites on my arms.
Travel To Camp: Since booking through WTA, I used their travel agency. Lenore set me up with flights from Denver to Montreal & booked me at the Crown Plaza. Leaf River has a great setup where they have a representative at the Crown Plaza to meet you when arriving. They have a trailer in the parking lot in the back where they weighed & stored the checked bags & rifle/bow cases. I thought this a good idea, as the charter flight from Montreal to Lac Pau left at 6am & gathering the large baggage in the trailer the night before expedited loading the bus at about 4am to take us all to the airport that Nolinor (charter) flys from. I believe there were 31 people on this initial flight. This charter was included in the price (as well as the float planes) & we flew up on a 737 to Lac Pau for a ~2.5hr flight. At Lac Pau, we were separated into groups of 6 or so for the float plane rides to camps. They bused us to the Riviere Aux Feuilles (Leaf River) or so called the “hotel” near the bank of the reservoir. The “hotel” had several trailers full of rooms with two twin beds to stay at if weather prevented float plane flights. The luggage for each group was placed on bins & weighed for the float planes. We were having scattered rain on arrival, so we had to hang out for a 3-4 hours. The float planes must fly by visual, so fog or low clouds are a problem. They fed us soup & sandwiches for lunch. We were starting to get concerned we might not make it out, but then they said “Let’s try it”. I was in the first group, so we scrambled on the float plane & took off. I watched the altimeter off & on from my front seat & never saw higher than ~2800ft. We luckily made it to the Leaf River lodge, & following flights trailed behind waiting on reports from our pilot if safe to take off/continue. This flight was another ~2.5hrs. This was my first float plane ride, so was a unique & exciting experience for me.
Arrival at Camp: We sat down on the Leaf River & maneuvered to the dock. The prior group at camp commented that they were “very glad to see us”, as they would have been delayed if we couldn’t make it & must have been prepped of the possibility. We met with Louis & his crew, decided which cabins we were to stay at, & settled in. Louis gave us a briefing & went over rules of the camp/hunt. The hunting areas are divided into “zones”, of which each guide draws for placement. The meals at camp were great & were classic comfort food type meals, with wine at dinners. We were 2x1, so since I was solo, I grouped up with Derrick from Newfoundland & Sean was our guide. I bunked with Serge from Quebec who was solo & there to fish only. Serge barely spoke English, so didn’t have many conversations, but he was a very good fellow & also a Rapala pro staffer. There were a couple guys from Quebec with the French-Canadian hunting show Chasse Maniac, who were great fun. There were also several “Super Slammers” who have much hunting experience & I constantly picked their brains on which outfitters to go with on future hunts around the world. One very cool experience was to see the Northern Lights for the first time! The first couple nights were clear, so saw them well. The Northern Lights photos below were taken by the Chasse Manic guys with their expensive cameras, of which they gladly gave me copies. I only show a couple photos here, but they setup one camera to take time lapse photos & captured a shooting star going through the frames!
The Hunt: We had breakfast at 7am, then took off in the boats up/down river to the respective zones. While the weather was rather warm for the location, the boat rides were chilly. The river was very low & the guide had to be careful to maneuver around rocks. I heard that they would typically go 40miles up river to hunt, but with the low river we were limited on range to maybe 15-20miles. Thus, the boat rides to the far zones took almost 2 hrs dodging rocks & would have been much longer if not limited on range! There are some rapids beyond where we could travel, so didn’t get to experience that but heard they were very exciting.
The first day had scattered light rain. We went to one of the far zones (10) & saw small groups of caribou, all heading North. We were too early for the migration & presumed these small groups were heading back North for cooler weather. We spotted one really nice bull with cows & tried to head him off before crossing the river past our limited boat range. We didn’t get there in time & only got glimpses at ~400yds. I sat down & would have tried the shot if I had a couple seconds to spot & aim. Later we climbed a hill by a lake (lakes are everywhere here). We spotted a decent bull & Derrick had first crack, but missed. Then another group of 3 bulls came around the lake & were heading straight toward us. One had really tall & wide antlers, but not much on top (like hockey sticks). I passed since the first day & was thinking chances were good for the week since seeing some the first day. Derrick passed on the hockey stick bull & picked out another that was decent, whacking him as they walked almost on top of us. After a few days & looking at Derrick’s antlers in camp, it looked better & better as it was a nice bull. As said before, I’ve never caribou hunted & had heard that caribou were the worst for “ground shrink”, so told Sean I wanted to start off after a really nice one & lower standards as the days go by. In our group of 17 hunters, 6 tagged out that first day (only allowed one bull this year).
