In case of ak

[Valley1320]

Following!

 

[cgasner1]

I would tell anyone doing a trip like this to put their phone in airline mode the night before when they go to bed. Thanks Alaska air for the 3am wake up text

 

[Gerald Martin]

Good luck! Enjoy your trip.

 

[cgasner1]

I’m hearing rut activity is picking up

 

[cgasner1]

Got my wheels for the day

 

[cgasner1]

Wheels up to the end of the world see you guys around.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Drive safe. Don't lose your hat.

 

[Forkyfinder]

Drive safe. Don't lose your hat.

Nothing will make me smile like someone getting every dollar out of a uhaul.

I want to see a dead moose and/or homeless moose camp in there

 

[cgasner1]

We just hit a lodge…..Gotta drop back down 70 miles tomorrow on the river and get camp and stay in one more night hoping to be home by Sunday. About a week early

 

[cgasner1]

Also before I go to bed I got a inreach message the other day turns out someone turned in a late rifle tag in Arizona for unit 9 so if anyone has some suggestions let me know.

 

[cgasner1]

Well I’ll start trying to update this now that I’m officially back to civilization. I’m still in anchorage hopefully get the meat transferred from one cargo company to another today and catch a flight back home this afternoon. I’ll be honest I did a horrible job on taking photos while up there. I keep a log for a few days to help remember some of the details for this. The entire trip was just wild the hunting was probably honestly the least interesting part of the trip for me.

 

[cgasner1]

Day 1 sept 20 we get up early in anchorage grab breakfast I drop my buddy off and return the uhaul and Uber back to the airport. We had checked our bags and they told us hopefully everything we have gets on the plane but ask us to pick 2 must flys and the 3rd bag is if they have room will travel. Our carry/personal bags must also make 20# of weight. Luckily this little company doesn’t care or watch since after weighing my carry on I stuffed a 12 rack of monsters in my bag

 

[cgasner1]

So we get landed in the village and it’s a total goat show got 30 guys all trying to get out and gone. We landed around 3 and by 7 we were headed down the river in the boat. The first night we did 57 miles down

 

[cgasner1]

At this point it’s getting about dark and we are still around 20 miles from camp. One of the guys knows of a little cabin so we pull in and the native that owns it happens to be there at the time. We told him we had planned on throwing a tent up by his place and he said just lock the door and fill the generator up when we leave and we are welcome to sleep in it for the night. He had been up river gathering pot ash they had put 140 miles on and only had another 50 to home so he was heading out at 10pm in the dark with his family for home. Seemed wild to us but we had 4 walls and a roof

 

[cgasner1]

This is where I really started slacking in the photo department. I don’t do any social media besides this. A lot of the time I just don’t take pictures because I’m enjoying myself. This was a cross between that and just pure exhaustion. This place stayed daylight till almost 10 which is midnight Montana time. So anyways we get up that morning load our stuff in the boat and make the trek to camp. On the way down we saw 4-5 bulls and I got out and had once circle me grunting with my bow that I couldn’t make it happen on due to a 20’ wide slough. We got in and get camp set and decide to go for a hike. Plan was to hike out a mile or so we hiked about 300 yards and I spotted a bull moving off with some cows. The guys looked real quick thought he was good and about 4 shots later we had a 56” bull on the ground 500 yards from the boat. We took a bunch of pics….mainly the gunman and I snapped a couple. We broke him down got our gear and I’ll be damned that winch pulled that bull in 500 yards in about 90 min we had him to the water.

 

[cgasner1]

So the next day we built a new meat rack and got the bull hung up. We even used that winch and some tackle I brought to pull all the meat up and hang it so we didn’t have to wrestle those heavy ass things. The wind had picked up by this point and was probably around 30 mph sustained so we stayed low on the river and tried calling and cruising in a kayak.
We had lost a day and half to the weather at that point. We decided to have dinner in a different cabin that night to escape the wind

 

[cgasner1]

The cabin that we ate our dinner in was 16x12 with about a 4’ door getting into it. Last year one of the guys told me there was a group of natives at it eating lunch on the river bank and a 60 year old lady had told him she lived in the cabin for the first 30 years of her life. Outside of it a few hundred yards was boxes where her family had been buried above ground due to the perma frost. One was strapped with his ar 10 for the next life

 

[cgasner1]

We get up the next morning and it’s now Tuesday sept 24 and my tent is solid it’s not moving at all. The wind has vanished it’s time to hunt. We run over and pull up on the short and head out past the old homestead and get about 3/4 a mile out when we spot some cows. With the 4 cows is a bull we start sizing him up and I tell my buddy if he wants to kill him to do it if otherwise I’m gonna try and arrow this bull. He decides he wants to take him so I pull out my 18s and throw the phone up to start filming. When we spotted him he was around 300 yards out he started moving around and before long that bull is standing at 70 yards and I’m really bummed I wasn’t in position with my bow. I tell my buddy I’m filming go ahead and take him whenever you want. He starts shooting and I’m watching him pump this bull full of lead on my iPhone. The bull tips over and we realize I hadn’t filmed it. I was just sick over it to watch the entire thing like that and not get it.

 

[cgasner1]

So we tried like hell to prop this thing up and get some decent pictures. After that the boys got to work with the knifes and I got to work getting our extraction gear to the kill sight. We killed that bull at about 10 am and had him to the river by around 6 pm considering the size of the animal and being .76 miles from the boat I’ll take it. Once again that winch was amazing the heaviest thing we had to haul and it’s 22# we borrowed a ice sled from the natives and put that entire moose in it and away we went

 

[cgasner1]

With time to kill we had a snack then went and cruised the slough till dark. We were all beat and me being a dummy decided to just leave my bow in camp and since we had a rifle in the boat. We didn’t see anything but small bulls that night but this guy would have caught an arrow had I brought my bow since he was 25 yards from the boat as we pitted around. I wasn’t willing to catch one that size as the natives say with a rifle that night and we where all whipped anyways.