Remote Alaska DIY moose drop-hunts and more...

[AKDoc]

Very well done Doc!

The key word that jumped out at me was "solitude"........solitude is getting more difficult but is essential for me and killing another moose/caribou/bear is secondary to the wilderness experience.

You said it even better, Vern!

 

[keller]

thanks for sharing your experience,mentality and yearn for a remote wilderness experience without gratification from others but being self fulfilled by the experience, good company and harvest of game second.but when the game is harvested the utmost respect is shown by caring for the meat that will feed many families throughout the long winter months.this seems to be becoming a secondary practice by many measuring success by inches. which i have nothing against. but to be taken back to the true roots of hunting and being a hunter providing for your family or a village seems to not be as important as a picture with a large set of antlers on facebook.
wishing everybody happiness ,health,and many more adventures ahead.

 

[GreenNDark Timber]

Thanks for sharing Doc! Great pictures and I loved the write up, especially seeing where your priorities in a hunt are. I hope you have many more great adventures like these and continue to share a small part of them with us!

 

[AKDoc]

Hey guys...I included a thumbnail of the full image below in my original thread-starter. It's from the grizzly hunting area that we bundled with our moose hunt. I included it for reasons that probably many of you already saw, i.e., when you look to the left of the image you can see a distinctive and well used Caribou/grizzly trail, and then paralleling to the right of that trail is an emerging grizzly trail...you can see their typical repetitive foot-step pattern being created in the tundra. It's really kind of funny, I've been black-tail and mountain goat hunting on Kodiak many times, and some of those bear trails have been used for hundreds of years and the repetitive foot-step patterns are exceptionally deep!

BTW, way off in the distance you can just barely see our camp.

 

[Beendare]

Thx for sharing Doc...I enjoyed your comments.

 

[ScottH]

Outstanding write up and pictures about your experiences in the wilds of Alaska! A sincere thank you for sharing with us.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

Great photos and good writing!!!

 

[BAKPAKR]

What a great adventure to look forward to each fall! Thank you for sharing your story and photos.

 

[Herbie03]

I'm doing my first, and solo, diy AK moose hunt this Sept. I'll be 59 then. Thanks for sharing the wisdom and for letting us "older" hunters see what's possible if we do it right. I'm looking forward to the experience.

 

[PNWGATOR]

Great post for SO many reasons! Thank you for sharing.

 

[AKDoc]

I'm doing my first, and solo, diy AK moose hunt this Sept. I'll be 59 then. Thanks for sharing the wisdom and for letting us "older" hunters see what's possible if we do it right. I'm looking forward to the experience.

That's great to hear. My wife made me promise when we first moved to Alaska to never do a remote solo (she knows I can do it, but she would worry too much). I've kept my promise...although I'd love to do it.

Move slow and move carefully, and have your inReach with you at all times sir!

 

[Herbie03]

Move slow and move carefully, and have your inReach with you at all times sir!

Plan on keeping it closer than a prom date. Thanks to you and all the others who have and are teaching me what to do and not to do.

 

[todd mcdaniel]

Thank You for sharing, really enjoyed reading. I have a question on your PR49HD, is it big enough for 1 person gear and a moose?

 

[AKDoc]

Thank You for sharing, really enjoyed reading. I have a question on your PR49HD, is it big enough for 1 person gear and a moose?

Nope...it's definitely not big enough for me, my camp gear, and a moose.

I've used it a few times on drop moose hunts when required to transport quarters and bagged meat from the kill-site side of the lake to the camp/meat-pole side of the lake, which usually takes two or three trips by myself. It really beats humping the meat on my back around the lake. I also used it last year to paddle out to the middle of the lake to get a rope on the floating bull that had run into the lake after being shot, as described earlier.

I have used the PR-49HD solo for numerous remote fishing floats with my gear, and it is perfect for that.

