Mountain Caribou Hunting in British Columbia

I was sound asleep beside my spotting scope when fellow BC & B pro staffer Sheldon Souter woke me from my dream. “Caribou bull on the lake!” he half whispered, half shouted. I must be dreaming, after all we just returned from a grueling 2 day hike into a drainage that was known for giant mountain caribou and never laid eyes on a single bull. It would be just too good to be true to have one make its way down to the lake we had our base camp on. The bull was straight across the lake from us polishing up his rack on a pine tree. “Is he legal Darren?” Sheldon asked. In BC a legal Caribou bull must have at least six points up top, or 5 and a back sticker point. “Hells ya…” I replied…If by legal you mean 380+ inches of horn then ya, I thought to myself. Sheldon took a quick look through the spotter and I watched his eyes go wide. Only problem was he was 600 yards across the lake. I would love to have one of those 50lb, best of the west scud missile launcher style rifles right now instead of our short barrelled mountain rifles. What are the odds of us paddling our little aluminum boat all the way to the other side without him spooking off??? That was our only option so off we went on the longest, most stressful boat rides of our lives. It took forever but we finally made it. The bull was still too busy destroying trees on the edge of the lake to even notice us so Sheldon crawled up a small hill and found a rest, then patiently waited for the bull to turn broadside. The rest is in the books…. the record books.