Late Friday night we returned to Kodiak from our Afognak elk hunt. It was a hard hunt. We only had cow elk tags so we could not harvest bull elk, and this is what made things difficult. All the cow elk hang out in herds and the bulls are scattered around the outside of the herd. So to get to the cows we had to get past all the 'watchdog' bulls. We did manage to get one big cow, but on three other occasions the satellite bulls alerted the herd before we could get close. So a theme of the trip was departing herds rumbling through the alders - big white butts bouncing as they ran away - and the discouragement of blown stalks. And of course there were all the HUGE bulls all around us who seemed to know that we were not allowed to shoot them. They'd stand broadside at about 100 yards and just stare back at you from across their shoulder. One of the bulls was an absolute monster.
But we did manage to harvest an elk and saw some amazing country. We spent more nights on shore camping than ever before in the 20 years of the elk hunt - 5 nights! High winds kept the boat on the south side of Afognak so we carried all our gear and hiked across to the north side of the island. And when we got an elk on the north side we carried it back to the boat on the south side.
More to come in future blog posts.
Patrick
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| That's snow on the outside of the teepee! |
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| SPAM on the woodstove for breakfast |
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