Kodiak Island August or November?

[daddie63]

Best of luck mcseal and I know I’ll be following this thread and your adventure cause I got a lot to learn.

 

[hereinaz]

If you are there to hunt, I would pack up and camp. I've seen the videos where they get off the boat and hike up the alders every day. Man, that is brutal and I don't know that I would want to do that. I wouldn't go to Alaska for the "deer camp experience", but that is me. I like the adventure of it, embracing the suck as necessary. It takes a special group to do that without melting down though. Me and my hunting partner were on the ground in early September in the southern part of the island and hiked for 30 min to an hour to hunt. Spent 9 days there. We hunted caribou and sitka on Kodiak. It was amazing.

 

[LongWayAround]

It looks like a fairly simple climb to the top. It wasn't... All the little mounds are like ice cream scoops covered with 6' grass and surrounded by alders.

 

[LongWayAround]

Looking back from the upper right of the previous photo.

 

[Oregon]

I’m not into scenery pics. But, look at these hogs in Nov. well, 2 hogs and 2 bucks. My favorite Kodiak pic of all time is buck on the rocks.

 

[mcseal2]

Nice deer, thanks for sharing.

 

[mcseal2]

Also thanks for the pics and descriptions of the country. I know they can only portray so much of the reality, but I enjoy them all the same.

I remember hearing about walking on tundra, experiencing it, and then trying to explain it after. A lot gets lost in translation!

 

[MattB]

Haha, there is no easy walking on Kodiak except for the rare deer trail. It is either wet and mushy, dry and mushy, brushy, steep, or some combination of those.

I know you are not looking at Oct., but a friend who is on this site went in Oct. and figured out why most people don't. Maybe he will chime in.

 

[Mattphillips18]

Haha, there is no easy walking on Kodiak except for the rare deer trail. It is either wet and mushy, dry and mushy, brushy, steep, or some combination of those.

I know you are not looking at Oct., but a friend who is on this site went in Oct. and figured out why most people don't. Maybe he will chime in.

I’ll be going in October, why don’t others?


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[AK Troutbum]

I’ll be going in October, why don’t others?


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For some reason Oct. seems to the the best month to experience the worst storms. That said, I'm a glutton for punishment, and so I go every year in Oct.

 

[MattB]

I’ll be going in October, why don’t others?


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The deer are hard horned so they do not spend as much time in the open country and they are not rutting so they so not move very much. As my friend explained, deer sightings for his group were much lower than expected. They were flown into a lake that apparently does not get too much hunting pressure.

 

[mcseal2]

Due to scheduling constraints for one member we are going in mid November. Still working on the logistics past that, but here is our current leaning.

Fly out and hunt a lower lake if it’s an option. It is no guarantee, probably not even likely, so we will plan to camp low and hike up each day.

Use a Seek 8 man tipi with stove and a Cabelas Alaskan Guide tent for the 4 of us. Hopefully that is enough redundancy and we can find enough wind protection to be fine. Time in camp will be longer that time of year.

Each of us plan to get 2 tags. We will hunt from camp in pairs. Hunt a representative buck, and then if we are all successful keep hunting a giant. If we all fill one tag, we will consider it a great success. Anything past that is bonus. Even if we don’t all get a buck being able to camp on Kodiak is enough. Its a new adventure for us, somewhere we have not been before.

Any advice or criticism is welcome and encouraged. The only thing we are confident in at this point is how much we don’t know…..

 

[actionshooter]

Due to scheduling constraints for one member we are going in mid November. Still working on the logistics past that, but here is our current leaning.

Fly out and hunt a lower lake if it’s an option. It is no guarantee, probably not even likely, so we will plan to camp low and hike up each day.

Use a Seek 8 man tipi with stove and a Cabelas Alaskan Guide tent for the 4 of us. Hopefully that is enough redundancy and we can find enough wind protection to be fine. Time in camp will be longer that time of year.

Each of us plan to get 2 tags. We will hunt from camp in pairs. Hunt a representative buck, and then if we are all successful keep hunting a giant. If we all fill one tag, we will consider it a great success. Anything past that is bonus. Even if we don’t all get a buck being able to camp on Kodiak is enough. Its a new adventure for us, somewhere we have not been before.

Any advice or criticism is welcome and encouraged. The only thing we are confident in at this point is how much we don’t know…..

This is just me, but there is no way in hell I would pack a floorless shelter unless it was just for a gear tent..... been there and made that mistake. I'll be there in November myself.

