npaden
Well-known member
It's been a while since I did a live hunt type post but thought this one would be a good candidate. At .27% drawing odds it's not like me posting details on this hunt is going to skew the future drawing results for this tag.
This started back in December with the Alaska draw deadline. I had a Alaska hunting license already from hunting black bears on Prince of Wales that spring so it didn't cost me anything but the application fees to apply for some draw tags. I shot for the moon and I think the best odds of any tag I applied for was just barely over 1%. I didn't think much about it and usually I'm checking the results clicking refresh on my computer waiting for them to post but I think I even forgot to check the day they came out and didn't check until the next day.
When I saw that I drew a tag I knew that it was going to be a good tag, but when I saw the hunt code I wasn't even sure what species it was for! For the most part Alaska has the species of animal in the 2nd space in the hunt code i.e. DC = Caribou, DM = Moose, DS = Sheep, etc. I drew DI403 what the heck did I apply for again? Looking it up it turns out it was Bison. I guess the I is the 2nd letter in Bison since Bear already was used for DB. Turns out I drew a bison tag!
After the initial thrill of drawing the tag, I started looking into the logistics, timing, etc. that was going to be involved. The reason this hunt is such a hard to draw tag is that it is accessible from the road system in Alaska which is fairly rare up there. Most of the 15,000+ people that applied for the 45 tags were residents. So that part of it was looking fairly doable. Still some logistics to sort through on airfare, etc. but they do a thing where they stagger the start dates for the hunters so that each week 5 hunters get the green light to start hunting, then 5 more, then 5 more, etc. The official start date is October 1st but then you are assigned your individual start date sometime in May. So I found out I drew the tag in mid February but wasn't going to find out when I could start hunting and book my flights, etc. until May. Turned into kind of a waiting game.
I scoured the internet looking for information on the hunt. Looking at harvest %, it didn't seem to be a 100% sure thing. In 2016 only 51% of the hunters were successful. In 2017 that jumped up to 85%. 2018 results weren't available yet when I started my research but are now showing an 80% success rate. There was a whopping 1 nonresident hunter in 2016, 0 nonresident hunters in 2017 and 2 nonresident hunters in 2018. Looks like I'm in pretty rare company as a nonresident with this tag!
Okay, I'm rambling around and getting sidetracked. I post on Social Media that I drew the tag and one of my next door neighbors from when I grew up in a tiny unincorporated town in Montana currently lives in Anchorage and just went on this exact hunt with his nephew in 2017. He almost seemed as excited about me drawing the tag as I was. When I finally got my start date of November 2nd he applied for a week of vacation and said he was going with me. He had already been involved with figuring out the legwork in 2017 with his nephew (who is in his mid 30's, not a kid) and we quickly put a plan together.
Delta Junction is one of the few places in Alaska with a decent amount of private property. There are farmers and ranchers along the valley that own several thousand acres of property. He said you could be expected to pay anywhere from $100 to $10,000 for trespass fees depending on who you were dealing with. (There are actually some high fenced Bison ranching operations in the area that sell Bison hunts on their private property). They had talked with several people in 2017 and actually paid some trespass fees on a few different properties but in the end had found a place at the end of the road that was reasonably priced and had a decent number of Bison on it. They also give you exclusive access to their property for the period you book with them. They charge $500 for 5 days exclusive access, but if you don't connect you are welcome back anytime that someone else doesn't have it booked for no additional charge. It seemed fairly reasonable to me. The way that the access is to the public land it would almost require you to pay the trespass fee just to cross their land anyway so I thought it wasn't too bad of a deal. The other promising thing was that since they are at the end of the road, if the bison are moving onto public land I would be able to access them although that would make things a bit more difficult from a pack out perspective.
I've booked my flights, bought my locking tag, booked a cabin along the highway not too far from where I will be hunting and think I have everything pretty much ready to go. My old next door neighbor has me covered on a vehicle, a place to stay in Anchorage, and says that he has a good setup in his garage that if I tag out soon enough we can fully process the bison there and get it all packaged up and ready to go home with me. I will be even using his rifle so I don't have to pack one there and back.
I've been in touch with another hunt talk member that helped out on this hunt earlier this spring (the season is October 1st to March 31st) and it was crazy that completely independently they had ended up staying at the same cabin rental place and hunting the same piece of private property that I am booked on.
I've watched what few videos on the Delta hunt that I could find on YouTube. Some make it almost seem more like a shoot than a hunt, with guys stalking around farm equipment. Some make it seem like a pretty decent hunt. Weather is shaping up to be fairly reasonable in the long term forecast, low 20's and upper teens for highs, low teens and upper single digits for lows. Nothing with a minus sign in front of it so far so that seems good.
I've been wanting to start this thread for a while but have been holding off until I got a bit closer to the actual start date. I fly out on Halloween so that is right at a week from now. I will do my best to take as many pictures as possible and maybe even try to get a few videos, but no guarantees on that. I never seem to do very well at getting videos.
I may update this one more time before I leave and then will try to get it updated regularly as I go. I'm not sure if the cabin that I'll be staying at has WiFi or what kind of cellular service I will get up there. If anyone has any questions I will try to get them answered.
