Just reaching caribou country can be an adventure. Hunters arrive via floatplane.

OUR FIRST MORNING in camp, August 19, my guide Charlie Kudlak, video cameraman Mark Grupe, and I boated across Desteffany Lake and climbed a hill. At the top we spotted antlers, and Mark and I took off after the four bulls as Charlie climbed to a vantage to direct us with hand signals. Ten minutes into the hunt we were after bulls. This was too easy.

Well, by the time we caught up with those caribou, they had moved more than a mile. When they bedded in a boulder field, we figured we had them. Good cover, good wind, quiet ground. To make it better, one of the bulls rose and walked in front us at 35 yards. I drew, ready to shoot.

Before I could release, he turned straight away, walked up the hill, and lay down facing us. Now we could not move. As we focused on him, another bull walked up behind us, and when he saw us blazed away like a scalded cat. The other bulls followed suit.

After a short breather, we hiked to the west and soon spotted a very large, lone bull on a far hill. Again, Charlie directed with hand signals as Mark and I circled out ahead. Throwing in a few sprints, we managed to get well ahead of the bull and set up an ambush. It appeared the bull would walk just below us, so I knelt, facing downhill. But then he veered above us at 30 yards, and I could not twist far enough to draw and shoot. When I tried to change position for a shot, he instantly spotted us and bolted. That was disappointing, because he was an exceptional caribou, and we had done almost everything right.

To locate caribou, we often glassed from boats. When we spotted animals, we beached the boats, and the stalk was on!

After another breather, we saw a bull bedded in a meadow. We could work down through some plumb trees to get a shot at him. But we were hurrying, and trying to coordinate our movements was tough. In short, the bull saw us, and that was the end of that.

To summarize our first day, we had two close calls and a blown stalk. Not a bad day on the tundra.

A COMMON PERCEPTION is that caribou are addled animals with poor eyesight, running aimlessly across the tundra. In short, they're pretty easy to hunt.

In my opinion, that's a misperception. A myth. Perhaps legendary gun writer Jack O'Connor started the myth. In his book, The Art of Hunting Big Game in North America, O'Connor titled Chapter 17, "Caribou: Beautiful But Dumb!" He then wrote, among other disparaging observations: "A handsome, high-stepping, beautifully antlered creature, the bull caribou, but Oh Lord, how dumb! ...the caribou is a pathetically easy animal to stalk...the poor caribou's vision is bad indeed...They are very easy to hunt once they are located."

I suppose a guy picking them off at 300 yards with a .270 might have that view. O'Connor never hunted them with a bow.

Some situations can make caribou seem easy, too. When you're in the midst of 10,000 migrating caribou in Quebec, arrowing a bull seems like child's play. But when you miss the migration and see a half-dozen caribou all week? Child's play indeed -- with a lot of crying.

Even when conditions appear ideal, killing caribou is not guaranteed. This was my second trip to Desteffeny Lake with Aurora Caribou Camp in the Northwest Territories (see "Never Too Early, " Bowhunter Big Game Special 2001). I had returned not only because outfitter Greg Robertson runs a good show, but because this hunt is as close to a sure thing as caribou hunting gets. In late summer, the caribou are scattered across the tundra, and you can always find some caribou to stalk. But pathetically easy? Hmmm.

Continued -- click on page link below.