The second day started off frosty, but warmed up with wind. We only saw a few cows at a distance. Then Sean & I took a 6.2 mile roundtrip hike, seeing only one young bull with a cow (it did have double shovels growing, so will be a great one some day). During this hike, Sean introduced me to "ground" blueberries which were tasty & munched on quite a few. When back at camp, I heard no one else had any luck & some saw none, so all got skunked. I was beginning to fret about passing on those bulls the first day.
The third day was like the second, in that it was fairly warm & not seeing anything. We were in the third different zone & I was wishing Sean would have got us back in zone 10. We climbed a hill to sit & glass, which was the hunting method with nothing swimming the river. There was nothing to be seen for a while. Sean spotted a couple bulls about 5 miles away, but I could never find them. After a bit, Sean said lets hike in that direction to see if we can find them again. My fretting was getting worse by this time & wasn’t looking forward to another “nature hike” on rocky ground in rubber boots. I have a gimpy knee, so had to walk slowly to avoid tweaking it & then be hobble for a day or two. Sean had to wait on me, but we finally made another good hill to glass on after a few miles. We sat down & starting glassing, seeing nothing. Then all of a sudden the hand radio went off from the guide in the next zone. His hunter had a spotting scope & they located two bulls in our zone on the opposite side of a ridge we had been glassing. They said there was a nice one! We left the packs & hiked quickly over to that ridge. As we crept up the side, we suddenly saw antlers. They were nice! Adrenaline kicked in! We could tell they were bedded in the wind (probably to escape the black flies) & we started to circle around into the wind. As we got closer to the top, they stood & appeared to be going down the other side. At that time we sped up to the top. I saw them, the nice rack, but that they were about to drop down a ledge. I didn’t have a great shot with them going away, but didn’t want him to get away & tried a raking shot at what ribs I could see. This happened fast & shot freehand standing. This resulted in a shot in the ass! The 300 WM penetrated deeply & he humped. He was still facing away so the followup shot didn’t get enough vitals. The recent African hunt kicked in my mind where the PH would yell “hit him again” until he’s down. So I quickly found a rock to squat on & he fortunately turned so I could put the final one through the pumper. This time he went down. Sean was ecstatic, jumping up & down. I was so relieved that I wasn’t going to get skunked, that I was sending up prayers of thanks that I just got an opportunity. Then it sunk in deeper as we walked up to it that it was a nice one, much better than I had expected & would have been content with.
Sean went back for our packs, as we didn’t even have a knife between us. So I took photos & sat down leaning back on it in a surreal moment for me. I didn’t grow up hunting as my dad never did nor took me anywhere outdoors. I didn’t start this trophy hunting thing until almost 50 yrs old & now at 54, so will be the first to say I’m not a great hunter & had more raghorns than trophies until the last trip to Namibia. Thus, to get a nice bull like this makes me feel very blessed & grateful! Sean finally made the trek back with our gear & we got to work. He did the caping while I took out the backstraps. We removed the quarters & deboned them. I lost half of a hind quarter to the ass shot & part of a front quarter to the second shot, but still had ~50lbs of meat. Now the long hike back with rack, pack, & rifle! I forgot to look at the GPS when I finally made it back to the boat, but it was 3+ miles one way up & down hills, rocky ground, & muddy/swampy sections. I’m in much better shape than a few years ago when starting my trophy hunting quest, but not sheep shape. But holding on to those antlers on my shoulder made it well worth the effort & the blisters screaming on my heels!
Gear: I took my Savage 116 Bear Hunter in 300 Win Mag. I brought this mainly because I had the 4457 form for it from a prior Namibia hunt (separate trip report to come). I bought the Cabela's MT050 gore-tex bibs & jacket in the O2 Octane pattern, which worked great. I also bought the Cabela's Instinct stalking pants in the same pattern, that are water repellent & were awesome, loved these pants!!! I only wore the bibs the day I fished & the Instinct pants kept me dry in the scattered rains experienced. I’m a bit conditioned to the cold after living 7 years in Laramie, WY (now 4yrs in Denver, CO) & tend to overheat fast when hiking. So, I didn’t mind the cold boat rides as I did fine with the Instinct pants & thin long johns. Someone from southern climates might want to wear the bids, at least on the boat rides. I also wore the Under Armour Cold Gear mock shirts, which worked great & the mock turtle neck keep the black flies from crawling down my shirt. On top of the cold gear mock, I just wore thin Under Armour henley shirts (black & green). My old Danner hunting boots are so worn the waterproofing is gone. So I bought some Cabela's brand rubber boots, which were very comfortable but slipped on the heel & didn’t give any ankle support. I should have got a half size smaller but anticipated wearing thick socks (which weren’t really needed during my hunt). I was glad to have the rubber boots for on/off the boat, muddy swamps, & creeks crossed while stalking, but weren’t friendly for long hikes on rocky ground. Good water proof hunting boots probably would have worked fine, but would have to be a little careful where stepping. I did get blisters on the ~3 mile hike with my trophy rack due to heel slipping. I also bought a Browning waterproof duffle bag, which did well keeping my stuff dry as bags did get exposed to rain during multiple transfers on planes. I wish it had wheels though, as 44lbs of it & a Pelican rifle case made for a sweaty trek through the airport on initial departure. I later rigged up some paracord to strap it on the rifle case for easier pulling & that worked well. I took some DEET spray & also some Natrapel wipes. The black flies did get bad at times when the wind was calm, worse at camp, but mostly an annoyance. The wipes worked good, & only used the spray when fishing or the one calm day. I do have some itchy bites on my arms.
