2018 Alaska Moose Hunt.

Just got back yesterday from a month in Alaska. I tried to get out and hunt or fish every day I was there. Only had a couple down days, where weather sucked, or just had too much other stuff to do.

I fly in around 2 AM and my buddy who I was staying with tells me to get some sleep because we've got to help his friend with his goat tag first thing when we wake up. I had a few days until we were going to get into the bush for my moose hunt so I had no problem with that. Next morning we wake up to bright blue skies and low 70s weather. We hiked in about 4 miles to find him already rafting out to the trail head with a goat in his raft. He had hiked in the day before, and set up camp. Woke up that morning and had a billy standing about 600 yards above him. He made a short stalk and boom, goat down! He couldn't raft farther so we split the load of his goat and hiked out 4 miles with heavy packs.

The next day we woke up sore and tired, but heard the silvers were really in down in Seward, and it's legal to snag them from the beach. We packed up rods and tackle and hit the road. When we got to Seward and started fishing, but we heard we should have been there yesterday (story of my life). Apparently people were limiting out in 7 casts, unfortunately that wasn't the case this day. I think out of the 5 of us who went, we only got 2 fish. Better than being skunked though.

I decided to hit the Parks highway the next day and see if there were any salmon left in some of my old favorite rivers up there. Low and behold there were still fish running in Montana creek. I caught several silvers, but most were too red to keep, but found a few that were good. Caught a few chum salmon as well, but in all my years in AK, I've yet to find a way to cook chums that makes them taste good, so those were all released. Ended up going home with 3 silvers that day. This was the last day I fished, it was a hunting trip from then on out.

We loaded up our gear, fueled the truck, and loaded our rangers on the trailer and headed North for the moose hunt. My buddy only had 4 days of vacation so we needed to get it done quick. He was also looking to get his daughter into hunting so we took her along, and at the last minute our friend in Healy asked if we could take his daughter because she wanted to go. I have no problem taking kids hunting so I said it was fine.

After about 300 miles of driving we arrived in the town of Healy. Our friend works in the mine there and was able to get us into the back side of the mine where there weren't a lot of people. We spend the night in his camp trailer and hit the trail at about 6 AM. About a half an hour before daylight. It took us about 30 min to get up to the spot were we wanted to camp. We pulled into the spot, shut off the rangers and started glassing but didn't see any moose. Kind of disappointed to not even see a cow in the area, but we had time. As we discussed how we were going to set up camp we heard an antler scrape off to our right! I rushed over with my binos and low and behold there were 4 bull moose standing in the trees with 3 cows! A quick look at them and I saw a bigger bull, a bull with a broken horn, a small paddle bull, and a spike.

I was kinda disappointed to see a bull in an area where he was reachable so early in the hunt. I like to hunt for the adventure, and shooting a bull an hour into the trip kinda bummed me out. As I thought about it, I was like, well am I here to hunt moose, or here to glass moose! The stalk was on at that point, I had about a 3/4 of a mile to get to the bulls, and some swampy country to cross to get to them. I hit the ATV trail and got about half the distance closed, then set in cross country. There was a draw between me and the spot I wanted to shoot from, but as I got over the small hill and started down the draw I discovered another cow moose standing there watching me. I had to back out before she spooked the other moose off. I backed out, and circled around her, but at this point I saw the group of bulls had walked a little ways down hill. I saw a ridge that was to their right. I figured if I could get up to that ridge, walk down to the area they were in I would have a pretty easy shot at them. I hustled my butt up to that ridge and climbed up. Once I got to the top I couldn't see the moose, I figured they had walked a little farther down hill, so I started to slowly walk in their direction. About a 1/4 mile down the ridge suddenly I saw a cow to my right, she was looking the other way, but still no bulls. I sat tight for a minute, the wind was in my face, and they didn't know I was there so I figured I'd wait it out and see what was going on. About a minute or two more of waiting and I spot the little paddle bull about 80 yards in the trees. I got up and started slowly making my way toward him. The bigger bull in the group had given me the slip, I think he saw me earlier and booked it out of there, but as I made my way towards that paddle bull I saw the spike, and then as I got around a tree, there was the broken horn bull 20 yards broadside. At this point the trophy hunter argument happened in my head.....do I wait for a bull with better horns, or shoot. I mulled it over for a second and decided to not look a gift horse in the mouth. Put the cross hairs of my 375 H&H behind his shoulder and boom, he was down! Probably the first time in my life I'd killed a moose before even getting the tent set up!

