Kinda a crap shoot, honestly. When I arrived, a windstorm was already hammering the area, so we had to delay for three days while the waves sat at 8–12 feet. Three days after that storm finally passed, another one was projected to roll in with 8–10 foot waves. That basically cut our actual hunting window down to about two and a half days.
We managed to tag one doe between the two of us, which is about all you can ask for under the conditions we were dealing with. The deer weren’t responding to calls, daylight was limited to about six hours, and the weather kept cutting into our time. Pending our tag draws in February, the plan is to head to Kodiak next for a proper 7–10‑day stretch.
Next up is a hunter‑safety story. Interpret it however you want—pick it apart, analyze it, critique it. I’m sharing it as a cautionary tale for the next hunter who might find themselves in a similar situation.
As for the rifle—did it perform? Well, I never fired a single intentional shot. Yes… I meant intentional.
A bit of background: three years ago on Hinchinbrook Island, I carried a Remington 700 Dangerous Game in .375 H&H for a brown bear hunt. That trip taught me that nearly every branch in Alaska seems determined to disengage the safety or pop the bolt open for free. It’s one of the reasons I don’t carry R700‑style rifles chambered in the field—the safety design just isn’t ideal for the kind of brush and terrain we move through.
Fast‑forward to this hunt. It’s the last day, the storm has already pushed into the Sound, and we’ve got maybe 30 minutes of light left. The waves are stacking, and even the beach had little one‑foot rollers—just enough to make launching the dinghy “interesting.” We loaded our packs, checked safeties, and started hauling gear down to the waterline. I knew the rifle was loaded—we’d just finished calling and I’d forgotten to unload in the rush to beat the weather—but it was sitting on the dinghy with the safety engaged. I’d double‑checked it, and it was only a hundred yards to the main boat.
Once we reached the shoreline, I noticed the rifle starting to tip. With the dinghy’s ripped bottom letting in water, I didn’t want it getting soaked. I reached in and lightly grabbed the stock to reposition it… and bang. A round went off at an angle over the bow. No one was anywhere near the muzzle—I’d checked that before touching it—but it was still one hell of a wake‑up call. Somewhere in the span of a minute or two, something had managed to both disengage the safety and depress the trigger.
Long story short: I’m converting the Christensen Arms 7 Backcountry rifles to a three‑position Mauser‑style safety for an extra layer of insurance, and I’ll continue carrying on an empty chamber—aside from this very specific lessons‑learned scenario. I’m also phasing out the side‑safety designs (Tikka, Christensen, etc.) and moving my inventory over to Browning's with the thumb safeties.
And yes, this was a negligent discharge. It was 100% preventable, and that’s on me. If something can happen once, it can happen again, and I’d rather stack the odds in my favor.
