2023 AK moose, ID deer, ID elk

[Taco280AI]

Not my first time in Alaska, but was my first time hunting there. It was already good to me last month when I brought 133 pounds of fish fillets home - king, coho, halibut, pacific cod, yellow eye, and squid. Went on this trip with the same guy I went fishing with up there, and a friend of his that he's hunted with before. After nearly a year of planning, deposits, maps, conversations, reservations, permits, tags, and three flights to SW Alaska, we were finally in the hotel waiting for the next day's flight out on the float plane!

Public land, DIY, none of us had ever hunted this area, figure it out as you go type of hunt. We were delayed a few hours as our pilot has had a very busy time lately, no big deal. The three of us and all our gear weighed in around 1140 pounds for the Beaver ride north. We had four potential spots pre planned, and if one was taken, we'd just keep flying to the next, if needed.



It was a great flight out, the weather was amazing!



As we flew over our first area, it was taken. On to the next, only to find it was taken. And the next. And the next. It's public land, yes, but we weren't about to go set up camp anywhere near anyone else. Too much time planning, too much money spent, too much space up here to mess up anyone else's hunt and seriously piss them off.

After more flying, Joe and the pilot just kind of decided on a random place as they were the only ones on headsets, and we came in to land.



Just getting there and looking around, it was amazing! Truly in the wilderness, not another person, camp, building in sight as far as we could see. Tom took off in the plane and left us for 11 nights out there, we were stoked! After a quick look around we decided on a camping spot and moved the gear over there. We hadn't even been on the ground for 15 minutes when we heard a bear cub crying out maybe 200 yards away. We all grabbed our guns, and walked back, away from brush and more into the open. Maybe 10 minutes later a young-ish looking grizz came out with her two cubs, curious more than aggressive, might be their first times ever seeing people. They stayed about 90 yards away and we got them to leave. I stayed on bear watch and camp got set up.

[Taco280AI]

Originally this was going to be a two-man hunt, me and Joe, but Joe called up his buddy Sean and basically asked if he wanted to go to Alaska, spend a few thousand dollars, watch other guys hunt, and help pack out. They've been on a lot of fishing and hunting trips and Sean agreed. Two hunters, meat split three ways, good time all around.

I hadn't been in a floorless tipi style tent before, but it worked out well with the titanium stove. Just had to be willing to share your space with the mice. For the most part I slept pretty well.



After seeing more of the area I wasn't very optimistic about it, seemed more like an occasional travel area more than a heavily traveled corridor, or place that simply holds moose. It did have a lot of beavers, black bear, grizzly, and caribou.





The fishing was good and there was a creek not far from our camp with a good outlet into the lake. Mornings and evenings were easy to catch lake trout, and found they'd been feeding on the mice. Was great to have fresh fish and not just Mountain House style meals. Joe also hooked it up with some smoked king salmon he brought.


 

[Taco280AI]

Our original game plan was to hike to a knob maybe a half mile from camp, get good visibility, and try to call in a moose. Lots of sitting and glassing, mostly good weather fortunately.



And tons of blueberries everywhere. Not sweet like store bought, but some were decent and I certainly had a few hand fulls. The bears were just stuffing themselves all day long with them.



One thing that never disappointed were the views. Kept thinking this place had more rainbows than Hawaii. A few showers here and there, but none that stayed long.





Despite our best efforts we couldn't find any moose close to us, or fresh sign. One morning Sean spotted a monster bull about 4 miles away on the other side of the lake. The type of bull you don't wonder if it's 50 inches or not. We saw this guy and knew right away he was a biggin. Unfortunately we only had a little pack raft that wasn't designed for travel and certainly wasn't fast. We saw that bull a couple days in a row, along with another good bull on the other side, both safe from us.

After a conversation we decided, cost be damned, we were going to move spots. Had a different place in mind and word was, from the pilot, nobody was there. Cost did bite us later on since Tom made a special trip just to come move us, and we ended up paying $3900 for the full round trip. But, we were there to get moose and like that famous line on Yellowstone goes, F... it.

[Taco280AI]

We had camp packed up and were ready to go for Tom once he arrived. He certainly appreciated that since many of his clients aren't ready at all when he shows up and isn't quite a people person it seemed. Another great flight, I really liked the way Tom handled is plane. Coming over our new potential spot Joe spotted a nice, big bull up the drainage. Unfortunately, another camp got there that very morning and was setting up.

