Back from Afognak

 

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

That's snow on the outside of the teepee!

SPAM on the woodstove for breakfast

Trees and Sunshine

 

Some more pretty pictures from last weeks dog walks.  Stuey and Nora accompanied me on a few of them.  I love how in the Fall the light starts to get low and raking.  We are past the equinox and these days even at mid day the sun is relatively close to the horizon. It's almost like it is always sunrise or sunset.  Patrick

Fall Close Ups

 

Some pretty pictures that I took during the last week while walking the dogs.  All the leaves are starting to fall off the trees, but my rose bush continues to bloom.  It must be confused.

Patrick

lingonberry

devilsclub

willow

highbush cranberry

cottonwood

Mike and Ray on the Go

 

You know it is a good time of the year when you have to rush to finish posting about the last hunt before you leave on the next one.  And tomorrow we leave on the twentieth annual Afognak elk hunt.  20 years!  Oh My God.  Anyway, more on the elk hunt later.  This post is last one about the deer and goat hunt to the South End.  This one features Ray and Mike traipsing about the gorgeous landscape draped in fall colors in search of deer and goats.

It's fun to hunt with Ray and Mike.  Very Relaxed.  Sometimes people hike together and chat quietly.  Sometimes we all split up a little and hike in our own little worlds.  In addition to admiring the scenery and focusing on scanning around for deer I do a lot of thinking while I hike.  I swear I often think up solutions to all the world's problems while I churn up a long mountainside.  

But mostly it is hike for a while and then stop and glass everywhere carefully for deer.  And then hike some more.  We eat on the fly and seldom stop for extended breaks unless we shoot something.  

Patrick

Spawning red salmon - we could hear from the tent the bears chasing them at night

Time to go home - loading the plane and getting out just before the winds really picked up

Camping by the lake

 

Our first camp by the lake

Nothing like a base camp right beside a lake.  Better yet a camp with a woodstove.  Since we did minimal moving we could have a pretty cushy camp and a woodstove to return to every night after a day of hunting.  If we got wet we could dry off everything by the woodstove.

We also had some pretty cold weather and very hard frosts at night.  Even some spitting snow.  There are still lots of spawning red salmon along the lakeshore and at night we could hear the bears chasing the fish.  But they were shy bears and generally stayed pretty hidden during the day.  We'd see them cruising the lakeshore in the distance but never up close.

Halfway through the trip we used a river raft to carry all our gear to a new camp.  We had basically hunted all the mountains near the first camp and moved to the second camp to access new hunting grounds.  Also there were goats near the second camp.  

My only issue with the second camp was that after we had set up the teepee and had moved in I discovered that a bear had been chomping on fish right where I was sleeping.  My area always smelled of fish and I even found a few fish head bones - disgusting!  But it was a soft flat spot and very protected from the wind - the very reasons why the bear probably chose to lie there and chomp on a fish. He/she probably took a nap in the sunshine after eating the fish - exactly where I curled up to sleep a few days or maybe hours later.

Patrick

we moved a couple of miles to a second camp

our raft filled with gear for the camp move