Glad to hear so many great adventures from folks here this fall. It was the hottest and driest summer on record up here, but our fall sure was wet.
I was gone for nearly the entire month of September to western Alaska. My son joined a friend and I for an eight day hundred-mile remote pack-raft fly-fishing float. We have done this river a few times already. The fishing was always the best I’ve ever experienced, and the river has also been loaded with brown bears feeding on the various salmon runs throughout the summer and early fall. My son was hoping to get his first brown bear, so he brought his 338-06 that we had built with the help of my gunsmith. I handloaded some 210grn TSX’s, and we had it dialed-in before the trip. It rained every day, so the river was running high and cloudy, and the fishing wasn’t like we have had in prior trips. Mother Nature always has the upper hand. That said, my son took a beautiful brown bear boar that pushed 9’ squared. He did a well-executed and placed heart shot. The bear didn’t go more than 30 yards into the shoreline brush, where it died wedged between two trees. We had to cut one of them down to get him rolled over for skinning. It was a great trip.
After a few days back home in Anchorage, my friend and I headed back to western AK for the last two weeks of moose season. This was our sixth year in a row moose hunting out there. We spend the money to have a truly remote hunting experience, and we appreciate every minute. Other hunters coming out told us that the rut was just beginning. The first few days in the field we had hard freezes at night…and it was clear that the rut was now on. Pretty wet and windy for most days, but called in a dozen bulls during our two weeks. That said, they were all satellite bulls…no monsters. My friend took a bull at the end of the first week. I had missed one the day before. He had only stuck out his head from the willow, and I tried to shoot him in the head as I’ve done many times in past years…I like to anchor the animal on dry ground because there are a bazillion places you don’t want them to die out there. The shot felt good, but I missed…spent three hours searching for blood and making sure. I then made the mistake of not checking my zero after the miss…which comes back to haunt me. My rifle had gone through three airline transports at that point, i.e., out and back for the pack-raft float and then out there again for moose season. Anyway, as you might guess, we paid the price for my error during the latter part of our last week. On the morning of the 28th a bull came to my call and he was just about to get my down-wind as he walked a ridge that ringed our edge of the lake. I grunted to get him to stop. I had the cross-hairs on his head when I shot, but I hit him low in the throat. He was gushing blood as he immediately ran down the ridge and into the lake, where he died 30ft from shore. Lake retrieval was a first for me in over thirty years of moose hunting up here. However, my friend and I managed to get him out of the lake and twenty feet from the shore line onto dry ground for butchering. I’m thankful for my PR-49 pack-raft, the z-drag system that I had built before hand and took on the trip (just in case), Prusik knots, and a shit-load of NRS straps. All moose hunters would be wise to have the knowledge and materials with them to do a z-drag set-up. It took us three hours just to get him in place to butcher, but we had half of him hanging that night and the other half the next day. Not bad for two old guys!
Can’t say enough good things about Wade Renfro. We will be back out there again next year! Maybe I’ll get one of those monsters that you guys have been banging…well done guys!!
I was gone for nearly the entire month of September to western Alaska. My son joined a friend and I for an eight day hundred-mile remote pack-raft fly-fishing float. We have done this river a few times already. The fishing was always the best I’ve ever experienced, and the river has also been loaded with brown bears feeding on the various salmon runs throughout the summer and early fall. My son was hoping to get his first brown bear, so he brought his 338-06 that we had built with the help of my gunsmith. I handloaded some 210grn TSX’s, and we had it dialed-in before the trip. It rained every day, so the river was running high and cloudy, and the fishing wasn’t like we have had in prior trips. Mother Nature always has the upper hand. That said, my son took a beautiful brown bear boar that pushed 9’ squared. He did a well-executed and placed heart shot. The bear didn’t go more than 30 yards into the shoreline brush, where it died wedged between two trees. We had to cut one of them down to get him rolled over for skinning. It was a great trip.
After a few days back home in Anchorage, my friend and I headed back to western AK for the last two weeks of moose season. This was our sixth year in a row moose hunting out there. We spend the money to have a truly remote hunting experience, and we appreciate every minute. Other hunters coming out told us that the rut was just beginning. The first few days in the field we had hard freezes at night…and it was clear that the rut was now on. Pretty wet and windy for most days, but called in a dozen bulls during our two weeks. That said, they were all satellite bulls…no monsters. My friend took a bull at the end of the first week. I had missed one the day before. He had only stuck out his head from the willow, and I tried to shoot him in the head as I’ve done many times in past years…I like to anchor the animal on dry ground because there are a bazillion places you don’t want them to die out there. The shot felt good, but I missed…spent three hours searching for blood and making sure. I then made the mistake of not checking my zero after the miss…which comes back to haunt me. My rifle had gone through three airline transports at that point, i.e., out and back for the pack-raft float and then out there again for moose season. Anyway, as you might guess, we paid the price for my error during the latter part of our last week. On the morning of the 28th a bull came to my call and he was just about to get my down-wind as he walked a ridge that ringed our edge of the lake. I grunted to get him to stop. I had the cross-hairs on his head when I shot, but I hit him low in the throat. He was gushing blood as he immediately ran down the ridge and into the lake, where he died 30ft from shore. Lake retrieval was a first for me in over thirty years of moose hunting up here. However, my friend and I managed to get him out of the lake and twenty feet from the shore line onto dry ground for butchering. I’m thankful for my PR-49 pack-raft, the z-drag system that I had built before hand and took on the trip (just in case), Prusik knots, and a shit-load of NRS straps. All moose hunters would be wise to have the knowledge and materials with them to do a z-drag set-up. It took us three hours just to get him in place to butcher, but we had half of him hanging that night and the other half the next day. Not bad for two old guys!
Can’t say enough good things about Wade Renfro. We will be back out there again next year! Maybe I’ll get one of those monsters that you guys have been banging…well done guys!!
