Alaska 2026 8/26-9/9 Starts now

[Nuts]

Sent to me by a buddy. Lots of good info coming in from various scources. Thankful to have friends on the ground and in the air. As the hunt gets closer we will make the final decision which direction we will travel out of Fairbanks. But unless there is a late change it will be straight North. Some of our options have already been eliminated. And I am pretty sure the others will be prior to 8/26. So North it will probally be.

 

[Nuts]

Looks like another option/back up plan eliminated by fire. Gotta love it.

 

[cgasner1]

Alaska is all about audibles can’t show up with a plan

 

[Nuts]

Alaska is all about audibles can’t show up with a plan

True that. Started with solid plans and multiple backup plans. Down to one of the original plans. Plus a new back up that will cost a couple bucks.

 

[Nuts]

On our way to AK. We received a good location from someone who is in the Brooks range and seeing a ton of caribou . but its a 12mile 1 way hike. So now we need to figure out if we can do it. Lol. It would definitely be all eggs in 1 basket.

 

[Jofes]

Depending on terrain, my guess is if you killed at 12, two days of packing out for two people per 1 bull. That would be brutal

 

[Nuts]

Depending on terrain, my guess is if you killed at 12, two days of packing out for two people per 1 bull. That would be brutal

Yes it would. We have about 10days afield. Reports were this morning everything has a blanket of snow. And the caribou were there. Buddy has eyes on. So looking somewhere else is a tough call

 

[rogerthat]

Great thread. Following

 

[Nuts]

Just got word from our eyes on guy that 2 guys close to where we are going just got mauled by a bear. They were airlifted to Anchorage.

 

[Nuts]

The hike in was hampered by 8" of snow. Came back out after 7 hrs of hiking. Met up with a buddy. Headed to a new spot out of the snow. Saw 6 bull. 1 was a giant. Got him to 80 yards. Never stopped moving. Its wet and foggy. And brisk. Saw a couple foxes. Lots of wolverine tracks.

 

[Wild Bill]

Just got word from our eyes on guy that 2 guys close to where we are going just got mauled by a bear. They were airlifted to Anchorage.

Wonder if these were the fellas. Looks like somehow they ended up with not much more than some broken bones and scratches. Lucky guys.

Father bitten in face by bear during hunting trip: ‘I could hear all the bones crunching’

A father is thankful to be alive after he was attacked by a bear and bitten in the face during a hunting trip.

www.dakotanewsnow.com

 

[Nuts]

Yep. Thats the one. Ended up in Deadhorse to meet a friend and get some intell after all are other plans were hampered by fires, bears, weather and the state. Met with a friend. Met the hunting partners of the guys attacked. Dried our clothes and ate a good meal. Got our Intel and off we went. (For whatever reason my Starlink service did not work this entire trip. Weird) Headed down the road. Went to our new spot. Had 3 guys actually wanting to fill a Caribou tag. Ended up with 2 Caribou. Saw tons of Caribou as well as Musk ox, artic fox, wolverine, lots of waterfowl amd luckily only 1 grizzly. And that was sitting in the town of deadhorse. Caught some Grayling. Had fish tacos. I love cold. This is cold hits different with so much moisture in the air. Saw lots of snow squats. And below freezing temperatures. Glad we made the best of it. For the future we will stick to the raft trips.

 

[Salmonchaser]

Gotta love a great adventure.

 

[Lmartin5]

Yep. Thats the one. Ended up in Deadhorse to meet a friend and get some intell after all are other plans were hampered by fires, bears, weather and the state. Met with a friend. Met the hunting partners of the guys attacked. Dried our clothes and ate a good meal. Got our Intel and off we went. (For whatever reason my Starlink service did not work this entire trip. Weird) Headed down the road. Went to our new spot. Had 3 guys actually wanting to fill a Caribou tag. Ended up with 2 Caribou. Saw tons of Caribou as well as Musk ox, artic fox, wolverine, lots of waterfowl amd luckily only 1 grizzly. And that was sitting in the town of deadhorse. Caught some Grayling. Had fish tacos. I love cold. This is cold hits different with so much moisture in the air. Saw lots of snow squats. And below freezing temperatures. Glad we made the best of it. For the future we will stick to the raft trips. View attachment 416376View attachment 416377View attachment 416378View attachment 416379View attachment 416380View attachment 416381

Congrats on a great bull!

 

[Sask hunter]

Congrats!

 

[Nuts]

I was holding out on a decent bull. Had 6 come in together one evening. We moved into position. Ahead of them. We'll they fed in the other direction and out if site. The only way to get in front of them was about and hour hike around a lake. Amd it was barely more then that till dark. So we hiked the mile back to. Camp. When we turned around and sat down at camp all the bulls were standing where we had planned to originally ambush them and had been standing?? Suddenly we realized one of our guys was on his way back and would walk right through them. We watched as he suddenly saw them. Raised his gun and fired. The bulls moved around but kept looking around again. Then 1 dropped followed by the sound of the shot. He hadn't killed the biggest bull in the group but a good bull. Not posting picture because I dont have his permission to do so.

 

[Salmonchaser]

Take lucky any day.

 

[Lmartin5]

Take lucky any day.

1000% agree!

 

[Nuts]

Worked and didn't work for this trip:

• T-Mobile SAT did not work
• AT&T SAT worked and they had service quite a bit
• Inreach worked intermittently. I never downloaded the map for the area. Should have as wifi is needed
• Water purifying
  • life straw -clogged quickly on tundra water (bring extra filters if possible)
  • Grayl Geopress -clogged quickly on tundra water (bring extra filters if possible)
  • Larq UV bottle purifier I used worked the entire time
• Rangefinders-all struggled. For whatever reason. It was flat ground. You had to hit the animal exactly to get a range. With blowing wind this was difficult to hold still at any range. A tripod mount would have been helpful. There is so much water and this is shown ONX. With rangefinder not able to get a range. 1 bull was shot measuring from current location to edge of water bull was standing at using ONX. Must download offline map with wifi or service prior to arriving
• Since we were backpacking. After failing to climb a mountain due to snow we realized we needed to lighten up packs. So we shed a bunch of weight by doing the following.
  • 2 guys sharing 1 2 man tent. Sucked and was tight
  • total of 2 jet boils were taken. Everyone shared
  • Dropped to 2 meals a day. Filled in with Blueberries, cranberries and Caribou meat
  • 1 rifle per 2 guys. (Someone on here recommended that earlier. Should have listened. Since we would be hunting in pairs it made sense
  • Knives/butchering kits were reduced to 1. Since when a bull was down we would all jump in to help
  • Everyone removed every piece of clothing not being worn or essential
• Treking poles. I broke 1. Ran the rest of the way with 1 and realized I liked it better then 2
• Footwear
  • Hiking boots and gators-fail. to wet. couldn't get dry even with driers. Learned that on the mountain snow hike.
  • Knee high rubber boots. Fail. To many water crossings. Didn't try
  • Waders and wading boots for the win. Hiked 15-20 miles in them. No problem at all. Dryfeet always
• First lite base layer. Great. Even after heavy sweating they dried out quickly. (Smelled like a rotting carcass eventually)
• First lite rain jacket worked well
• Kings puffy. worked well
• Kings midweight worked well
• Packs
  • EVO K3 and K4. Could not pack enough meat IMO. Was a pain.
  • Alp old school meat frame with meat hauler shelf for the win
  • Bungee straps aided the Alp guys. Whish I would have had some

 

[Jofes]

Just out of curiosity, do you have a picture of how you were having issues with space on the EXO? I've packed 3 caribou out with mine and not had an issue, but I did do it in two trips per, bone in.