More to come!

After the bull was down the work began. As you walk up to a moose you've just shot 2 things go through your head...1 Yay I got a moose! 2. Oh, I've got so much work to do now! My 2 buddies and the girls were able to get the rangers right down to the bull, so luckily there wasn't going to be a huge pack job with him. We set to work getting him broke down, and into game bags. My buddy's daughter really wanted a lucky moose foot, so I gave her one. She was pretty excited about the whole thing, and helped a little bit with getting us game bags, holding the hide, but mostly she sat there and poked the moose's eye. It took us about 3 hours to get him broken down and loaded into the ranger. When we got back to camp our buddy who worked at the mine took off to get some sleep before his next shift. My other friend I was in there with still had an OTC moose tag so we decided to stay in a day or two more to see if we could find another bull for him. There are a ton of grouse in the area as well, so we had birds to hunt if moose hunting was slow. We glassed for the rest of the day, but mostly just saw cows slowly eating their way across the meadows. As we were glassing I looked down to notice there were a ton of Lingon berries growing around us. Lingon berries are low bush cranberries that grow up there. We all switched from hunters to gatherers at that point, we spend the next few hours trying to fill gallon freezer bags with berries. We picked berries until just before dark, then hit the sack.

The next morning I was woken up by the sound of a grouse landing just outside our tent. I grabbed my little 22 pistol, put my crocs on and headed out. I walked around the tent for a bit, but they spooked off before I could get a shot. I grabbed my binos and started glassing. I spotted 3 moose about a mile to our left. I grabbed my spotting scope and discovered all 3 were cows. By that time my buddy, and the 2 girls had gotten up. I'm sitting there watching the 3 cows when one of the girls comes up and says hey, there are 2 moose down below our camp! I grabbed the spotting scope and got over there and she was right, and one was a big bull! I'm pretty sure it was the one that had given us the slip from the day before. I put the spotter on him, but no matter what, I couldn't make him legal. In that area of Alaska, in order to shoot a bull on an over the counter harvest ticked the bull must be a spike, fork, 50 inch antler spread, or have 4 brow tines. I counted 2 brow tines on one side, and 3 on the other, I judged his spread to be about 45-46 inches. My buddy concurred, so we sat there and watched him and his cow do moose stuff for about an hour. We got breakfast going and about the time it was done a guy in his ATV comes riding up, obviously upset that we were in the spot he wanted to camp. He asked if we'd seen any moose, I told him about the bull below us. I told him it wasn't legal unless he had an any bull tag. Come to find out he did have one, so we let him know where it was, and what we thought were the best approaches to the bull. That guy got a lot more friendly at that point. He went down and killed the bull, while we set out for some grouse hunting. We ended up getting a couple birds, and I found out little girls who are just getting into hunting make excellent bird dogs! She was all over in the brush retrieving birds for us, and even found a hare!

We spent the rest of the day glassing up moose and caribou, picking berries, and hunting grouse. The weather was pretty warm and I was starting to get worried about the meat if we stayed in much longer. The next morning we decided we'd better get packed up and get that meat home. We packed up camp, and as we went to load up meat I noticed the little ermine that had been hanging around camp had chewed holes in 3 of my expensive game bags, but hadn't bothered with the cheap ones! Little bastard! At one point I discovered him on top of the tent hanging out. Come to find out the youngest girl in camp had been leaving food out for him, and had even named him. He didn't eat too much meat though, hopefully it'll help him get through the winter.

We got back to to town and spent the next 3 days cutting meat, grinding, and packaging. I dropped off about 30 lbs to be turned into Jalapeno Cheddar Dogs. After the moose was all taken care of, one of my friends who works on the oil platforms out there was off for a week so I headed down to his place to do some fishing, hunting, drinking, etc. More to come on that!

My buddy Tony, lives about 150 miles away from where I was staying. He is an avid duck hunter (by my handle you can probably assume I am too) so he was eager to get out and get after some ducks. I'd already hunted ducks a couple times back in Wasilla over the previous few days, but not a lot of birds around. The warm weather had them still staged on the tundra up north so duck hunting was pretty slow. I told him my report from Wasilla, which is north of where Tony lives on the Kenai Peninsula. So we went into to it not expecting much. We launched at the beach where the Kasilof runs into the ocean and motored up the river. It was about a 20 min boat ride and we got up to Tony's spot. The tide was out, and in AK the tides are huge. It's a 20 foot difference between low tide and high tide, so at low tide the bank of the river is a huge wall of glacier silty mud for about 15 feet before it hits any grass. That was a nightmare to climb up, but we did it. We got in, set up the blinds and decoys, and just as I predicted, not much happening. We killed one pintail and decided to head out at high tide a few hours later. Once we realized duck hunting was going to be really slow we decided to hunt grouse for the remainder of the time.

