Bluffgruff
Well-known member
I leave in just over a week. I'm gear ready, and getting excited!
The Roosevelt elk hunt of my dreams...
- Thread starter Bluffgruff
- Start date
Bluffgruff
Well-known member
All aboard!
seeth07
Well-known member
Go get em @Bluffgruff!!! See you there!
Flatbrimmer
Well-known member
Bluffgruff
Well-known member
Send off seafood dinner
seeth07
Well-known member
I hope you are able to get in today. Weather looks like crap tomorrow, 40mph winds and rain. I don't think we are making it ourselves tomorrow.
seeth07
Well-known member
Bluff enjoying his tent all day yesterday! Sort of glad I didn't make it in yesterday!
SC Living Outdoors
Well-known member
Make it happen. Good luck!
Bluffgruff
Well-known member
Bluffgruff
Well-known member
This is going to require small bites.
On February 17th, I get a message from my friend, "You should check your draw results..."
After several attempts over a few years, I have an Alaska draw permit... for elk?
I mean, I'm excited, but this is immediately feels too big.
I have a hunt plan already, it has been in place for years. I review a particular episode of a particular outdoor show, scour the internet for the "other" guy's documentation of a prior hunt, and figure out that this is more than I want to do alone.
Between drawing the permit and go time, I draw 2 more elk tags and a bison tag, make major work changes, and generally flip my life upside down, but you don't abandon the Roosevelt elk hunt of your dreams because things are difficult at home. A hunt like this might make the rest of your life feel easy.
I find my tranport issues for caribou repeated, "we aren't taking new clients at this time."
I finally talk to a guy, a solid, but easy going guy. He inspires confidence. I'm on the schedule for a fly in about 5 days after the season opener, and should have 7 full hunt days.
On February 17th, I get a message from my friend, "You should check your draw results..."
After several attempts over a few years, I have an Alaska draw permit... for elk?
I mean, I'm excited, but this is immediately feels too big.
I have a hunt plan already, it has been in place for years. I review a particular episode of a particular outdoor show, scour the internet for the "other" guy's documentation of a prior hunt, and figure out that this is more than I want to do alone.
Between drawing the permit and go time, I draw 2 more elk tags and a bison tag, make major work changes, and generally flip my life upside down, but you don't abandon the Roosevelt elk hunt of your dreams because things are difficult at home. A hunt like this might make the rest of your life feel easy.
I find my tranport issues for caribou repeated, "we aren't taking new clients at this time."
I finally talk to a guy, a solid, but easy going guy. He inspires confidence. I'm on the schedule for a fly in about 5 days after the season opener, and should have 7 full hunt days.
Little Big Man MT Chris
Well-known member
Bluffgruff
Well-known member
Fast forward several months, and I finally get a concrete yes from the Kiwi, or from his significant other, I suppose. We're converging in Anchorage. The day I leave, there's still some uncertainty. Are we really doing this? I guess so!
Travel is long but uneventful, I meet the Kiwi in Anchorage. We slam our last fast food burgers with gusto - who knows when we'll get to have gross fatty food again?
Last flight of the day then we're on the ground for a bit.
Kodiak baggage claim is a baggage claim for ants, not 180 hunters and a traveling hockey team. I wish my bag wasn't the same color as their team's colors. My bags are among the last off. We grab them and a ride to the hotel. I text the pilot. I'm worried he will want us to turn right around and meet him for a fly-in tonight. Weather had been a major concern with a big storm forecast, but the onset keeps getting pushed back, so the next day is a go.
Why are their steps between the elevators and our room? Sigh.
Unload 300lbs of stuff, carry cart down, reload 300lbs of stuff, then to the room.
Time to repack everything.
It's about now that I realize we are packing for an almost ultralight hunt, without that weight limit. Pilot asks how much weight, people and gear, we have. It's 650lbs, or less. He says to meet him at the pond instead of the bay the next day.
We grab a nicer dinner, again unsure of our next non-dehy meal.
Then we get our food sorted, only the bare essentials.
Travel is long but uneventful, I meet the Kiwi in Anchorage. We slam our last fast food burgers with gusto - who knows when we'll get to have gross fatty food again?
Last flight of the day then we're on the ground for a bit.
Kodiak baggage claim is a baggage claim for ants, not 180 hunters and a traveling hockey team. I wish my bag wasn't the same color as their team's colors. My bags are among the last off. We grab them and a ride to the hotel. I text the pilot. I'm worried he will want us to turn right around and meet him for a fly-in tonight. Weather had been a major concern with a big storm forecast, but the onset keeps getting pushed back, so the next day is a go.
