North American Super Slam – Woodland Caribou

Read Part One of Fred Eichler's North American Super Slam

For this article in my North American Super slam series, I chose the woodland caribou because I think they are the most attractive of all the caribou. They are the smallest in antler size of the recognized subspecies but despite their smaller antlers, they are larger-bodied than many other subspecies of caribou with males often weighing 350 to 450 pounds. Their large body size with smaller racks and white manes just make them my favorite. There are five subspecies of caribou that are recognized by Pope and Young and Boone and Crockett. Those include the Barren Ground, Central Barren Ground, Mountain, Quebec Labrador, and Woodland caribou.

I have been fortunate to have taken all five, including two woodland caribou. Both of my woodland caribou were taken in Newfoundland which has the largest huntable population of this species. My first hunt for one was about 15 years ago, and I took a bull with my recurve bow. The hunting and the weather was really tough on that first woodland hunt. I remember being pretty sure it wasn’t going to happen after repeated stalks didn’t work out.

Mission Accomplished

The rut was on, but the cows kept spotting me in the open terrain and made it really difficult to try and close the distance. Despite repeated failed attempts, I finally got a shot at a young bull. My shot panned out and I was super excited with my bull. As you can see from the picture, he may be the smallest woodland caribou bull ever taken. Although this young bull wasn’t a trophy to some, it was to me, and the meat on the young bull was delicious.

For my second hunt, I went back to Newfoundland with my good friend, Blye. We just got back a few weeks ago, and I chose to write about the woodland caribou while the hunt is still fresh in my mind. Blye and I have enjoyed guiding, hunting, and trapping together for years, and we started an Outfitting business together about 30 years ago that I still own and operate today. We always have fun together, so when he invited me on this hunt, I jumped at the opportunity.

Opportunity Hunter

We flew in by float plane to a remote lake that had a simple wall tent camp setup awaiting us. On the first day, our guides decided to take us out to glass from the top of a ridge to see if we could spot some caribou to make a stalk on. I was hunting with a Bear recurve I had a hand in designing (see the article, Fred’s Bear Bow in this issue) with some new Easton Legacy arrows tipped with Muzzy broadheads. Blye was using a .300 win mag topped with a Leupold scope with a CDS (custom dial system) turret.

We had not been sitting on the ridge long when we spotted a bull that had a broken main beam and a broken shovel. My guide wanted to keep glassing and find a big one. The problem was that I am more of an opportunity hunter and this looked like a prime opportunity to me. He was also quite a bit bigger than my first woodland. Despite my guide's suggestion to hold off and look for a bigger bull, I was set on stalking this bull.

The bull was with a few cows, so we attempted a stalk. He was busy raking a tree, so I started slowly closing the distance. I had closed to about a hundred yards when one of the cows spotted us. Instead of just staring for a few minutes or just moving off, this cow decided to run a half mile in a panic.

Bag of Tricks

I decided to quickly try and get between her and the bull, who seemed confused as to why his love of that day had departed. The bull started moving away, and my guide, Nick, whipped out a white bag and said he thought he could maybe decoy it back in. I will totally admit to being skeptical. I have had great luck with decoys, but I use things like a Montana decoy that actually looks like the animal I am trying to lure in. I seriously doubted a white feed sack would work. I was so wrong.

As Nick started shaking the sack and grunting, the bull turned on a dime. He stared at the white sack which was partially hidden by a tree Nick was holding it up behind. Then, to my surprise, he started coming. The wind was blowing right to left, and I just played a gamble and started crawling downwind, assuming the bull may circle to the downwind side of us. I slipped up to my knees, then belly-crawled almost 50 yards downwind. As luck would have it, the bull did start to angle downwind as he closed. I had a GoPro camera on my head and excitedly hit record as I was hoping to catch the action on camera from my angle.

The bull came past me at about 25 yards, and I drew quickly as his head went behind a small tree. The bull was slightly quartering to me, so I knew I would have to hug the crease of the shoulder closely to make the double-lung shot I wanted. When the arrow hit, I knew the broken-racked bull was mine. He sprinted a short distance and dropped. I was elated.

Although my second woodland caribou bull will also not make any trophy books, he is a trophy to me. To make the hunt even better, the following day, Blye and his guide Joey slipped in on a beautiful bull that will easily make the B&C record book. Despite having his rifle set up for a long shot, Blye got his shot at 80 yards and put the beautiful bull down.

Check out footage from Fred’s GoPro camera of the action of this hunt as it unfolded.