Sitting here on my O'Hare layover counting some serious blessings after one of the wildest months of my life. Not only did I get to spend the first half of August kicking around the Kenai peninsula backpacking, fly fishing and hiking, but I also got the call that I was selected for my dream job in Anchorage right before flying down to Kodiak for this year's Blacktail hunt. Safe to say it'd be pretty hard for things to get a whole lot better from there at that point.
We flew into an area near Larsen Bay for a drop camp hunt with three guys. Weather forecast had good weather for the first day, then a little bit of rain and wind, and then a nice high pressure system that was supposed to bring some nice hunting conditions. We got our first guy's buck, a nice 3x3, down on the first afternoon after a textbook stalk nice and close to camp, and then settled in to see how the weather was going to look. As it turned out, the answer was poorly, and for a lot longer than it called for. For four days, we did our best to glass through about every combination imaginable of winds strong enough to break the poles of our gear shelter, rain and virtually zero visibility. For our efforts, we saw basically a few does.
At this point, we had just one more morning to hunt before getting picked up and I was coming to grips with the probability of eating tag soup on this one. Right before going to bed, I ordered an Inreach report that finally called for the forecasted high pressure system to arrive by the next morning. My buddy who still had his tag and I agreed to get up nice and early to give it one last good shot.
The cold got me up before my alarm- it was one of those mornings where you really have to retreat into your mummy bag to stay warm. Check there. Wind had also died down a lot. Double check. We got up, did a quick oatmeal breakfast, and headed to our glassing knob. As the sun started coming up, we started seeing activity- like, a lot of it. Deer that we had glassed over probably hundreds of times were finally getting out of their beds after the weather system we'd been fighting broke. My buddy glassed up a solid buck about a mile and a half away, and I told him we'd make a play if we didn't see something convincing in the next few minutes.
Then, after putting the spotting scope on dozens of animals throughout the previous week, I saw one that I didn't even need it for. He was about 600 yards away, but I could see even at that distance through binos that he was at very least a solid animal. Plus, there was another buck feeding on the same hill- so, theoretically, we could save *both* of us from the tag soup life at the last possible moment of the hunt. There was a good drainage that looked like it would give us coverage for our stalk, so we decided to commit. About 25 minutes later, we were sitting on top of a salmonberry choked knob, at the last little patch of alders between us and the bucks, about 220 yards away from the hillside where they were feeding. I crept up to the only tiny rock that provided a semi- clear shot across and cleared a small shooting lane.
As I was getting my rifle set up, I set my SFP optic on max mag for accurate subtensions. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of finding my buck from the end he was facing and glassed directly over his rack. I'm a relative Blacktail novice, but at that point I knew there was a good chance this thing was an animal of a lifetime. My heart rate soared. I got into my shooting position, did my breathe up, and squeezed through the shot. My buck was gone by the time I could get back on the area with the glass, so I told my buddy to hop on the bag. He did the same, and I watched the pretty wild spectacle of a vapor trail from the Hammer Hunter bullet he was shooting nailing his buck right behind the shoulder. Bang flop city. We decided to head over quickly to get things going before the grizz population did.
What happened next was the opposite of ground shrinkage. My buddy and I basically stared at each other, in awe of the fact that we had not only both avoided getting skunked at the last possible second of the trip with a crazy double but also that the one we found first was a pretty wild specimen. Also, kind of incredibly, my buddy @HunterMcWaters got the entire thing on HD video, and will be making a film about the hunt. Check him out on IG (@thehuntersquest) for more from a super talented and dedicated backcountry videographer.
Anyway, this is my guy. Everyone in the ADQ airport said I need to get him scored, so that will be at the top of the list when I get home. Stoked to have gotten to end a trip in such an incredible place with a crazy story like that and for backcountry time spent with great friends. Thanks for reading!
We flew into an area near Larsen Bay for a drop camp hunt with three guys. Weather forecast had good weather for the first day, then a little bit of rain and wind, and then a nice high pressure system that was supposed to bring some nice hunting conditions. We got our first guy's buck, a nice 3x3, down on the first afternoon after a textbook stalk nice and close to camp, and then settled in to see how the weather was going to look. As it turned out, the answer was poorly, and for a lot longer than it called for. For four days, we did our best to glass through about every combination imaginable of winds strong enough to break the poles of our gear shelter, rain and virtually zero visibility. For our efforts, we saw basically a few does.
At this point, we had just one more morning to hunt before getting picked up and I was coming to grips with the probability of eating tag soup on this one. Right before going to bed, I ordered an Inreach report that finally called for the forecasted high pressure system to arrive by the next morning. My buddy who still had his tag and I agreed to get up nice and early to give it one last good shot.
The cold got me up before my alarm- it was one of those mornings where you really have to retreat into your mummy bag to stay warm. Check there. Wind had also died down a lot. Double check. We got up, did a quick oatmeal breakfast, and headed to our glassing knob. As the sun started coming up, we started seeing activity- like, a lot of it. Deer that we had glassed over probably hundreds of times were finally getting out of their beds after the weather system we'd been fighting broke. My buddy glassed up a solid buck about a mile and a half away, and I told him we'd make a play if we didn't see something convincing in the next few minutes.
Then, after putting the spotting scope on dozens of animals throughout the previous week, I saw one that I didn't even need it for. He was about 600 yards away, but I could see even at that distance through binos that he was at very least a solid animal. Plus, there was another buck feeding on the same hill- so, theoretically, we could save *both* of us from the tag soup life at the last possible moment of the hunt. There was a good drainage that looked like it would give us coverage for our stalk, so we decided to commit. About 25 minutes later, we were sitting on top of a salmonberry choked knob, at the last little patch of alders between us and the bucks, about 220 yards away from the hillside where they were feeding. I crept up to the only tiny rock that provided a semi- clear shot across and cleared a small shooting lane.
As I was getting my rifle set up, I set my SFP optic on max mag for accurate subtensions. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of finding my buck from the end he was facing and glassed directly over his rack. I'm a relative Blacktail novice, but at that point I knew there was a good chance this thing was an animal of a lifetime. My heart rate soared. I got into my shooting position, did my breathe up, and squeezed through the shot. My buck was gone by the time I could get back on the area with the glass, so I told my buddy to hop on the bag. He did the same, and I watched the pretty wild spectacle of a vapor trail from the Hammer Hunter bullet he was shooting nailing his buck right behind the shoulder. Bang flop city. We decided to head over quickly to get things going before the grizz population did.
What happened next was the opposite of ground shrinkage. My buddy and I basically stared at each other, in awe of the fact that we had not only both avoided getting skunked at the last possible second of the trip with a crazy double but also that the one we found first was a pretty wild specimen. Also, kind of incredibly, my buddy @HunterMcWaters got the entire thing on HD video, and will be making a film about the hunt. Check him out on IG (@thehuntersquest) for more from a super talented and dedicated backcountry videographer.
Anyway, this is my guy. Everyone in the ADQ airport said I need to get him scored, so that will be at the top of the list when I get home. Stoked to have gotten to end a trip in such an incredible place with a crazy story like that and for backcountry time spent with great friends. Thanks for reading!
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