 

[Northwestalaska]

You see guys using Pack Rafts for moose hunts but there are LOTS of pitfalls. First and foremost is capacity of the PR. I always tell my hunt groups the same thing....Pulling that trigger is easy and now the work starts. 50+/4 Brow Tine moose in Alaska dressed out runs between 750 to 950 pounds and that rack runs another 80 pounds. What is the capacity of that PR? An overloaded raft of any size is dangerous and up here danger kills fast! So many ways to die in Alaska.

Repairs on the river. Pack Rafts are all the rage. I have people ask for them all the time but I don't carry them for 2 major reasons. #1 is most are very thin PVC which can be a B*&%ch to repair on the river. PVC is very light but toss in a man and moose and dang the first sweeper could be your last. #2 is skill level of the boater. I have to assume all who rent from me have very limited skill level and that PR will get them into so much trouble so fast because it has a very small foot print. Alaska's water is COLD and take a dump and you can be dead fast. 2 summers ago a non permitted or insured outfitter put 2 Germans in Pack Rafts and dropped them into the Nizina River which is cold, fast and deadly..Long story short this was a day trip and both were dead inside of the first mile...

What I suggest is investing in SOAR Pro-Pioneers. Hypalon, tough, designed for the Alaska hunting market and they come in 2 sizes that will handle anything you will run into. We rent both the 16 foot Pro and the 18 foot Pro Magnum. Solid and perfect for the fly out hunter. Fly out weight for the 16 footer is 78 pounds and the 18' is 107 pounds and repairs if needed are easy with the high quality repair tapes that are on the market today.

Walt
Kotzebue

 

[todd mcdaniel]

Thank you both for your input, very helpful

 

[AKDoc]

Hey guys...I'm adding a few more pictures to the thread I started a couple months ago. Something to help a balanced perspective right now from the current events...

Looking down-river, below is a picture of our camp on day-1 when we were on our 7-day, hundred-mile remote float in western Alaska the first week of September last year...



About an hour later, if you stood at that camera point, turned, and looked up-river behind you, you would see this...




You'll remember that picture from earlier in my posts within this thread...it was a beautiful old bear with pure white front claws. It was also a same-day airborn, no-shoot bear.

A few days later my son got his first brown bear (as I mentioned earlier). You'll recall I didn't post that picture because it's special to me, and I wanted to keep it to myself. Given all that is going on, I changed my mind. It squared 8'10" (I'm calling it 9ft.), and ADFG aged it between 9-12 yo. My son made an excellent 30+/-yd shot with his 338-06. I handloaded some of those wonderful Barnes TSX's (210's), and he took it with one shot through the heart. It only went about 30+/-yds into the brush along the river and died wedged between two trees.

 

[adamkolesar]

Hey guys...I'm adding a few more pictures to the thread I started a couple months ago. Something to help a balanced perspective right now from the current events...

Looking down-river, below is a picture of our camp on day-1 when we were on our 7-day, hundred-mile remote float in western Alaska the first week of September last year...

View attachment 165055

About an hour later, if you stood at that camera point, turned, and looked up-river behind you, you would see this...


View attachment 165056

You'll remember that picture from earlier in my posts within this thread...it was a beautiful old bear with pure white front claws. It was also a same-day airborn, no-shoot bear.

A few days later my son got his first brown bear (as I mentioned earlier). You'll recall I didn't post that picture because it's special to me, and I wanted to keep it to myself. Given all that is going on, I changed my mind. It squared 8'10" (I'm calling it 9ft.), and ADFG aged it between 9-12 yo. My son made an excellent 30+/-yd shot with his 338-06. I handloaded some of those wonderful Barnes TSX's (210's), and he took it with one shot through the heart. It only went about 30+/-yds into the brush along the river and died wedged between two trees.

View attachment 165068

A special image indeed. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Cahunter805]

Awesome write up and thank you for sharing your special moment with all of us!
Amazing bear!

 

[Scottyboy]

Thank you for the write up, incredible pictures and dialogue. I’ve read this post about 6 times now, about to start again!