 

[MRC]

I hunted brown bears in November on the south end of Kodiak in 2005. I think Red Lake would be a great place to deer hunt from. Great scenery and you will see bears for sure. I was camped on the Ayakulik (Red) River for ten days the first ten days of November and was seeing lots of bucks on the move. Could see Red Lake from where we camped. Longer flight than most areas but beautiful area.Flew in with Andrew Air and they were great.That was 16 years ago so that may have changed.

 

[mcseal2]

This is just me, but there is no way in hell I would pack a floorless shelter unless it was just for a gear tent..... been there and made that mistake. I'll be there in November myself.

What are you using, or are you camping? We have considered renting a tent and heater instead.

 

[AK Troutbum]

I see absolutely no problem in going floorless that time of year, or any other time of year for that matter. Your combo tent idea sounds pretty bomber and I’ve done it that way many times. The only difference between what you’re thinking of using and what I have used in the past is, I usually bring an Arctic Oven and one or two floorless tipis, depending on how many people are going. I have on occasion just brought one of those bigger base camp shelters, when there were just two of us going, and I’ve also just used a 6 person Cabela’s Alaska Guide Dome on one occasion. If you’re going that late in the year with multiple people, it’s nice to have a big, fat, base camp with multiple shelters, because you will be spending more time there given the fact that your days are much shorter. I think having a designated sleeping tent, along with using a nice sized tipi for your cook shelter, and just hanging out in shelter, is almost the perfect base camp configuration. The latest I’ve ever gone down there is in late December, right before Christmas. There were four of us on that hunt and we brought a large Arctic Oven sleeping tent, a 12 person Seek Outside tipi w/wood stove for our cooking and hanging out in shelter, and a Titanium Goat 8 person tipi that we used as an outhouse. It was really nice to be able to go into a designated shelter, take off your wet jacket, and sit down on a camp toilet to do your business. That was probably the cushiest base camp that I have ever experienced and it was well worth it, given the fact that we spent so much time there with there being only about 7 hours of daylight/day.

Here’s a few pictures of some of our Kodiak base camps.

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[actionshooter]

What are you using, or are you camping? We have considered renting a tent and heater instead.

I have used an Artic Oven, Cabelas guide model Dome several times and a Kifaru Tipi once.... with the tipi, everything got wet and couldn't get it dried out, condensation was coming from the ground. I will NEVER use a floorless in AK again... If it works for someone else, great, that's just my experience.
I'll be up there again in a month and a Cabales 6 man is going this time.

As a side note, I'll use the floorless is the western states during the winter with out any issues.... every piece of gear has it's place.

 

[bushman]

We arrive in Kodiak Nov 2 tent camping for a week. We have a lake in mind but also have a couple coves in mind as well. Rented tent camps boat and motor from Kodiak Kamps. Looking forward to getting back to Alaska.
Been going to the state since 78

 

[bushman]

I took my tipi to Kuiu this spring. We burned charcoal for drying out. This trip coming up to Kodiak. I plan on bringing it for a drying tent. We rented heaters as well. We will sleep in the rented tents and heat and cook in the tipi.
There will be 4 of us

 

[bushman]

I see absolutely no problem in going floorless that time of year, or any other time of year for that matter. Your combo tent idea sounds pretty bomber and I’ve done it that way many times. The only difference between what you’re thinking of using and what I have used in the past is, I usually bring an Arctic Oven and one or two floorless tipis, depending on how many people are going. I have on occasion just brought one of those bigger base camp shelters, when there were just two of us going, and I’ve also just used a 6 person Cabela’s Alaska Guide Dome on one occasion. If you’re going that late in the year with multiple people, it’s nice to have a big, fat, base camp with multiple shelters, because you will be spending more time there given the fact that your days are much shorter. I think having a designated sleeping tent, along with using a nice sized tipi for your cook shelter, and just hanging out in shelter, is almost the perfect base camp configuration. The latest I’ve ever gone down there is in late December, right before Christmas. There were four of us on that hunt and we brought a large Arctic Oven sleeping tent, a 12 person Seek Outside tipi w/wood stove for our cooking and hanging out in shelter, and a Titanium Goat 8 person tipi that we used as an outhouse. It was really nice to be able to go into a designated shelter, take off your wet jacket, and sit down on a camp toilet to do your business. That was probably the cushiest base camp that I have ever experienced and it was well worth it, given the fact that we spent so much time there with there being only about 7 hours of daylight/day.

Here’s a few pictures of some of our Kodiak base camps.

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Hey bum, on the 2nd pic from the bottom how many fences did you bring to surround camp? We have 2 we are renting but I do have a another charger and a spool of wire that I was thinking of bringing to make a bigger corral.