Travel To Camp: Since booking through WTA, I used their travel agency. Lenore set me up with flights from Denver to Montreal & booked me at the Crown Plaza. Leaf River has a great setup where they have a representative at the Crown Plaza to meet you when arriving. They have a trailer in the parking lot in the back where they weighed & stored the checked bags & rifle/bow cases. I thought this a good idea, as the charter flight from Montreal to Lac Pau left at 6am & gathering the large baggage in the trailer the night before expedited loading the bus at about 4am to take us all to the airport that Nolinor (charter) flys from. I believe there were 31 people on this initial flight. This charter was included in the price (as well as the float planes) & we flew up on a 737 to Lac Pau for a ~2.5hr flight. At Lac Pau, we were separated into groups of 6 or so for the float plane rides to camps. They bused us to the Riviere Aux Feuilles (Leaf River) or so called the “hotel” near the bank of the reservoir. The “hotel” had several trailers full of rooms with two twin beds to stay at if weather prevented float plane flights. The luggage for each group was placed on bins & weighed for the float planes. We were having scattered rain on arrival, so we had to hang out for a 3-4 hours. The float planes must fly by visual, so fog or low clouds are a problem. They fed us soup & sandwiches for lunch. We were starting to get concerned we might not make it out, but then they said “Let’s try it”. I was in the first group, so we scrambled on the float plane & took off. I watched the altimeter off & on from my front seat & never saw higher than ~2800ft. We luckily made it to the Leaf River lodge, & following flights trailed behind waiting on reports from our pilot if safe to take off/continue. This flight was another ~2.5hrs. This was my first float plane ride, so was a unique & exciting experience for me.
Arrival at Camp: We sat down on the Leaf River & maneuvered to the dock. The prior group at camp commented that they were “very glad to see us”, as they would have been delayed if we couldn’t make it & must have been prepped of the possibility. We met with Louis & his crew, decided which cabins we were to stay at, & settled in. Louis gave us a briefing & went over rules of the camp/hunt. The hunting areas are divided into “zones”, of which each guide draws for placement. The meals at camp were great & were classic comfort food type meals, with wine at dinners. We were 2x1, so since I was solo, I grouped up with Derrick from Newfoundland & Sean was our guide. I bunked with Serge from Quebec who was solo & there to fish only. Serge barely spoke English, so didn’t have many conversations, but he was a very good fellow & also a Rapala pro staffer. There were a couple guys from Quebec with the French-Canadian hunting show Chasse Maniac, who were great fun. There were also several “Super Slammers” who have much hunting experience & I constantly picked their brains on which outfitters to go with on future hunts around the world. One very cool experience was to see the Northern Lights for the first time! The first couple nights were clear, so saw them well. The Northern Lights photos below were taken by the Chasse Manic guys with their expensive cameras, of which they gladly gave me copies. I only show a couple photos here, but they setup one camera to take time lapse photos & captured a shooting star going through the frames!
The Hunt: We had breakfast at 7am, then took off in the boats up/down river to the respective zones. While the weather was rather warm for the location, the boat rides were chilly. The river was very low & the guide had to be careful to maneuver around rocks. I heard that they would typically go 40miles up river to hunt, but with the low river we were limited on range to maybe 15-20miles. Thus, the boat rides to the far zones took almost 2 hrs dodging rocks & would have been much longer if not limited on range! There are some rapids beyond where we could travel, so didn’t get to experience that but heard they were very exciting.