Here we go again. We keep flying down this new lake and stop at another completely random spot. It looked moosey for sure. Not wide open like the other place, a lot of vegetation and trees. But seems like it has potential. Got out, unloaded, and Tom took off again.



The beauty of this place never got old. The gnats sure did though and we had to wear headnets around camp most of the time.



Another thing this place had was sockeye. Seems we missed the majority of it and the grizz had moved up high again after gorging on them. Most of them at least, still plenty of tracks along the shore. Only a few dozen stragglers remained, the rest were eaten or washed up dead on the shore.



Same camp, new place.

[highside74]

Very cool can't wait to see more.

[Taco280AI]

Several mornings in Joe was calling and scraping, I was glassing from the shore for anything in the distance. Not on our shore, of course, but across the lake about 1.5 miles (rough estimate with onX) I spotted a bull walking down the hill toward the lake. I told the other two about it and of course wanted to go after it, but I'm not the only one involved and didn't want to make that call with two people in the raft, until Joe said let's go! He knew I wanted it and those two are certainly team players.



The bull got down to the lake and started to walk the shoreline. Man those guys are fast with their super long legs, even at what would be slow pace for them. Our 1.5 miles across turned into 1.9 miles as we kept having to adjust our line to stay out front. Joe, a big jacked guy, did most of the rowing and I took over twice. I knew he was getting tired and halfway there the bull looked like he might turn and go up the hill. "Should we keep going" he asked... "yeah!" I said. Of course that's my answer. And so we did. Halfway there I said to him, and really believed it, this is going to work.

Amazingly the stars aligned that morning. We made it across in this sketchy raft with no life jackets, surrounded by cold water, going after a moose that could have headed up the hill at any point. It wasn't well thought out, it was just a let's go do this, type of thing.

For this hunt I wanted to use my new rifle, that I kind of went back to the basics with. A Winchester M70 in 308 Winchester, with a fixed 6x scope, using handloaded 150 TTSXs. Moose down!



The plan was Joe would row back with a big load of meat, Sean would row over back to me, we'd load up some meat, then the next day I'd go back for my antlers. The stars aligned again and some guys from another camp came cruising by with their much larger, and motorized boat. They went off looking for their own moose as the two of us quartered and cut up this guy, then they'd come back and bring us in their boat, with the bull in the raft. We were so thankful for that! Got it loaded up and tied the head and game bags off before we left.



Sean had a meat pole set up by the time we got back and none of us had to use our packs at all. Best pack out ever. He measured 54 inches and had four brow tines each side, great legal bull for me.







Unfortunately this was the only bull of our group. Joe had chances two more nights, but it didn't work out. Still, we all went home with a lot of moose meat and that first night of moose backstraps was fantastic! We're already planning next year.

[Skillet]

Great story, thanks for sharing that Taco!  Congrats on the success 

[highside74]

Great story. Great bull. Thanks for sharing.

[Longfield1]

Awesome story, i"m sure at the time when you were thinking about relocating you thought about staying but i say 3800$ worth it. Being able to adapt to changing conditions is what being a hunter is all about.

[redi]

Congratulations

[bearhunter99]

Great story and pictures!  Nice bull as well!  Thanks for sharing!

[Taco280AI]

Could have taken my custom 280AI, or a new MarkV 300 Wby, but went old school - ish, just with a brake and cerekote and sitting in a McM Hunters Edge.

The Win-Win combo with a fixed 6



A 100 yard shot before leaving the first camp just to make sure everything was good. Load development for this was the easiest ever. After a velocity test before picking a load to try out, I only used one powder, one charge, one bullet, one seating depth, and three shots went into .4" for my first ever one and done load.

[Pathfinder101]

Thanks for taking us along.  I think threads like this, where the hunter takes us through the whole process are the reason so many people love this website.  Great story and FANTASTIC pictures.  Congrats on a great bull.   

[fishngamereaper]

Dream hunt right there
Congrats. Great bull

Google scouting for over two years those lakes look familiar.

Maybe one day...

[MADMAX]

Very nice bull and great trip write up
Congrats