Hunting Washington Forum
Big Game Hunting => Elk Hunting => Topic started by: hunt22 on June 13, 2013, 01:09:36 PM
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I have a friend who lives in Alaska and he drew the Etolin Island elk tag for early October. He wants me to help him out and I have been doing some research but wanted to know if anybody has hunted it or knows anybody who has.
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I've heard its pretty tough hunting... used to think hard about applying to hunt there but never have.
Read this http://www.thewilddays.com/2011/10/cracking-code-on-etolin-elk.html (http://www.thewilddays.com/2011/10/cracking-code-on-etolin-elk.html)
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Yeah I already read that, sounds like good info. Not sure if I want to miss some of my hunting at home to help him up here. I just want to make sure I am ready for it if I decide to go for it.
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I don't know if I would consider any elk tag in Alaska to be widely known as an "elite" tag to draw. The reason they even have draws on elk in AK is that there just aren't many of them or many places to hunt them. The hunt sounds like more a wilderness adventure of the Alaskan nature, and would probably be a great trip (so would blacktails and you don't need to get drawn for those)
I know people who have drawn for Afognak/Strawberry, but not Etolin. Bulls are known for big bodies, but weird, almost stunted antlers with sometimes few points.
Terrrain and vegetation in coastal AK is "interesting". That time of year I would follow the advice in the article and fly up high. From the water you'd be looking at miles of bushwacking. We have some thick vegetation here, but nothing compares to endless mats of stunted alder, all pointing downhill from being pushed along the ground by snow weight.
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I have a couple family friends that are guides up there in SE for brown bear. They are very savvy, very experienced woodsman and I consider them to be right up there with some of the best hunters/outdoorsman around, old school type Alaskan's. Anyhow they hunted it a couple times and said it was the most extreme hunting they had ever done. Low density of elk but just a hell hole of terrain in order to get to them. Lots of bears, dangerous weather, extremely thick and very steep. They said they got turned around a few times even with GPS.
They killed a bull the second year that went 300+ that they figured had to weighed over 1200 lbs on the hoof. They ended up with just shy of 500 lbs of boned out meat. It literally had the body size of a big bull moose and it took 4 full days of their hunt to hang it and get it out after getting it down. Definitely an extreme hunt and I would expect extreme conditions.
