2020 Alaska DIY Moose Drop Hunt Planning to Execution Part 2

[alaska_bou]

So how did the hunt go???

 

[CPD]

Very interested in hearing how this hunt turned out.

 

[Cacatays]

how did your hunt go? Very interested to see your experience.

 

[twtays]

Late now but I'm pretty sure attk said 19 is a bone out unit and that's why he had a spike camp. A check of the 20 regulations showed that 19 is a bone in unit for quarters and ribs unless I'm reading something wrong. Just a FYI for everybody.

 

[Coopsdaddy]

Love reading this!You deserve a kill!

 

[fishermaster]

Great stuff !

 

[Storman]

I shipped the following equipment (once again don’t judge J) –
Food – 18 cliff and kind bars, 20 cheap instant oatmeal packages, one package of Kodiak protein pancake mix, syrup, 1 16 oz jar of jelly/peanut butter, 19 candy bars (yes 19), 29 Starbucks instant coffee, 22 pre/post workout (Mtn Ops), 5 dehydrated Idaho potato mixes, 2 4 oz containers of powdered citric acid for meat preservation, mustard, Mountain House meals, 19 self-made packages of trail mix, dehydrated mangoes and strawberries, 3 Italian dry salami, 1 summer sausage and five 4 oz packages of precooked bacon. One jar of sriracha powder and 1 small Montreal steak seasoning. To say the least I’m at no risk of starving!

Clothing – (shipped)
4 Merino wool underwear, 2 merino long sleeve shirts, 1 pant, 1 synthetic jacket, 1 Dalibor jacket, 5 pairs merino socks, 1 merino long johns, 1 merino beanie, 1 pair cold weather gloves. 1 pack of wet wipes, one wash cloth and one Klymit camp pillow.

Gear- (shipped)
Seek Outside 6 person tipi, tundra stakes, stovepipe and footprint (I’m taking half the stove with me and the carbon center pole as they wouldn’t fit in the flat rate boxes). 1 Fixed blade knife and small sharpener and 1 razor knife with extra blades. Gerber bone saw (I replaced the overaggressive bone blade with metal blades from Lowes) and one Kobalt foldable/lockable wood saw (also comes with a metal blade suitable for bone, I tested on a T-Bone). Slumberjack XL Satellite Tarp (for keeping us dry while glassing), gun oil, 100ft 550 chord, duct tape, first aid kit, 2 4oz 100% deet repellant, wind detector, Sawyer 1 gallon gravity filter, 2 lighters, 1 1” roll of gorilla tape, seam sealer, 4 large trash bags, fire starter. I also shipped a Slik Pro CF -635 tripod with Summit Carbon pan head but will be carrying the spotting scope with me. I shipped 6 28x60 Tag bags and 2 BlackOvis XL kill kits.

Hygiene – (shipped)
Unscented deodorant, 1 3oz bottle of unscented laundry detergent, 6 oz of unscented body wash, toothbrush, small toothpaste.

I approximate the gear shipped to be around 50lbs. We originally were restricted to 80lbs of gear with Aniak Air Guides but that weight did not include your rifle, clothes on your person and other reasonable gear you could be wearing.

Gear that is coming with me and had to be under 50lbs.
Exo 4800 pack with water bladder – 6lbs
0 Degree Big Agnes bag with Therm-a-Rest Neoair Xtherm insulated pad – 3lbs 13 oz
Rangfinder – 1 lb
20x60x85 spotting scope – 4lbs 14 oz (shipped tripod)
Carbon center pole for tipi and remaining stove that wasn’t shipped – 3lbs 6 oz
12 Mtn House meals – 4 lbs
15x56 Bino – 3lbs 13 oz
300 Winchester Magnum Rifle with 30 rounds of ammunition and soft case – 15lbs
Small hygiene kit – 1 lb
Sawyer in line filter and Nalgene bottle – 1lb
Mosquito Repellant and bug net – 5oz

That alone is approximately 45lbs, I will only be taking one set of clothing on my person to include rain gear.

Now that I have packed my whole hunting closet one of the last things I needed to do was work on antler size estimation. As you may have gathered from this post and my last is that I plan for every possible thing that I can. I don’t have the fortune of having a mil dot scope for size estimation with mills so I did the only other thing I could think of, I created a life sized moose antler replica of a 50, 55, and 65 inch moose. I then went to the desert and used the ballistic reticle (Christmas tree) on my Leica scope to map out the antler size at specific ranges. This proved more difficult than I first thought as I didn’t’ think moving 25 yards would make a large difference on the size estimation of the antlers but it did. I have a 4x20 Leica scope. I gathered sizes at 100, 200, 225,250 275,300,325,350,375,400 and 500 yards. At each range I found the appropriate line on the scope that would line up with either 50, 55, or 65 inches. I used worked through my scopes magnification at market whole numbers, 4,5,8,12,16 and 20 until I found a magnification and line that would exactly line up with one of the above sizes. After five hours in 100 degree heat I finally had several pages of data to work through. I then tested the data on unknown objects from various ranges and was able to guess the size to within 1”, not bad for throwing it together.

I based my mockup of the moose head and antlers with data found on the internet. I made the moose head approximately 10” wide. I then made the antlers on each side with the brown tines 10”. This caused the inside measurement of the moose to be 30”. This is a target when estimating size of a legal moose. The palms only need to be 10” wide at this point and you are at 50”.

I hope this information is helpful,
Travis

Wow I have have to say this was really impressive!

 

[Jonathan Hemlock]

Wow I have have to say this was really impressive!

Definitely! Pancakes, bacon and 4 pairs of underwear! My hunting trips are never that good.

 

[Michigander1479]

Good information thank you

 

[AspenTimber]

Anybody know how this fella made out ? Hoping for the best, but no recap after such an in-depth pre-hunt write up has me concerned.

 

[Bsoutfitter]

Wow great information! Looking at booking a hunt with rob. Interested to hear the outcome of this hunt.

 

[Laramie]

Anybody know how this fella made out ? Hoping for the best, but no recap after such an in-depth pre-hunt write up has me concerned.

He logged on to this site in October but didn't post. Guessing the hunt didn't go as planned. It would be nice to share the details even if he didn't harvest so other member can learn.

 

[hilts]

Curious to hear how it turned out. Heading there this fall.

 

[AdventureHunter]

How was the hunt?

 

[TAGPUNCHER]

This is like that first girl that said no and made you zip back up! Suspense is a killer for a Youngster!!!!! LOL

 

[Xkav8tr]

Curious to hear how it turned out. Heading there this fall.

How did your hunt turn out?

 

[attk64]

He logged on to this site in October but didn't post. Guessing the hunt didn't go as planned. It would be nice to share the details even if he didn't harvest so other member can learn.

You all are correct you do deserve an in depth report. I will give the cliff notes with a detailed report to follow, well overdue.
I tagged out with a 63” bill in the first 15 minutes. My partner killed a 60” bull on day 7. We both shot back bears. There where issues with Rob that cut out trip short but it wasn’t the hunting.