Shaft hunted with Peter Palmer of Mirage Outfitters, who operates fly-out caribou hunts in Quebec's James Bay country in LG4. Mirage flies hunters out each day and drops them off ahead of the migrating caribou herds, where they lie in wait and try to spot the largest bull they can find in a sea of moving animals. Shaft says he let hundreds of caribou go by, sometimes close enough to him that he could have patted them on the rump. As an experienced caribou hunter, Shaft knew the quality trophy he sought, and after watching animals for four hours he spotted a good bull. This one was actually the smaller of the two he eventually killed. The next day, he killed the potential new Number 1 SCI bull, also within a few hours of hunting.
The irony here is that Shaft was originally booked to hunt with another outfitting company in the same region but was left stranded in Montreal when the outfitter suddenly cancelled the hunt. (See page 15 for a special controversy item regarding this outfitter.) Determined to go hunting after coming all that way, one of the hunters in Shaft's party looked up Peter Palmer, with whom he had hunted a few years ago. Palmer was already booked out and at the tail end of his season, but he took pity on the stranded hunters and made some room for them.
Needless to say, both Shaft and Palmer are glad he did. "I had never even........(continued)