The first day had scattered light rain. We went to one of the far zones (10) & saw small groups of caribou, all heading North. We were too early for the migration & presumed these small groups were heading back North for cooler weather. We spotted one really nice bull with cows & tried to head him off before crossing the river past our limited boat range. We didn’t get there in time & only got glimpses at ~400yds. I sat down & would have tried the shot if I had a couple seconds to spot & aim. Later we climbed a hill by a lake (lakes are everywhere here). We spotted a decent bull & Derrick had first crack, but missed. Then another group of 3 bulls came around the lake & were heading straight toward us. One had really tall & wide antlers, but not much on top (like hockey sticks). I passed since the first day & was thinking chances were good for the week since seeing some the first day. Derrick passed on the hockey stick bull & picked out another that was decent, whacking him as they walked almost on top of us. After a few days & looking at Derrick’s antlers in camp, it looked better & better as it was a nice bull. As said before, I’ve never caribou hunted & had heard that caribou were the worst for “ground shrink”, so told Sean I wanted to start off after a really nice one & lower standards as the days go by. In our group of 17 hunters, 6 tagged out that first day (only allowed one bull this year).
The second day started off frosty, but warmed up with wind. We only saw a few cows at a distance. Then Sean & I took a 6.2 mile roundtrip hike, seeing only one young bull with a cow (it did have double shovels growing, so will be a great one some day). During this hike, Sean introduced me to "ground" blueberries which were tasty & munched on quite a few. When back at camp, I heard no one else had any luck & some saw none, so all got skunked. I was beginning to fret about passing on those bulls the first day.
The third day was like the second, in that it was fairly warm & not seeing anything. We were in the third different zone & I was wishing Sean would have got us back in zone 10. We climbed a hill to sit & glass, which was the hunting method with nothing swimming the river. There was nothing to be seen for a while. Sean spotted a couple bulls about 5 miles away, but I could never find them. After a bit, Sean said lets hike in that direction to see if we can find them again. My fretting was getting worse by this time & wasn’t looking forward to another “nature hike” on rocky ground in rubber boots. I have a gimpy knee, so had to walk slowly to avoid tweaking it & then be hobble for a day or two. Sean had to wait on me, but we finally made another good hill to glass on after a few miles. We sat down & starting glassing, seeing nothing. Then all of a sudden the hand radio went off from the guide in the next zone. His hunter had a spotting scope & they located two bulls in our zone on the opposite side of a ridge we had been glassing. They said there was a nice one! We left the packs & hiked quickly over to that ridge. As we crept up the side, we suddenly saw antlers. They were nice! Adrenaline kicked in! We could tell they were bedded in the wind (probably to escape the black flies) & we started to circle around into the wind. As we got closer to the top, they stood & appeared to be going down the other side. At that time we sped up to the top. I saw them, the nice rack, but that they were about to drop down a ledge. I didn’t have a great shot with them going away, but didn’t want him to get away & tried a raking shot at what ribs I could see. This happened fast & shot freehand standing. This resulted in a shot in the ass! The 300 WM penetrated deeply & he humped. He was still facing away so the followup shot didn’t get enough vitals. The recent African hunt kicked in my mind where the PH would yell “hit him again” until he’s down. So I quickly found a rock to squat on & he fortunately turned so I could put the final one through the pumper. This time he went down. Sean was ecstatic, jumping up & down. I was so relieved that I wasn’t going to get skunked, that I was sending up prayers of thanks that I just got an opportunity. Then it sunk in deeper as we walked up to it that it was a nice one, much better than I had expected & would have been content with.
Sean went back for our packs, as we didn’t even have a knife between us. So I took photos & sat down leaning back on it in a surreal moment for me. I didn’t grow up hunting as my dad never did nor took me anywhere outdoors. I didn’t start this trophy hunting thing until almost 50 yrs old & now at 54, so will be the first to say I’m not a great hunter & had more raghorns than trophies until the last trip to Namibia. Thus, to get a nice bull like this makes me feel very blessed & grateful! Sean finally made the trek back with our gear & we got to work. He did the caping while I took out the backstraps. We removed the quarters & deboned them. I lost half of a hind quarter to the ass shot & part of a front quarter to the second shot, but still had ~50lbs of meat. Now the long hike back with rack, pack, & rifle! I forgot to look at the GPS when I finally made it back to the boat, but it was 3+ miles one way up & down hills, rocky ground, & muddy/swampy sections. I’m in much better shape than a few years ago when starting my trophy hunting quest, but not sheep shape. But holding on to those antlers on my shoulder made it well worth the effort & the blisters screaming on my heels!
Last edited by a moderator:
Float planes are a blast. Congratz on a nice Bull!
