2022 Alaska hunt… my first

[Panhandler80]

So much help from so many folks on here. Thank you all!

Alive and well. No shots fired. Saw some cool stuff. Will post a full report up ASAP.

Again, thank you all for the help on front end. It made a world of difference in the long run.

 

[Panhandler80]

Three Best things I brought:

1. Waders and wading boots
2. Rubber jacket.
3. Jack Daniels

Three worst things i brought

1. Rifle
2. Ammo
3. Game plan


Hahaha. It was fun. Lots of curve balls. By all accounts the weather was pretty impressive. That did make me feel a little bit better, but I thought maybe we were bunch of softies.

Saw a moose 10 minutes into scout day 1( and only scout day). Saw a small bull 3 days later. Saw a small bull 7 days later.

Saw 1,059,741 bears. One decent black bear we could’ve killed on our last day which was our only second they have really good weather and it was in the morning. Held off.

We made a lot of mistakes. It wasn’t just the weather. I’m a little bit embarrassed but we could’ve made better use of our area and it did not die on us until halfway through.

I want to go back.

A crappy report but been so busy. Here are some pictures. I had a ball.

 

[Panhandler80]

 

[Panhandler80]

 

[Panhandler80]

 

[Panhandler80]

 

[Panhandler80]

 

[Panhandler80]

I know pictures aren’t too helpful for those planning. Feel free to reach out with any specific questions. Be happy to help if I can.

On its surface I’d give trip 5/10. But The more I think about it and… how well Our preparation paid off, how cool it was to be out there like that,…. It goes 8/10. No injuries. No big fights. No Problem bears

Next time we go 10/10 With a moose in a little bit better weather

 

[mooster]

Wow what a beautiful place to hunt! At least you ate well during your stay. I’m jealous of the view and fish. Maybe next year will be year. Thx for sharing the pix too cool.

 

[Mykolaivka887]

That's a good report and nice photos. Sounds like it was a good trip all-in-all and a success, in the simple fact that you survived and no one was injured. Glad to hear that you plan to come back up here in the future and try it again.

 

[Kevin Dill]

The up side of not killing a moose on your first trip is that it often leads to additional multiple trips which might never happen otherwise. I have no doubt you'll be girding for a second engagement in the future. Appreciate the excellent photography.

fwiw, In my first 4 hunts I managed to kill just one moose. Of course one of the trips was a tragic joke, and I was very sick on another. Plus my only weapon was a recurve bow. Giving up on moose never occurred to me. Quite the opposite as I became more determined than ever to prevail.

 

[Panhandler80]

The up side of not killing a moose on your first trip is that it often leads to additional multiple trips which might never happen otherwise. I have no doubt you'll be girding for a second engagement in the future. Appreciate the excellent photography.

fwiw, In my first 4 hunts I managed to kill just one moose. Of course one of the trips was a tragic joke, and I was very sick on another. Plus my only weapon was a recurve bow. Giving up on moose never occurred to me. Quite the opposite as I became more determined than ever to prevail.

Good respective. And very true.

 

[kwackkillncrew]

Never a bad trip when you can eat fresh lakers!

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[bmrfish]

The up side of not killing a moose on your first trip is that it often leads to additional multiple trips which might never happen otherwise. I have no doubt you'll be girding for a second engagement in the future. Appreciate the excellent photography.

fwiw, In my first 4 hunts I managed to kill just one moose. Of course one of the trips was a tragic joke, and I was very sick on another. Plus my only weapon was a recurve bow. Giving up on moose never occurred to me. Quite the opposite as I became more determined than ever to prevail.

I can vouch for this. Great photos panhandler.


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[Panhandler80]

Never a bad trip when you can eat fresh lakers!

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One every 3-4 casts.

The char was SUPER tasty. Lakers were good, but not as good IMO. Both fish I’ve never caught. And saw my first grizzly and moose. Pretty cool.

 

[HuntHarder]

One every 3-4 casts.

The char was SUPER tasty. Lakers were good, but not as good IMO. Both fish I’ve never caught. And saw my first grizzly and moose. Pretty cool.

One of my regrets, we hunted so hard and so much, that we barely wet a line. I think we maybe threw 20 casts each over the 13 days. Caught lake trout, char and lost a couple that were way bigger than the 3-5 lbers we landed. They broke our line a few times. I can attest to your bear numbers as well. In one evening I glassed 8 from the same spot. The bears were THICK.

 

[Robinhood21]

It is tough when you put in all that work and go home without but Alaska is like no place on earth and just being out there in the middle of it is worth the price of admission. I know you sure did put a lot of work into it too.

You did a great job capturing the adventure as your pictures are really great. My partner doesn’t like his picture taken much so naturally he didn’t take many photos so pretty much what I took is what we have. Your photos are amazing and really captures Alaska very well.

Can you elaborate on why you think you had a bad game plan? What you meant when you said you thought you were being softies? What mistakes did you think you made and how you think you could have made better use of your time?


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[Panhandler80]

It is tough when you put in all that work and go home without but Alaska is like no place on earth and just being out there in the middle of it is worth the price in admission. I know you sure did put a lot of work into it too.

You did a great job capturing the adventure as your pictures are really great. My partner doesn’t like his picture taken much so naturally he didn’t take many photos so pretty much what I took is what we have. Your photos are amazing and really captures Alaska very well.

Can you elaborate on why you think you had a bad game plan? What you meant when you said you thought you were being softies? What mistakes did you think you made and how you think you could have made better use of your time?


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Thought we were being wimps with the weather. Had never been there until this trip and have only hunted 2-5 days mostly east coast US. It was relieving to hear from numerous parities, most of which years of experience, say that worst wx they hand seen in 10+ years.

Are the game plan that I did not like was being too timid to walk through habitat for fear of pushing Moose and spreading scent. As a result I stayed On one edge thinking I was high enough to see through things. I had maybe 100 feet of elevation. It was a good vantage point. And I did look over a area that would half to contain moose if they left a valley. It was a tight pass. What we learned at the very end was that we should’ve busted through that habitat and gotten more elevation. Forget about your scent. Oh if you can’t see the moose who cares? We thought we were seeing things. We weren’t. The last day with times two about 300 feet on a Noll in the world opened up. Mid day that day we climbed another 300 feet up and could really see. It was too high and too far for a shot. But you could’ve seen anything from there. It also would’ve been hard to scary anywhere for a shot but it would’ve been time well spent midday glassing. The 301st spot initially offered lots of rifle shots. And there’s more to it than that, but live and learn

 

[Mykolaivka887]

Yep, fourth wettest fall on record. Last time I saw it this wet up here, was fall of 1997 and fall of 1989.

 

[mtnwrunner]

Great photos!! Thanks for sharing.

Randy