Why are their steps between the elevators and our room? Sigh.
Unload 300lbs of stuff, carry cart down, reload 300lbs of stuff, then to the room.
Time to repack everything.
It's about now that I realize we are packing for an almost ultralight hunt, without that weight limit. Pilot asks how much weight, people and gear, we have. It's 650lbs, or less. He says to meet him at the pond instead of the bay the next day.
We grab a nicer dinner, again unsure of our next non-dehy meal.
Then we get our food sorted, only the bare essentials.
Kiwi
Well-known member
Nice beer! Altitude bar is a favourite of mine and a short roll down the hill from my place.
seeth07
Well-known member
Nice to meet you last night @Bluffgruff and for the beer that was so much needed after all the packing we did yesterday! Next round is on me, hopefully our paths cross again
Last edited:
Bluffgruff
Well-known member
Next day, we meet the pilot around noon at the pond and load up. He's excited to show us around.
Ready to go, pro-beards and all.
Flight is quite scenic, we see whales, ships, fishing boats, hoards of sea birds, and miles of rocky coastline surrounding dense Sitka spruce forests on the southern part of our journey that give way to open brushy and grassy hillsides and fewer spruce the farther west and north we go.
We tour a couple potential campsites, several of which are occupied and settle on one at the end of a lake.
The pilot takes a long sweeping approach to give us a good view of our climbing route, and then we ease down into the water.
We're here. I grow to both love and hate this clump of spruce (more accurately, hate the people who cut the lower 5 feet of wind-blocking limbs on the lake side.
Our wearing waders and unloading everything ourselves is something the pilot appreciated.
We say good bye and the pilot heads back to Kodiak. The place feels.... big.
We set up our tent and bear fence in the middle of the patch. There is another spruce 125 yards downstream where we ultimately hoist our food bag.
The bugs are horrendous. I only have one bug headnet. It's maddening. They're in our eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. We trade off who goes outside the tent to do stuff wearing the headnet.
Salvation appears in the form of a blue and white single seater.
An Alaska State Trooper patrolling the hunts drops in to check my license. In the 5 minutes we're talking, he gets absolutely destroyed by these flies. He gives us his personal bug net from his plane and asks us to return it when we get back.
Now we have 2 headnets, and life is at least tolerable.
The bugs are still biting our hands, but that's a huge improvement.
We wander up the hill for dinner, hoping the altitude and breeze will help, but the bugs follow us up. We quickly take bites if dehy under our nets then put them back.
After dinner, we get a fire started in the stove, and watch with concern as the winds pick up and bow the tent fabric towards the stovepipe.
This is going to be a rough night.
Ready to go, pro-beards and all.
Flight is quite scenic, we see whales, ships, fishing boats, hoards of sea birds, and miles of rocky coastline surrounding dense Sitka spruce forests on the southern part of our journey that give way to open brushy and grassy hillsides and fewer spruce the farther west and north we go.
We tour a couple potential campsites, several of which are occupied and settle on one at the end of a lake.
The pilot takes a long sweeping approach to give us a good view of our climbing route, and then we ease down into the water.
We're here. I grow to both love and hate this clump of spruce (more accurately, hate the people who cut the lower 5 feet of wind-blocking limbs on the lake side.
Our wearing waders and unloading everything ourselves is something the pilot appreciated.
We say good bye and the pilot heads back to Kodiak. The place feels.... big.
We set up our tent and bear fence in the middle of the patch. There is another spruce 125 yards downstream where we ultimately hoist our food bag.
The bugs are horrendous. I only have one bug headnet. It's maddening. They're in our eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. We trade off who goes outside the tent to do stuff wearing the headnet.
Salvation appears in the form of a blue and white single seater.
An Alaska State Trooper patrolling the hunts drops in to check my license. In the 5 minutes we're talking, he gets absolutely destroyed by these flies. He gives us his personal bug net from his plane and asks us to return it when we get back.
Now we have 2 headnets, and life is at least tolerable.
The bugs are still biting our hands, but that's a huge improvement.
We wander up the hill for dinner, hoping the altitude and breeze will help, but the bugs follow us up. We quickly take bites if dehy under our nets then put them back.
After dinner, we get a fire started in the stove, and watch with concern as the winds pick up and bow the tent fabric towards the stovepipe.
This is going to be a rough night.
