We had a very enjoyable season at Gana River this year.
The trip up the road and move in went remarkabley well considering how rough the North Canol Road is. The boys did not have any serious issues on trail in, and arrived at Palmer Lake on schedule after a five day ride. Things looked good on our arrival at camp—no bear problems and everything intact.
There were indications of some high water during spring runoff, but by the time we arrived in early July everthing was pretty much back to normal. All in all we had a hot dry summer with some timely showers to keep the grass growing.
Although the soap berries were not very abundant there was an amazing crop of the lower growing berries—blueberries, cranberries and moss berries. As the summer progressed we saw water levels in the lakes and rivers drop in some areas
while other areas saw lots of high water due to an abundance of snow melting in the high country along the Yukon border.
It was a good year for antler growth on the moose and caribou and we saw an average number of nice healthy lambs. The game seemed to really thrive this summer—maybe because we did not have many flies or mosquitos around to harrass them. We ended up taking 20 rams that averaged 37 inches in length and 10.5 years of age for 21 sheep hunters.
All sheep hunters had opportunities for stalks on nice rams. Clients harvested a total of 30 bull caribou with an average B&C gross score of 370—6 bulls grossed over 400. All of our caribou hunters took home nice bulls and many sheep and moose hunters added a caribou bull to their Harvest.
Clients harvested 7 bull moose that averaged 60 inches in width—the best bull a wide panned 63 incher that grossed 227 B&C. We had one archery sheep hunter in 2023 and he took a good ram as well as a velvet caribou. All three archery caribou clients took home nice bulls that they harvested with their bows. Clients connected on 4 wolves during the summer/fall hunts but we did not have any luck taking wolves on the winter wolf hunt.
We did have an enjoyable hunt with the snow machines and both winter wolf hunt clients were able to take home beautiful wolverine with prime pelts.
Good Hunting!
Harold & the Gana Crew