My hunt turned into an expensive camping trip! Covered everything we could reach within a day and make it back to camp before dark (only about 2 miles). Saw tons of deer and bear sign, sign for 1 elk maybe 2 but couldnt find anything larger than a fox or beaver. Spent two days stuck in the tent due to horizontal rain and then had one day to hunt followed by another day stuck in the tent. All told we had 9 days to hunt, spent 3 in the tent, 1 day was lost due to trying to get out a day earlier than planned that was canceled due to high winds and 5 actual days of hunting. The first 5 days were gorgeous, very against the weather I was expecting and then the last 4 were what we expected to have to deal with. I ended up on the eat side of Laura Lake and hunted nothing but the timber, so it was all still hunting which I will admit that I dont have a good track record of success with. So my buddy and I are going to skip next year in Afognak to do some more planning. We are thinking of going with the remainder hunt and hunting above Manilla Bay. It looks closer to the type of spot and stalk hunting I am more familiar with.
We flew with Willy Fulton of Kodiak Air Service and had a good time. He's a one man crew so some allowances are made for that (cant expect drop of the hat communications when hes flies all day but he always got back to me). I will most likely fly with him again when we go back to Afognak. I have nothing bad to say about the guy and I enjoyed having him as the pilot.
As for gear and stuff... We were the lightest group by far that he flew out up to that point of the season. The only thing we should have brought was another half liner for my Redcliff (only had the side we slept in) and some camp chairs. Had a Silky hand saw that handled all the wood, rented a bear fence, the Plano sportmans large and medium totes are bulletproof (the large one, when empty, was a chair for me and my buddy with all our crap on. No damage at all to it). I have some gear to replace that didnt get through moose and elk seasons without damage like my Nemo Sonic 0 bag, FL guide pants and FL uncomphagre puffy stuff (I'm not a careful guy, dead tree branches poke holes in it).
All in all it was a great time, just frustrating to not see anything much less come home to tag soup. I would 100% recommend doing the hunt though. Its good, honest hard work and I thoroughly enjoyed going to Henrys in Kodiak afterwards for my burger after the hunt.