Hunting Adventures

1982: My very first deer (ever).  I was hunting with my friend DeRell on a ridge above Saltry Cove Road and spotted this buck bedded down overlooking the road below.   DeRell and I had lots of fun trying to get this buck back to the truck about 1300 feet below us.  We slid & tumbled down the mountain while trying to hold onto this buck. 

My friend DeRell surveying how stuck my brand new truck really was.  We went way back into Saltry Cove with my truck, got it stuck, camped the night, then hiked out 18 miles by foot, crossing several rivers to get someone to help pull me out.  I felt better after the person who pulled me out got stuck in the same hole and I had to pull his truck out.  After wasting the weekend getting stuck, hiking out and getting unstuck, we decided to try a quick hunt.

If you look closely, you'll see my backpack with my 2nd and 3rd Kodiak deer that I shot with my .30-.30 rifle.  I had to drag one deer a few yards then go back and get the other.  In the distance you can see my truck and my "rescuers" truck near the mud hole.  It was shortly after this hunt and my roll down the mountain with my first deer, that I learned to butcher deer in the field and started backpacking out the meat vice dragging deer.  I also started looking for a flatter shooting rifle and eventually settled on a 7mm Magnum.  Lastly, I eventually figured out that ATVs were usually easier than trucks to get back into remote areas.

This was during a goat hunt with some friends (Mr. E & Scott).  We took ATVs into Saltry Cove, took a 13 foot inflatable boat up to Hidden Basin, then started climbing this ridge leading up to Crown Mountain.  (Scott is on the left & I'm on the right)

A nice scenic break about three quarters of the way up...  A view of Hidden Basin is in the background.  

Mr. E preparing to consume mass quantities of food!

It doesn't get any better than this!  A splendid view from Crown Mountain...

Raspberry Island during a brown bear hunt with my friend Mac.  For those familiar with Raspberry Island, you can see Onion Bay in the distance.

Here's a picture of my friend Mac in our base camp at Raspberry Island.  We took a 21 foot boat from Anton Larsen Bay to Afogneck Island, then eventually to Raspberry Island.  When we decided to move base camps from Afogneck to Raspberry, we learned (the hard way) about Alaska's extreme tide changes.  After a couple days on Afogneck, the tides had steadily been getting lower, to the point that when high tide arrived our boat was a few hundred feet from the waterline.  So, we had to quickly unload the boat, use logs for rollers and roll the boat out to catch the receding water.

Here's the only bears we saw on the Raspberry Island hunt.  In fact, when we first watched the sow we didn't even know she had cubs.  After about 15 minutes of stalking and watching the sow I had the crosshairs on her chest and was just squeezing the trigger when Mac yelled out "cubs".  That put and end to our hunt, since you can't shoot a sow with cubs.

A buck in velvet during an August hunt with my friend Bill.  Kodiak's deer hunting season usually runs from 1 August to 31 December and allows for you to take several deer (averages 5/year).  This hunt required a long stalk, sneaking through valleys and constantly keeping hid behind cover.   I ended up shooting the deer in his bed from the ridge above him (in the background).

Here's Bill with his buck from this hunt.  Bill made a tremendous long distance, down hill, off hand shot, all while this buck was running!

A weekend hunt on Wild River Ridge with my friends Scott (shown), Mac & Mr. E.  I woke up one morning, looked out the tent and could have shot several bucks from my sleeping bag!

Here's a close up of one of the bucks from the Wild River Ridge weekend.

My Kodiak monster buck (he just missed B&C).  I was hunting with my friend Mac when we topped a ridge on Breadloaf Mountain and saw this buck with his nose up a doe's... we'll you get the picture.  Mac and I looked at the size of this buck, looked at each other, and new he was destined for the meat pole.  Years later I'd have a chance at a much larger buck, but was foiled by one of my own hunting partners making excessive noise (yelling, asking if we had seen anything yet) which spooked the buck.

Low tide with Elbow Mountain in the background.  Jerry and I borrowed Mr. W's boat and left from Anton Larsen Bay to head to Elbow Creek to hunt for a few days.  Well on our way we ran into very high seas and had to pull into a cove for the night to wait out the storm.  The next day we donned survival suits and finally made it to Elbow Creek.

Here's my friend Jerry with a buck from Elbow Mountain.  We had just broken camp early in the morning and weren't out of camp a few minutes when we spotted this buck.  It was so early, we had to wait a few minutes for the sun to rise to see to skin the deer. 

Here's the buck I got on this trip.  I originally saw this buck in the morning, made an hour long stalk on him when he disappeared just as I got close enough for a shot.  After I hiked an hour back to our central glassing spot, the buck magically reappeared.  So, determined, I hiked another hour back to the buck and dropped him.

My main mode of hunting transportation, and fun, was my Honda Big Red 3 wheeler.  This was during one of those fun snow dumps of about three feet.

Having some fun in the rocks in the high country...  This was during another Saltry Cove hunt with my friend Scott.

Here's Scott during a rest break.

Here's my friend DeRell with a nice buck from one of our many hunts (aka adventures).

Here I am on another hunt with my friend DeRell.  We drove our ATVs up the ski chalet trail and made camp in a mountain bowl.  Early the next morning we woke up to several feet of fresh snow.  We donned our snow shoes and walked by moonlight along the mountain ridges till we got to Elbow Valley.  On our descent into the valley we crossed paths with a Kodiak Brown Bear who plowed through the deep snow like it was air.