I have guided for a lot of caribou. The sad fact of the matter is, if you guide a lot, you don't hunt for yourself a lot. I was always working, except for once. I had a couple of days between guiding hunts and went for a caribou for myself and camp meat. The title statement is a little misleading it's the only caribou I've ever killed myself, and my only caribou hunt till last fall.

I actually took my first shot at this caribou with my bow. I must have misjudged the shot a little because I hit him low in the chest. The broad head entered just above the brisket. It was a complete pass-through nicking the bottoms of the lungs. He left with six others. Not wanting to chase him around the mountains, I hurriedly put down my bow and drew my home built .500 Linebaugh as I took off after him across the tundra toward a low spot in the hills. I took one shot, too fast, as he headed for cover and I missed. He went over the top.

While he was out of sight, I scurried after him to shorten the range when they came out the other side. When they emerged running up the far bank, mine was following a couple of yards behind the rest. I could tell he was hurt. I stopped, rested just a minute, and tried to settle my breath. The caribou were almost to the top of the next rise and over. As the last one, mine, got to the top. I whistled to see if he'd stop, he did. This was going to be my last chance. I braced myself in shooting position, concentrating only on my site picture, sights lined up, centered and on the caribou. I had shot my .500 at long range a lot, it's really fun to shoot, so I had some confidence. He was standing, headed straight away from me, but wobbly, I raised the pistol a full eight inches or so to account for bullet drop, and fired. The bull went down.

"You gotta be kidding me" I muttered. I had not paid enough attention to locking my arms and when the revolver recoiled, my arms folded and the gun came straight back to my face. I was a machinist when I wasn't hunting and I wore my prescription safety glasses for everything. When the gun came back, the hammer hit me square on the bridge of the safety glasses and split them in half, the glasses fell from my face.

I headed back to my bow, picking up my gear as a went, the two halves of my glasses, my binoculars, I found my bloody arrow along the way, and my bow. I put them with my pack, and tied some flagging on the highest bush I could find. I took out my knife kit and headed off after the downed caribou, I reloaded the five shot, pacing the distance off as I went. When I got to the caribou it was 125 paces, "Give or take". The ground was uneven but, I had compensated for that. I had paced off a lot of air strips so to me it's a believable number. When I got to the caribou, it was still alive so I shot it once more in the base of the skull. I looked the bull over carefully but could not find a wound in the animal from straight back. I cleaned the caribou and propped it open to cool. Still finding no more wounds but the arrow shot, low in the chest from broadside and the killing shot in the base of the skull. I left him there, It was late in the day, I would return the next day with pack horses to bring him home.

I returned the next day with my ride "Spook" and two pack horses. As I approached the caribou I could see a wolverine standing at the kill site. I surmised it was one of the three pups I had seen the day before with the female pouncing on mice like foxes do. I got off my horse and ground hobbled the mare and pack horses. From a kneeling position I shot the wolverine with my .300 Win. and it went down. Leaving the horses I headed toward it but caught a glimpse of something black running to my left. I turned and shot at him, thinking I'd missed my first one. I missed again, and it ran down into a hollow, while it was out of site I hurried toward it. It came out and just like the caribou the day before, it got to the top of the rise and I whistled. I got to a kneeling position, aimed, took a breath and fired. He threw up his arms like a cowboy in an old western and flipped backward. Shaking my head I went back got the horses and lead them to the last wolverine I'd shot, it was one of the kits. I found in amazement it was 125 yards again. I tied the wolverine on one of the pack horses and rode down to the caribou kill, there lay the first of the wolverine I had shot at, another one of the pups.

I butchered the caribou and as I was caping the head, I found a burn mark on the side of the shovel. It looked like a bullet burn from straight behind the animal traveling down at and angle. It seems as though I had knocked over the sick caribou with the long range shot from the .500. Stranger things have happened.

Like I told my boyhood friend Steven when we were 12 year olds. "It may have been luck, but it took a lot of skill to get close enough for luck to take over".

We used to take apart our Crossman .177 caliber pump, pellet guns, wrap them up in our jackets and ride our bikes with them strapped to our handle bars, and sneak them to our favorite, wooded "hunting grounds" in Virginia Beach. When there, we would re-assemble the pellet guns and go "hunting". At one point, a dove flew to a high, bare limb on tall Norway Pine and landed. That dove seems like he was a hundred yards away to me now but he wasn't. I pumped up the gun, took careful aim, raised the gun a bunch to account for pellet drop, and fired. That dove folded up and spiraled down to the ground much to our astonishment. Right away Steve started to yell "Luck, Luck, That was luck" as if I was going to argue.

Like I said when I was twelve and what could be true on the caribou pistol shot, "It may have been luck, but it took a lot of skill to get close enough for luck to take over”