We spent the next few days hunting grouse and did pretty well. We'd average about 10 birds or so a day between the two of us. The last day I spent down there was the day after moose season had closed. Tony wanted to go check out the paces he liked to moose hunt and see if any bulls had made it. He said there were a ton of grouse and we had a 50/50 shot at seeing a brown bear. I had bear tags in my pocket so I was down for that. We hit the trail at daybreak, and were seeing a few grouse riding in. We came up to a high ridge where we could see the whole valley below us. We sat up there and glassed for about 20 min when we spotted a huge bull moose making a scrape. We got to looking at his antlers and both determined him in the mid 50s. He would have been a shooter the day before. As we're watching the moose, Tony says he thinks he spotted a brown bear down in the valley. I get my spotting scope on him and find out it was in fact a bear, but it was a black bear. You generally don't see a lot of black bears in that area, mostly because the brown bears kick them out. He was up in a meadow about 1.5 miles away eating berries. We strategized for a minute and figured out a way to approach him, and the stalk was on.

We covered about a half a mile in the ranger, and set out on foot from there. Ended up slogging through a swamp for a while before having to climb a really high steep hill. As we crested the hill we slowed down and started looking to where we thought the bear would be. We slowly made our way through the area, but no sign of the bear. After about 30 min of glassing we figured the bear had given us the slip. However, while we were watching him in the spotting scope earlier we saw the bear repeatedly stand up and look up the valley. Tony was curious what the bear kept smelling and keeping an eye out for. He figured there was a brown bear in the area so we decided to go check it out.

We turned left and started walking and I see the bear about 300 yards in the trees just milling around! He hadn't seen us, and the wind was in our face so I started closing the distance. There was a stump about 200 yards from the bear I saw and was going to use it as a rifle rest. I made my way to that stump, but as I got there I saw the bear dip down into a draw between us and him and he was out of sight. I figured he'd seen or heard us and was making his escape. After about a minute though to my surprise the bear crossed onto our side of the draw and was heading towards us. I lost him in the brush again, then suddenly he pops out about 80 yards away. I put the cross hairs on him and boom he goes down! As I was reloading another round he got back up and barreled down the hill into the thick alders. This is the part of bear hunting I really hate! Having to get into the brush with a potentially wounded bear is not fun at all.

We hung out for a while and gave him time. By the amount of blood on the ground, I was sure it was a vital hit. After about 30 min we started blood trailing him. We tracked him about 200 yards through the alders when we found him. He was a beautiful bear, no blemishes on his hide, and he was fat on berries which means rendered down lard, and great tasting bear meat. He's about average for a Kenai Peninsula black bear. About 5.5 foot, they don't get huge down in that area mostly because the brown bears don't let them get on the salmon. We got him down to the ranger and headed home. On our way back Tony had to pick up his daughters from daycare. When he went in to get them he mentioned we'd killed a bear, and suddenly show and tell was on! We had about 30 kids out there petting the bear, and checking it out. The teachers were out there checking it out too. One lady said she really wanted that fat, but Tony had already claimed that. We got it back to Tony's house, skinned it out, butchered it and packaged that afternoon.

I headed back to Wasilla the next morning and only had about a week left of my vacation before having to head back to Maryland. I spent the rest of the time duck hunting. It was slow but we managed to kill a few birds. I killed the first redhead since I was 12, I was pretty excited for that. We had several bull moose come close to our duck blinds in their pursuit of cows. They were rutting hard at that point so they're all over the place chasing cows around. I got my bear dropped of at the taxidermist, got as much meat as I could loaded on the plane and headed back to Maryland. It was a great trip and it felt great to just decompress out in the wilds of AK for a month before having to head back to work, traffic, cities, etc. Only 1.5 years to go before I retire from the military and head back to AK permanently.

Couple more pics.

Thank you for the fantastic story and pictures!

It’s been nine years since I visited the Kenai Penninsula. I’ve not traveled all over the world as some have - but that is the most beautiful area I’ve ever been to

Sounds like an awesome time. Was there once when I was much younger and need to go back.

