Caribou/ Moose

[passinggas33]

Hey Fellow Roksliders-
So I had the opportunity to go up to Alaska for an amazing moose hunt with my dad this last fall and it has already given me the itch to go back up there. We did the Bethel experience this year, and would like to try something a little different, even though this experience was great. So we have been talking about trying to get hooked up with Tok Air and do a combo hunt for moose and caribou and take a few weeks. So my question is, am I biting off more than I can chew by trying to do both in one trip? Has anybody else tried this and been successful? Are there other places that people would recommend to try before the Tok area if we wanted to harvest both a moose and a caribou? Thanks in advance for any advice you may have.

By the way, I am cross posting this to the moose forum to see if I can get a few other opinions / views by people.

 

[bairdi]

Make sure you are clear with Zack (Tok Air Service) on the planning for the hunt. In some of the areas that he flies into you can not have both a caribou and moose tag. That said, my hunting partner did a hunt into the 40 mile country a few years back and it sounded like an incredible trip. For a party of three, they harvested 2 nice moose in the high 50 to low 60 inch range and 2 caribou. All taken from the same camp. However, I think that is not always the case for that country. Some of the better moose areas are not the best for caribou and vice-versa. For the moose, they had to drop down a little in elevation and as such the moose were shot 1.5 and 2.5 miles away from the strip that they were dropped at. Luckily the weather was bad towards the end of their hunt, otherwise they'd have had to call and delay getting picked up by a day. Even with the moose boned out, they spent close to 4 days out of 12 days in the field packing meat up hill to the strip. That particular transporter wanted moose meat boned out in the field and antlers split to facilitate flying it out. They had 3 cub flights of people plus 50 lbs of gear and a 4th flight of just gear going into the field. The 4th gear flight was essential for a trip that long and that late in the season. I'm not sure how many flights it was to get everything out. But it turned out to be pretty expensive. I think the total cost of the trip ended up being around $5K per person (including driving from where they live in near Anchorage, hotel in Tok, all the food for the trip, meat processing etc). They processed all their own meat at home to save a few bucks. They had nothing but good things to say about their transporter. Wish I could have gone too but it just wasn't affordable for me on my budget that year (or really any year for that matter! LOL).

If you do the trip, it may be a better idea to decide which species is more appealing to target and get dropped in a spot that provides a better opportunity for that species while still providing a chance at the other species. Focus on one first then switch over. It'd be a shame to spend all that time and money to get dropped in a spot that was only mediocre at best for both species just because you are trying to double down. Ask about relocating/meat pick-up mid hunt. If you do go for a mid hunt relocation, my initial thought would be to time your trip to start early september are target caribou first, then relocate to a moose area once moose season starts (assuming you hunt an area that allows possessing both moose and caribou tags at the same time). Both Tok Air (Zack) and 40 Mile Air are good transporters. Haven't flown with either but know lots of folks who have flown with both and haven't heard anything negative about either.

 

[Dexter Grayson]

Are you wanting to each kill both? I know a lot of the areas Zack flies into you can either have a moose tag or a bou tag but not both at the same time.