The Outdoor Channel’s Steve West recently completed a caribou slam—one bull from each of the five recognized species in North America, all of them taken with a CVA muzzleloader. Not only did he complete his slam, but he also killed a new world record.
West, host of The Adventure Series and Steve’s Outdoor Adventures, was hunting in Newfoundland last October for a woodland caribou, the last species in his three-year quest. After a few days looking for the perfect bull, West and his guide spotted a large one on a hilltop. However, it wasn’t the sight he expected to see.
“(The bull) had a broken leg and puncture wounds on his side, from fighting, and he was thin and very old,” West said. “I had two seconds to understand what I was seeing.”
Rather than let the caribou suffer, West decided that this would be the end of his slam. When the smoke from his muzzleloader cleared, the television personality had a bull down. A big bull.
According to Fox News, the rack measured 330 1/8 inches, seven inches larger than the previous world record for woodland caribou. West’s bull will officially become the new muzzleloader world record when it is included in the eighth edition of the National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association’s Longhunter Society record book.
West’s slam began in 2013 with an Alaska-Yukon barren ground caribou. He then took a Central Canadian barren ground, a mountain, and a Quebec-Labrador caribou before finishing the quest in 2016.