Great story and photos, and congrats on the moose! I took my girlfriend to Alaska for 2 weeks this summer, so I missed hunting there this fall. Nothing like being in wilderness Alaska in September.

Great story, thanks for sharing. I miss going to Alaska and my age and arthritis keep me from hunts like yours anymore. I just relived it through your story.

Awesome! Keep it up

Awesome story. Sounds like an amazing time!

I was there back in August, just vacationing with my family. I am in love with AK. Trying to hunt down a federal job around Anchorage (to keep my benefits). Otherwise I’ve got 15 to go before I can take an early retirement and move. Basically halfway through my career.

Damn.

lazarus said:

Awesome story. Sounds like an amazing time!

I was there back in August, just vacationing with my family. I am in love with AK. Trying to hunt down a federal job around Anchorage (to keep my benefits). Otherwise I’ve got 15 to go before I can take an early retirement and move. Basically halfway through my career.

Damn.

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May want to take your wife up in the winter sometime before taking the plunge - Anchorage typically has 7 months of winter (October through April), and can stretch into May in a cold year. Want to be sure that's not a shock if/when you take the plunge.

Outside of the Army and Air Force base jobs, I would think DOI, BIA, and DOT might have a few opportunities for federal slots in or near Anchorage...best of luck to you.

MDHunter said:

May want to take your wife up in the winter sometime before taking the plunge - Anchorage typically has 7 months of winter (October through April), and can stretch into May in a cold year. Want to be sure that's not a shock if/when you take the plunge.

Outside of the Army and Air Force base jobs, I would think DOI, BIA, and DOT might have a few opportunities for federal slots in or near Anchorage...best of luck to you.

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Yup. Fortunately I’ve mostly worked in IT for my career. I work for SSA. One modest sized field Office In Anchorage (I ran a field office for a few months years ago). Odds of getting the one job as the manager...probably never. Fairbanks of Juneau have offices and that is it. So mostly looking at other agencies or seeing if I can twist my boss’s boss’s arm in to allowing me to work viritually.

My wife and I have a trip back planned next winter. Accelerating it if need be to this winter. Both of us love winter and hate summer...so

lazarus said:

Yup. Fortunately I’ve mostly worked in IT for my career. I work for SSA. One modest sized field Office In Anchorage (I ran a field office for a few months years ago). Odds of getting the one job as the manager...probably never. Fairbanks of Juneau have offices and that is it. So mostly looking at other agencies or seeing if I can twist my boss’s boss’s arm in to allowing me to work viritually.

My wife and I have a trip back planned next winter. Accelerating it if need be to this winter. Both of us love winter and hate summer...so

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You may already know this, but...Fairbanks is a whole different ballgame than Anchorage. Temps can get into the 90s in the summer, and can hit 30 and 40 below in the winter (and even worse on occasion). I was born in Fairbanks, many many moons ago...

MDHunter said:

You may already know this, but...Fairbanks is a whole different ballgame than Anchorage. Temps can get into the 90s in the summer, and can hit 30 and 40 below in the winter (and even worse on occasion). I was born in Fairbanks, many many moons ago...

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Yup. Why I am not considering it at all. The temperate climate around Anchorage would be great. Actually Homer area would be ideal, but no real federal jobs around there at all. I can deal with longer winters and lots of snow, so long as the temps aren’t more than 10-20F colder in the winter time. Which seems to be the case around Anchorage. I want cooler summers, not nasty heat waves. So Fairbanks is off the table for both reasons.

Sweet meat piles! I miss knocking food down. I can do the small stuff but I fear my days of packing slabs of dead moose and caribou out are done. Heck, just sauntering across a short stretch of muskeg wears me out anymore.

That is one hell of a hunting/fishing/camping vacation. Probably something I will never be able to do but sounds amazing

Great story and pictures! Thanks for posting.

Good luck

Jerry

Jerry M said:

Great story and pictures! Thanks for posting.

Good luck

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what he said!

Thanks for the stories and pictures, was born in Anchorage, lived their until I was 14. Hunted and fished all over the state. The last time I fished Montana Creek with my Dad, the only way to get their was the train. Fished Seward also, great Silver fishing. Fished for Kings on Kenai. What good memories you brought back THANK YOU. That moose is a good size to eat, looking at that skinned quarter, I can remember packing them out....no gators or ATV's back them, you put it on a pack board and walked.
The smile on that child's face says it all.....you made memories that will last a life time. Great write up.

Thanks for the post. Great story and pics!