Best value for Caribou hunting?

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canoetrpr

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A friend of mine is talking me into a Caribou hunting trip next year. He did one once.

Prices seem to vary greatly. Some research on google shows that this place in Quebec has a pretty good deal in the 'winter' http://www.mirageaventure.com/en I'm guessing the reason is that it a) cold b) Caribou have lost their racks by then.

We're not going for the big racks. It is a meat hunt and an 'experience' hunt.

Travelling from around Toronto.

Any thoughts from you experienced Caribou hunters?
 
Bring gas and a lot of it.
Many will still have their racks.
A 4x4 and a buddy system (two vehicals) is a good idea.
it's around a 24 hour drive from TO.
Many people will stop overnight at the hotel in Matagami. The next day, you will need to check in and register with the government office up the road from the hotel.
While I have not hunted with the Mirage, it's well known upscale place and is a favorite with americans. Plus, it's a little closer in Zone 22B. I hunted with Kiskimaastakin
Consider hiring a guide if the animals are not within sight.

Here's a good post http://forums.oodmag.com/showthread.php?t=26524

Cheers,

Rich
 
If you are looking for a true "hunt", then winter time is not the season for you...Most guides (every one that I have ever talked to) basically find tracks, look at the map to see the easiest path for the caribou, then ride snowmobiles ahead of them. My buddy is a guide in Labrador, and this is how they conducted their winter caribou hunts. Most of his shots were inside of 50 yards, the animals are not scared of humans.

An early fall tundra hunt would be my choice...A whole lot of hiking, and hard to track the animals. A true northern experience...
 
A fall hunt would be great but man it is prohibitively expensive! That is one reason we were looking at the winter - neither of us can afford the fall kind of dough. Does it ever sound brutal conditions wise from reading that thread Rich posted1
 
I did a fall hunt with Mirage in 2007 and was completely satisfied. At that time they had a two-tiered pricing structure, with the earlier hunts being much less expensive, although with a smaller percentage of big-racked bulls being seen. I went on one of these early hunts, and came back with two beautiful caribou and a huge black bear as a bonus. I never saw the huge numbers of caribou that you always hear about, but saw enough that I felt comfortable waiting for a couple of good ones. I checked into the winter hunts with Mirage as well. They admit that these are more of a meat hunt, since the bigger bulls have mostly shed their racks by that time. They are also done from the Mirage main lodge, rather than requiring a bush plane flight further north from the lodge.

Keep in mind that all of this info is 5 years old. If I were you I would look for some very current info, i.e. no more than one year old. From what I've read, caribou populations (and therefore, hunting success rates) have taken a major nose dive in the last few years.
 
If you decide to do a fall hunt, just be certain the outfit is willing to relocate you in case there are no caribou around where your planned hunt area is. Generally, with caribou hunting during the migration, there are either lots or none.
I can't speak for the late hunt, never done one, but know others who have and it pretty much sounds like a relatively mundane hunt, one I would consider quite pricey in fact. Most guys in Manitoba drive their trucks on winter roads and shoot from the road or a short trip via snowmobile. On the other hand, if you're not a trophy hunter, maybe this is the one for you. From my research and four fall hunts to date, the more adventurous and memorable one is the early season; fishing,bear,wolf, hiking,scenery, nicer weather,etc.
 
first advice will be to check with them where are the caribous ... there is a lot of chance you ll be at Radisson and not even drive on the Transtaiga ... and of course Radisson sleepings are not the same as the Mirage ...
whatever you think : take a guide when everything going good useless but if something happens they can make the differences ... plus ice fishing time can be a plus ...

i agree that fall hunt are not in par with winter but if someone is looking for adventure, camaraderie and hunting it s really a good one.
 
Do not book with Donat Asselin ( if still in business) complete rip off with bad accomodations and worse toilet/shower set up. Not to mention RUDE customer srevice. Mirage is nice Nouchimi is a Cree run outfit that values hunter respect it would be my pick. I did the "Donut assasion" trip not good.

Darryl
 
I'd love to do a fall hunt. Would much prefer the weather to begin with. Unfortunately a $6500 price tag is out of the budget.

The group I am planning with will all be pool 2 hunters for moose in Ontario so tags for moose are unlikely. We were thinking that starting with a caribou hunt would get us the best likelihood of being able to get out.

Man I wish they didn't have such steep prices in the fall!
 
I did a November hunt with Nouchimi, there are no 5 star resorts up there but it more than satisfied my expectations.

We went up with 3 guys in the truck, brought a fuel tank in the back (the type that forestry workers use) with 700 liters of fuel, we brought pre made meals and stayed in an outpost camp that had a fridge, stove, hot water and electric and wood heating. It slept 10. It cost me just under 1500$ for everything except the couple pre made meals I brought to share.

The cariboo in our zone where at the far end so it was a 3 hour trip one way to get to them so all the fuel we brought was needed.

We did not see any big herds until the last day, I learnt alot about how to hunt them, next time I will do alot more hiding on the side of a lake,not hiding from the animals but hiding from other hunters, that was the only bad part of the trip. On our last day I was sitting on a ridge just off of a dead end road watching a steady stream of animals that had funneled off the main herd that was coming through, after shooting a monster (for that time of year) with double shovels etc and another meat bull I went to stand up and a guy yelled to stay down, then comes a barrage of gun fire from about 12 guys that had lined up on the road behind and above me. Both my bulls had dropped within 12 feet of each other but when I went down to tag them an american was holding up my larger bull asking me to take a picture of him with "HIS" bull, then he pointed to a bull with no antlers 100 yards away and said hey theres your other one. I'm still obviously very bitter about that, my whole group of 7 had tagged out and I still had both my tags because I wanted a monster and ended up with one of there animals that dropped when the blindly opened fire. I have a picture of the bigger one as the bullet impacted him.

I know that didn't help the OP much but I needed to vent, again haha.

We tried booking our cabin for this november 14 months ago and it was already booked so if your planning a hunt you might want to book as quickly as possible, with the shortened season and reduced amount of tags they are booking up very quickly, we used to book 12 months ahead and always got our cabin.
 
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