NyHarvester
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My wife's Grandfather Dewey moved to Alaska over 40 years ago to become a gold miner. Every year her Uncle Kevin would go to Alaska to visit his father to do some hunting, fishing and gold mining. Last year at a family party Kevin invited me to go on the two week trip and after a brief discussion with my wife, I was planning the hunting and fishing adventure of a lifetime.
A month later we flew 12 hours including layovers and arrived in Anchorage at 10:00 pm to find the sun was still shining. It was my introduction to days filled with 20 hours of light. Grandpa Dewey picked us up at the airport and drove us and hour and a half to his house in Palmer. The excitement of the trip made it difficult to sleep that first night even though the best attempt was made to hide the sunlight with hanging sheets over the windows. We headed out the next morning to Fish and Game to get our hunting and fishing licenses. I happily forked out $450 in fees and taxes for an out of state license and now had permission to harvest 6 salmon a day and 1 caribou for the season.
For the next few days we awoke at 5am and caught our daily limit at local fishing holes in Palmer. We mainly used fish roe as bait but would occasionally find a spinner to be successful. Day 4 we decided to go to an area favorite called Jim Creek located in the Knik River Recreation Area.
Standing at the shore looking at all of the surrounding mountains.
The Knik glacier protrudes from between the mountains. The water was glacier run-off so it was no warmer that 34 degrees.
The next day we embarked northeast on a 10 hour drive to Dewey's gold mine where we spent our remaining time hunting for CARIBOU and GOLD.
Mountain ranges along the drive to the mine.
The most interesting part of the drive was the "Top of the World" highway. It is one of four inner-state highways in Alaska. It is an all dirt road and our average traveling speed was 40 mph. The highway winds through the mountain tops up to elevations of 10,000 feet all the way to the Canadian border.
Top of the World Highway
Top of the World Highway
Just before reaching the gold claim a herd of approx 40 caribou walked in front of us and crossed the road. In the excitement of the situation I did not pull out my camera to take a picture until almost all of the herd disappeared into the woods.
There were some really big bulls in the herd!!!!
Since the following morning was opening day it was exciting to see such a large herd. We learned during the evening that caribou will tend to travel along the same routes year after year so we decided to go back to where we saw the herd and started glassing the surrounding mountains.
After about eight hours we had not seen a single caribou. Just as we were deciding to move to another location we heard shots in the distance. With our binoculars we were able to find the hunters at the top of a nearby hill. They were sitting on their four wheelers shooting directly into a herd of about 75 caribou. We couldn't believe our eyes when we saw the herd just walk right around the hunters as they shot at them. Caribou definitely do not behave like deer!!!
The next day we decided to start at the location where we saw the hunters take game the previous day. Over the course of the day we watched several small groups with pups and cows walk within 300 yards of us. We were beginning to wonder where all the big bulls were. In Alaska, you have to report your harvests within 24 hours or face fines if you don't. This means that Fish and Game can shut the season down in a particular zone once they feel a limit of game has been harvested. We knew from the locals that the zone we were in usually got about 3 days of hunting before it was shut down. Time was not on our side and the day was wasting away. Finally over the ridge comes a bull with cow and pup in tow. I get my rifle resting on the back deck of the four wheeler while Kevin gets the range finder on him. Kevin tells me the bull is about 260 yards away. I aim about 7 to 8 inches higher and put one shot in the thick of his neck. The bull dropped like a sack of rocks right in the spot he stood. His neck was about as round as a deer's body!!!
My bull taken with a Winchester Model 70 - .280 caliber hand loads
Hanging from some old gold mining equipment
It took the whole next day to process all 200 ponds of meat we took from our harvest
The caribou ribs looked like a dinner out of the Flintstones
We spent the remainder of our trip panning for gold and pulled a little over an ounce out of the ground. It almost paid for the whole trip!!!
I will never forget my 1st trip to Alaska and plan to go back in 2011 to hunt Dall Sheep and Moose. Thanks for letting me share my adventure. It was a great trip down memory lane.
Written by NyHarvester
A month later we flew 12 hours including layovers and arrived in Anchorage at 10:00 pm to find the sun was still shining. It was my introduction to days filled with 20 hours of light. Grandpa Dewey picked us up at the airport and drove us and hour and a half to his house in Palmer. The excitement of the trip made it difficult to sleep that first night even though the best attempt was made to hide the sunlight with hanging sheets over the windows. We headed out the next morning to Fish and Game to get our hunting and fishing licenses. I happily forked out $450 in fees and taxes for an out of state license and now had permission to harvest 6 salmon a day and 1 caribou for the season.
For the next few days we awoke at 5am and caught our daily limit at local fishing holes in Palmer. We mainly used fish roe as bait but would occasionally find a spinner to be successful. Day 4 we decided to go to an area favorite called Jim Creek located in the Knik River Recreation Area.
Standing at the shore looking at all of the surrounding mountains.
The Knik glacier protrudes from between the mountains. The water was glacier run-off so it was no warmer that 34 degrees.
The next day we embarked northeast on a 10 hour drive to Dewey's gold mine where we spent our remaining time hunting for CARIBOU and GOLD.
Mountain ranges along the drive to the mine.
The most interesting part of the drive was the "Top of the World" highway. It is one of four inner-state highways in Alaska. It is an all dirt road and our average traveling speed was 40 mph. The highway winds through the mountain tops up to elevations of 10,000 feet all the way to the Canadian border.
Top of the World Highway
Top of the World Highway
Just before reaching the gold claim a herd of approx 40 caribou walked in front of us and crossed the road. In the excitement of the situation I did not pull out my camera to take a picture until almost all of the herd disappeared into the woods.
There were some really big bulls in the herd!!!!
Since the following morning was opening day it was exciting to see such a large herd. We learned during the evening that caribou will tend to travel along the same routes year after year so we decided to go back to where we saw the herd and started glassing the surrounding mountains.
After about eight hours we had not seen a single caribou. Just as we were deciding to move to another location we heard shots in the distance. With our binoculars we were able to find the hunters at the top of a nearby hill. They were sitting on their four wheelers shooting directly into a herd of about 75 caribou. We couldn't believe our eyes when we saw the herd just walk right around the hunters as they shot at them. Caribou definitely do not behave like deer!!!
The next day we decided to start at the location where we saw the hunters take game the previous day. Over the course of the day we watched several small groups with pups and cows walk within 300 yards of us. We were beginning to wonder where all the big bulls were. In Alaska, you have to report your harvests within 24 hours or face fines if you don't. This means that Fish and Game can shut the season down in a particular zone once they feel a limit of game has been harvested. We knew from the locals that the zone we were in usually got about 3 days of hunting before it was shut down. Time was not on our side and the day was wasting away. Finally over the ridge comes a bull with cow and pup in tow. I get my rifle resting on the back deck of the four wheeler while Kevin gets the range finder on him. Kevin tells me the bull is about 260 yards away. I aim about 7 to 8 inches higher and put one shot in the thick of his neck. The bull dropped like a sack of rocks right in the spot he stood. His neck was about as round as a deer's body!!!
My bull taken with a Winchester Model 70 - .280 caliber hand loads
Hanging from some old gold mining equipment
It took the whole next day to process all 200 ponds of meat we took from our harvest
The caribou ribs looked like a dinner out of the Flintstones
We spent the remainder of our trip panning for gold and pulled a little over an ounce out of the ground. It almost paid for the whole trip!!!
I will never forget my 1st trip to Alaska and plan to go back in 2011 to hunt Dall Sheep and Moose. Thanks for letting me share my adventure. It was a great trip down memory lane.
Written by NyHarvester
