Papa Bear 2017..The moose hunt...the good, the bad, and the ugly (not real ugly)

[Reload]

What size totes are you guys/gals referring to? Thinking about going this route myself. Ideally like to get @ 100 lbs of meat in each and just pay excess baggage fees. Thanks for any advice or thoughts

 

[geriggs]

thats good to know. Thanks for clarifying. i would have thought they were cheaper....not by much though. everything out there is about double what you pay in the states.

Congrats on some great moose.

With regards to the totes, we bought some ourselves at the store in Bethel and paid $40 each. I think that's just what they cost out there. I also much prefer flying meat in totes over using fish boxes, but I suppose it's a matter of personal preference.

 

[mcseal2]

You feel that chest waders would be better than the wader pants like the Simms? That is a purchase I need to make before I go next year. Thanks.

 

[mikkel318]

I'm heading to Bethel next fall to hunt with Renfro's, which airline would you recommend? I'm coming from Minneapolis

 

[KJH]

A couple of points from a few posts-

I would not use chest waders or wader pants. Stick to knee high boots or hip boots. Something you can take off and hang upside down on a stick to "dry" at night.

Go to the AC in town and buy regular igloo coolers for totes. They easily hold 100 lbs of boned out meat. Tape them shut. Or You could put your gear in a duffel and then in the coolers on the way there. Then use the coolers as coolers on the way home.

I'd fly nothing other than Alaska airlines unless you want more logistical headache. You can check your antlers and many coolers of meat plus your gear. They will get your meet in coolers if separated from you. Sometimes Alaska Air will put you on a Ravn flight (smaller prop plane) from Anchorage on the way to Bethel, which is no big deal BUT make sure you only fly out on the Alaska Air flight that is the big jet on your way home. This way there is plenty of space for all your meat coolers, gear tubs, bow and rifle cases, backpacks, antlers, and other over sized gear. This will take away any chances of your luggage and meat having to catch up with you later.

 

[standswittaknife]

Hi with the chest waders you can roll down and use as pants. We actually needed the chest waders one day crossing a slough.


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[standswittaknife]

I'm heading to Bethel next fall to hunt with Renfro's, which airline would you recommend? I'm coming from Minneapolis

Always fly Alaskan airlines


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[bobhunts]

Totally agree on flying Alaska Air only. My trip was different than yours as we saw black bears fighting close to camp and never saw a wolf or griz! We got dropped on a high ridgeline where I could have actually worn regular boots and been way more comfy. My buddies feet got pretty rank after day two! We were both tagged out and flew back on day 5.If I go again I will hold out for a true trophy. I would go back and do it again. I really wished Steve had a walk in freezer! The one chest freezer on the porch just is not enough. Nice write up.

 

[mcseal2]

A few more questions for those who have gone on this hunt before:

We are going next September on a later hunt, the 19th to 29th so we may get more weather but more rut action also from what I have gathered.

Did you have any trees adequate for tying tarps off to? I have a few decent big tarps I can pick from, a Kelty Noahs tarp 16 (16ftx16ft), a Aquaquest 10x13 tarp, and a Snugpack tarp about 10x8.5. I also have a light sil-nylon 8x8 tarp I plan to take in my pack in case we want to call under it somewhere. I would like to set the 16ft tarp over the tent for extra rain protection if I can. It's fairly heavy so if a tarp that big isn't useful I can skip it.

With the ground up there do you need longer or bigger stakes? I have some 9" and 12" ABS plastic stakes I can take I use on sand bars when we catfish the river.

What saw would you recommend for the moose bone? I have an 18" Wyoming saw and a Gerber 18" hatchet I'm currently planning to take. I'm thinking I should leave my wood/carbon steel tools I like at home for Alaska, going with stainless.

What do you use for come-alongs and where do you get them? We have some cable ones around the ranch I've used but they only hold a small amount of heavy cable, I'm guessing you are getting rope ones that hold more?