Hopefully this will be a fun trip and I will share it with everyone to the best of my ability.
Thanks for tagging along...
Nathan
This started back in December with the Alaska draw deadline. I had a Alaska hunting license already from hunting black bears on Prince of Wales that spring so it didn't cost me anything but the application fees to apply for some draw tags. I shot for the moon and I think the best odds of any tag I applied for was just barely over 1%. I didn't think much about it and usually I'm checking the results clicking refresh on my computer waiting for them to post but I think I even forgot to check the day they came out and didn't check until the next day.
When I saw that I drew a tag I knew that it was going to be a good tag, but when I saw the hunt code I wasn't even sure what species it was for! For the most part Alaska has the species of animal in the 2nd space in the hunt code i.e. DC = Caribou, DM = Moose, DS = Sheep, etc. I drew DI403 what the heck did I apply for again? Looking it up it turns out it was Bison. I guess the I is the 2nd letter in Bison since Bear already was used for DB. Turns out I drew a bison tag!
After the initial thrill of drawing the tag, I started looking into the logistics, timing, etc. that was going to be involved. The reason this hunt is such a hard to draw tag is that it is accessible from the road system in Alaska which is fairly rare up there. Most of the 15,000+ people that applied for the 45 tags were residents. So that part of it was looking fairly doable. Still some logistics to sort through on airfare, etc. but they do a thing where they stagger the start dates for the hunters so that each week 5 hunters get the green light to start hunting, then 5 more, then 5 more, etc. The official start date is October 1st but then you are assigned your individual start date sometime in May. So I found out I drew the tag in mid February but wasn't going to find out when I could start hunting and book my flights, etc. until May. Turned into kind of a waiting game.
I scoured the internet looking for information on the hunt. Looking at harvest %, it didn't seem to be a 100% sure thing. In 2016 only 51% of the hunters were successful. In 2017 that jumped up to 85%. 2018 results weren't available yet when I started my research but are now showing an 80% success rate. There was a whopping 1 nonresident hunter in 2016, 0 nonresident hunters in 2017 and 2 nonresident hunters in 2018. Looks like I'm in pretty rare company as a nonresident with this tag!
Okay, I'm rambling around and getting sidetracked. I post on Social Media that I drew the tag and one of my next door neighbors from when I grew up in a tiny unincorporated town in Montana currently lives in Anchorage and just went on this exact hunt with his nephew in 2017. He almost seemed as excited about me drawing the tag as I was. When I finally got my start date of November 2nd he applied for a week of vacation and said he was going with me. He had already been involved with figuring out the legwork in 2017 with his nephew (who is in his mid 30's, not a kid) and we quickly put a plan together.
Delta Junction is one of the few places in Alaska with a decent amount of private property. There are farmers and ranchers along the valley that own several thousand acres of property. He said you could be expected to pay anywhere from $100 to $10,000 for trespass fees depending on who you were dealing with. (There are actually some high fenced Bison ranching operations in the area that sell Bison hunts on their private property). They had talked with several people in 2017 and actually paid some trespass fees on a few different properties but in the end had found a place at the end of the road that was reasonably priced and had a decent number of Bison on it. They also give you exclusive access to their property for the period you book with them. They charge $500 for 5 days exclusive access, but if you don't connect you are welcome back anytime that someone else doesn't have it booked for no additional charge. It seemed fairly reasonable to me. The way that the access is to the public land it would almost require you to pay the trespass fee just to cross their land anyway so I thought it wasn't too bad of a deal. The other promising thing was that since they are at the end of the road, if the bison are moving onto public land I would be able to access them although that would make things a bit more difficult from a pack out perspective.
I've booked my flights, bought my locking tag, booked a cabin along the highway not too far from where I will be hunting and think I have everything pretty much ready to go. My old next door neighbor has me covered on a vehicle, a place to stay in Anchorage, and says that he has a good setup in his garage that if I tag out soon enough we can fully process the bison there and get it all packaged up and ready to go home with me. I will be even using his rifle so I don't have to pack one there and back.
I've been in touch with another hunt talk member that helped out on this hunt earlier this spring (the season is October 1st to March 31st) and it was crazy that completely independently they had ended up staying at the same cabin rental place and hunting the same piece of private property that I am booked on.
I've watched what few videos on the Delta hunt that I could find on YouTube. Some make it almost seem more like a shoot than a hunt, with guys stalking around farm equipment. Some make it seem like a pretty decent hunt. Weather is shaping up to be fairly reasonable in the long term forecast, low 20's and upper teens for highs, low teens and upper single digits for lows. Nothing with a minus sign in front of it so far so that seems good.
I've been wanting to start this thread for a while but have been holding off until I got a bit closer to the actual start date. I fly out on Halloween so that is right at a week from now. I will do my best to take as many pictures as possible and maybe even try to get a few videos, but no guarantees on that. I never seem to do very well at getting videos.
I may update this one more time before I leave and then will try to get it updated regularly as I go. I'm not sure if the cabin that I'll be staying at has WiFi or what kind of cellular service I will get up there. If anyone has any questions I will try to get them answered.
Hopefully this will be a fun trip and I will share it with everyone to the best of my ability.
Thanks for tagging along...
Nathan
