Alaska.. not fishing..
You all may have seen some of the past photo threads I've posted of fishing and hunting trips to Alaska. This year we took a slightly different approach to the trip and ending up going later in the year for some Sitka Black tail hunting. We chose the very end of October and into the first week of November. By most accounts, this is the typical start of the rut and hopefully would provide some good opportunities during our visit.
As we drove to the Pittsburgh airport, there was a light coating of snow on the ground. Later that day upon our arrival in Ketchikan, the temperature was 51. Ahhh,, Alaska!
Most direct routing from PIT was through Chicago to Seattle, then on to Ketchikan. After a night in Ketchikan, we flew over to Prince of Whales island to let the adventure begin.
A turbine Otter operated by Promech was the ride over. If you've never been on a float plane, its one hell of a fun ride! Boating combined with aviation.
Not the greatest conditions, but typical in AK.
Upon our arrival, on POW, this is the first picture I took.
Our intentions were to get as much video as we could on this hunt. We were somewhat successful in getting some black bear footage, but never really connected with a blacktail kill on film. Unless you have a dedicated camera guy, its really tough to do. The typical terrain throughout Se looks pretty much like this:
We targeted clear cuts and made a couple of trip up to the alpine. The alpine is basically a mountain top without much cover. The typical cut looked something like this..
We would sit on the upper end, call for a while, and see what showed. On occasion, you'd spot one coming out to feed. The young ones really had no fear of humans. The mature ones were mostly indifferent to humans as well, but would steer clear of you. My buddy had a staring contest with this young doe. the doe won, and we moved on...
She, or one just like her was within 20 yards of that same spot on our way out..
The Sitka Blacktail respond pretty well to calling during the rut. We were there a it early for this years rut, so we had to rely on spot and stalk and sit and wait.
Our first trip to the alpine resulted in a smallish spike. We needed camp meat and this was it. With the help of snow, it was spotted about 250 yards out bedded on a hillside. After about a half our stalk to get to within 100 yards, it went down with a single shot from Ron.
Then the work began. We quartered it, packed it and headed down the mountain surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery...
P.O.W. still has some significant logging going on. Here's a stump we came across. They were literally everywhere.. You can't really tell from the picture, but this one was at least 10' across.
How about a bridge made out of logs?
One trip to the the center of the island brought us to this peak.
There were a couple of eagles I tried to get into the picture..
Same birds...
They were everywhere. Majestic. Beautiful.
Gerald, if you're reading this, this is my first one. I think I said in your thread I got one a little bigger than yours. Re-visiting the picture, I'm not so sure! :grin:
The rest of the kills..
We spent a good bit of time on the water as well. Did the crab pot thing and there were shrimp pots available but stuck to the crabbing. Got just one keeper, but caught bunches of undersized crab. Fun thing to do!
The waterfowl were everywhere. We had hoped to each get a harlequin, but only saw a few. The scoters and goldeneye kept us busy.
On one late afternoon heading out of the inlet, I caught a bit of movement out of the corner of my eye.. It was a guy in a beat up aluminum skiff, in dark clothing. He was waving us down and appeared to be in trouble. Turns out he was on his way home from work, when his motor crapped out. It was a 15 horse johnson that took a gulp of water apparently. We exchanged pleasantries told him where were were from and he offered us a beer from the 18 pack he had in the boat. I noticed no oar, but there was a life jacket. At that point he said he dropped his oar about a half hour ago, and had been adrift since. The tide was going out, and there appeared to be a pretty good current going out... Then, !!! He says, hey, you guys are duck hunting, if you've got something to do, I'll be alright, go ahead and do what you were going to do! Now there a real salt of the earth, dyed in the wool Alaskan! I won't post a picture of him here, but here's a picture I took approaching his home. Hows that for a commute to and from town? About 5 miles by boat.
Anyway....
While there we were about visit a friend of mine from work who has a place in Craig. he put on quite a spread for us. Crab and shrimp cakes, Alder planked Coho, shripm, King salmon lox... What a feast.
And before we knew it, the trip was over....
The harbor.
Our ride back to Ketchikan.
Hope you enjoyed to pictures!
Blowchowski