Anyone find a spotting scope and tripod worth their weight?

What food did you take you that worked well? I know which Mountain House and Backpackers Pantry meals I like, but I've never tried to go 10 days on only them. Hopefully we have moose to eat. The week long Canada canoeing/portaging/fishing trip we did we fried some single serving Spam with cheese on tortillas. We also used the tortillas with Mountain House breakfast skillet meals and McDonalds salsa packets for burritos that were darn edible. Peanut butter and honey on a tortilla made a quick breakfast some days. We had a lot of fish to supplement the freeze dried stuff that trip though and probably somewhat drier conditions than we may see this time around.

Is there any reason to take any fishing gear this time of year and if so what?

Thanks for the help. I want to show up as prepared as a first time moose hunter on his first trip to Alaska can be!

 

[bbrown]

^^^ Great questions - I’m curious about these as well for our trip up there next fall.

 

[Hughiam]

See below in Red, We hunted using the same service but DIY. we brought all our own gear.

A few more questions for those who have gone on this hunt before:

We are going next September on a later hunt, the 19th to 29th so we may get more weather but more rut action also from what I have gathered.We hunted the late hunt from about the 15-25 but came out early due to meat concerns, we saw rutting behavior from about the 17th on.

Did you have any trees adequate for tying tarps off to? I have a few decent big tarps I can pick from, a Kelty Noahs tarp 16 (16ftx16ft), a Aquaquest 10x13 tarp, and a Snugpack tarp about 10x8.5. I also have a light sil-nylon 8x8 tarp I plan to take in my pack in case we want to call under it somewhere. I would like to set the 16ft tarp over the tent for extra rain protection if I can. It's fairly heavy so if a tarp that big isn't useful I can skip it.We used a titanium goat tent/teepee of our own with no tarps. We did have a collapsible stove to dry out. We didn't have any other tarps for shelter. We used a small floorless tent to build a crib and store the meat. We also had a 10x12 tarp we set the meat on while we were processing it.

With the ground up there do you need longer or bigger stakes? I have some 9" and 12" ABS plastic stakes I can take I use on sand bars when we catfish the river. Where we were at you could get by with 9" stakes

What saw would you recommend for the moose bone? I have an 18" Wyoming saw and a Gerber 18" hatchet I'm currently planning to take. I'm thinking I should leave my wood/carbon steel tools I like at home for Alaska, going with stainless. we butchered our moose with a couple vicorinox knives, a nice Wolverine Knifeworks fixed blade and a small bone saw/wood saw wiith changeable blades. We did have a small gerber 14" saw for firewood.

What do you use for come-alongs and where do you get them? We have some cable ones around the ranch I've used but they only hold a small amount of heavy cable, I'm guessing you are getting rope ones that hold more?We did not take a come along

Anyone find a spotting scope and tripod worth their weight?we had a scope, but I found the binos better for practical use.

What food did you take you that worked well? I know which Mountain House and Backpackers Pantry meals I like, but I've never tried to go 10 days on only them. Hopefully we have moose to eat. The week long Canada canoeing/portaging/fishing trip we did we fried some single serving Spam with cheese on tortillas. We also used the tortillas with Mountain House breakfast skillet meals and McDonalds salsa packets for burritos that were darn edible. Peanut butter and honey on a tortilla made a quick breakfast some days. We had a lot of fish to supplement the freeze dried stuff that trip though and probably somewhat drier conditions than we may see this time around. I brought several different types of food as a monotonous diet of MH does bad things to my gut. I brought some MH biscuits and gravy, instant oatmeal, poptarts for breakfast. For lunch bagels, peanut butter and jelly, ramon noodles and canned chicken, for dinner it was mountain house for the most part. For snacks I had string cheese, trail mix, clif bars, beef jerky. We took powdered gatoraide to mix with water, hot cocoa mix, a coffee press, and a bottle of whisky and peppermint schnapps. The only fish we caught were northern pike. We did eat one inner tenderloin from the moose we shot.

Is there any reason to take any fishing gear this time of year and if so what? I used a medium rod with spoons, spinners, vibrex, rapalas etc for the pike. fishing was spotting depending on water clarity.

Thanks for the help. I want to show up as prepared as a first time moose hunter on his first trip to Alaska can be!

 

[mcseal2]

Thanks, great info to have. I appreciate it. We have a Seek Outside 8 man tipi with stove. With the floor, liner, stove, and all it's about 12lbs. I didn't know how the tipi and stove would work in swamp conditions with all the moisture. One of the guys I talked to before talked about water soaking through the tent floor the ground was so saturated. Sounds like a lot of things on this hunt depend on where Steve puts you, which I'm sure depends on where he finds the moose.

 

[randall3951]

Hugeiam how did you guys do archery hunting?

 

[Robinhood21]

Congrats! Must have been an incredible time!! Also, thank you so much for the tips. My father and I will be going in 2020 and those tips are priceless!

 

[geriggs]

No prob, good luck

 

[Hughiam]

Hugeiam how did you guys do archery hunting?

My brother shot one small bull with his longbow. We ended up leaving early due to the hot weather and threat of losing the meat. I think had we stayed we could have gotten our second moose. I had one I was chasing for two days and finally figured him out but we had to leave.

Hugh

 

[jruff002]

still following all these old forums for info as i'm going w/papa bear for moose in 2021, i know it's a long ways off but you can't overplan lol. is there anything you guys didn't take you wish you would have? when talking/deciding on your hunting location do they give you any higher ground options where you have a high spot to view or glass from or is it all preety much just flat swamp and that's it? is it best to just sit in camp and call and wait them out and possibly after couple days if not successful just working your way out of camp each day to keep the scent down?

 

[mcseal2]

I did the gear questions on another thread, plus one with my gear list you can find on here.

They had 3 locations picked out that they would possibly put us in when the float plane left Bethel. The first was occupied, we ended up in the second. Both looked pretty swampy. I know some other guys got drier camps. I think it just depends where they see moose and think you have the best odds. We had no high spots to glass from, nothing was over 6ft above water level. We did have some open country where we could see a ways. We shot our moose at 300 and 500 yards.

For strategy we called from camp or near camp for several days. Past that we used the inflatable boat we had to access other areas. We tried to limit where we spread our scent and always played the wind. We called in 3 bulls. One small one, my 52" bull, and a 35-40" mid size bull. We got the smaller two close but my buddy passed on both. He ended up shooting the small bull late in the hunt as he followed some cows not to far from camp. He wouldn't respond to calls then. We spotted him traveling down the slough to call an area and I beached the boat so he could intercept them. He ended up with the 500yd shot and made it. Every time a bull showed we had been cow calling and raking brush.

 

[william schmaltz]

Papa Bear sold you a moose hunt so they will take you to a place with your highest odds of harvesting a moose. The Y-K Delta is overrun with moose and that's where you will go. It's almost a slam dunk and that is what most people want on what most refer to as a once in a lifetime hunt. So it will be flat, swampy land that is former river delta. They are literally flying constantly starting September 1st and they will land you wherever they have consistently seen the most moose hanging out that isn't occupied by others. No one "owns" the spots and there are two outfitters out of Bethel and Renfro drops off a HUGE volume of hunters per year. So as stated, it happens pretty frequently where a spot they plan to take you is occupied.

They will gladly take hunters southeast to the mountains if that is the kind of hunt you are after. You would be hunting bulls moving through pinch points looking for cows and your odds may go down. Not to mention you will be dealing with a whole bunch of brown bears if you land on one of them salmon fed mountain lakes.

 

[jruff002]

ok thx you guys all great info, mcseal i saw you had an excel list of gear on another discussion, can you pm me that please? i can't pm yet i'm still in rookie status...