seeth07
Well-known member
Quite the color on this scalpin!
Seeth and his better half's 2023 outdoor adventures
- Thread starter seeth07
- Start date
seeth07
Well-known member
They announced on Friday that King crab season will open this year. Boats are loading pots
seeth07
Well-known member
It was a Codfest. We caught spiny dogfish sharks, sculpin of course, halibut, flounder and pollock but it was a vast majority of cod. We easily caught over a hundred of them and was good fun. Kept 4, cleaned up and now got a little surf to go with our turf!!!
seeth07
Well-known member
Let's go back to my post from Oct 1st where i mentioned that we were about to head down to the docks.
It was still foggy and raining but the winds had significantly let down. If you are following along with @Bluffgruff 's story, this would be the morning after all his fun with the night in the tent. With arms and backs loaded down heavy with gear, we head down the ramp and out onto the old wooden docks towards our transport vessel. The smell of fish is certainly something that you can't miss when you are in this town and it's especially strong down in the harbor. For the locals I'm sure it's nothing they even notice sort of like how I don't ever really notice the smell of manure on the fields around us anymore.
We greet our young skipper and his first mate who is his brother. After a safety briefing and a final confirmation of our plans we settle in and then he fires up the loud dual diesel engines. It's a rather large fishing vessel with a very roomy cabin and plenty of space for us to spread out and relax for the 3 hour journey to our selected drop of location.
We get out of the harbor and start heading along the channel headed on our way. There are many fishing vessels unloading hauls of fish and we catch the crane hoisting a load up out of the vessels haul. It was a long liner and the first mate tells us it's halibut they are likely unloading.
Out away from Kodiak, we enter exposed water from the open ocean and we are greeted with the fury of her power from the storm the day before. Waves almost large enough that when the boat is in the bottom of them, you can't see shore. The vessel is strong and graceful and she pushes through slowly. Thankfully we all have strong stomachs and no one gets sick. For about 30 minutes we deal with the rough seas before finding relief in the passage to send us west to Raspberry Island.
We cross Marmot Bay with rough seas again but not nearly as bad and hit a passage called The Narrows. We are not quite at high tide yet and the skipper says he is going to slowly try to get through but we may need to wait for the tide to come up. We slowly head in and with seeing 7 and 8 foot depths only, the skipper gets too nervous and we turn around. We get to a little deeper water and anchor up to wait on the tide to come up 2 more feet which should only take about an hour.
In that time, we were blessed to see quite a few wildlife. First we notice a fox along the beach eating something until a bald eagle swoops down and lands on it. Then the sea otters show up, dozens of them! Actually turns out they are extremely common and seeing them isn't all that hard as we saw hundreds on this trip all together.
Next we catch a humpback whale surfacing. How huge they are! Then, just as we start to go through the narrows, we spot what Kodiak is known for swimming across.
It was still foggy and raining but the winds had significantly let down. If you are following along with @Bluffgruff 's story, this would be the morning after all his fun with the night in the tent. With arms and backs loaded down heavy with gear, we head down the ramp and out onto the old wooden docks towards our transport vessel. The smell of fish is certainly something that you can't miss when you are in this town and it's especially strong down in the harbor. For the locals I'm sure it's nothing they even notice sort of like how I don't ever really notice the smell of manure on the fields around us anymore.
We greet our young skipper and his first mate who is his brother. After a safety briefing and a final confirmation of our plans we settle in and then he fires up the loud dual diesel engines. It's a rather large fishing vessel with a very roomy cabin and plenty of space for us to spread out and relax for the 3 hour journey to our selected drop of location.
We get out of the harbor and start heading along the channel headed on our way. There are many fishing vessels unloading hauls of fish and we catch the crane hoisting a load up out of the vessels haul. It was a long liner and the first mate tells us it's halibut they are likely unloading.
Out away from Kodiak, we enter exposed water from the open ocean and we are greeted with the fury of her power from the storm the day before. Waves almost large enough that when the boat is in the bottom of them, you can't see shore. The vessel is strong and graceful and she pushes through slowly. Thankfully we all have strong stomachs and no one gets sick. For about 30 minutes we deal with the rough seas before finding relief in the passage to send us west to Raspberry Island.
We cross Marmot Bay with rough seas again but not nearly as bad and hit a passage called The Narrows. We are not quite at high tide yet and the skipper says he is going to slowly try to get through but we may need to wait for the tide to come up. We slowly head in and with seeing 7 and 8 foot depths only, the skipper gets too nervous and we turn around. We get to a little deeper water and anchor up to wait on the tide to come up 2 more feet which should only take about an hour.
In that time, we were blessed to see quite a few wildlife. First we notice a fox along the beach eating something until a bald eagle swoops down and lands on it. Then the sea otters show up, dozens of them! Actually turns out they are extremely common and seeing them isn't all that hard as we saw hundreds on this trip all together.
Next we catch a humpback whale surfacing. How huge they are! Then, just as we start to go through the narrows, we spot what Kodiak is known for swimming across.
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seeth07
Well-known member
Well just met Larry Smith at the bar here in Kodiak. Not sure if anyone actually knows who he is or not.
No, but I'm sure you told him about your hunt and we're still waiting!
Chad Gus
Well-known member
Did he have stinker with him?
seeth07
Well-known member
No! He is here about to head out deer hunting. No skunks along!
I sure did! Still on trip and Packers take priority or story tellingNo, but I'm sure you told him about your hunt and we're still waiting!
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seeth07
Well-known member
After going through The Narrows, the fog had all lifted and we were greeted with a beautiful day for our landing and climb to the alpine.
We anchor up just up offshore and the skipper and his first mate get the dingy unloaded and start hauling us and our gear to shore. We get everything to the beach and unload our guns from the case and send the case along with our last contact with the human world back to the boat.
First thing we do is stach the 4 empty coolers we brought up into the alders. These coolers we brought to haul meat back on the plane with us and help us as well in case we got a deer or elk early. Next we had two other coolers we needed to hang. We were all only packing 3 days of food up with us and at least one of us was going to return to the beach on a food haul on day 3 and hopefully be hauling at least some deer meat down. All dry food was in one cooler and the other filled with ice had some cheese (us Wisconsinites can't survive without it), sausage and venison lunch meat in it. There was a nice section of dark timber and that served well for us to get our two coolers hung up good and high.
And so we begin to climb. Straight up. Slowly. Into pure hell. It's steep, the kind of steep where you need to grab vegetation above you to help. Problem. Everything hurts to grab. It's almost all salmonberries. Hey that looks nicer over there, it's more open. Why did we come here, it's a field of devils club. I see a patch if alders ahead, let's try going through those. Poor decision. What we learned by the time we got to the top was that the best routes were to look for tassel grass tops as those areas at most only had shorter salmon berries that you could work through. We also found that heading for the dark timber, even if it was only a few trees could provide some much needed relief for traveling up.
We has started our hike up around 3pm and we reached the top where we wanted to camp around 7pm. It was only about a 1.5 mile hike and 1500 feet up. We had a little over an hour of light left and my wife and I began to set up camp while the other two with us went on a water run. They got back about 1.5 hours later and we had camp pretty much all ready including the bear fence all energized and ready to go. We could see clouds rolling in and the wind picking up and sure enough it got quite breezy and poured that first night. Thankfully both our tents held up just fine with no leaks and we were all dry and warm come the next morning.
We anchor up just up offshore and the skipper and his first mate get the dingy unloaded and start hauling us and our gear to shore. We get everything to the beach and unload our guns from the case and send the case along with our last contact with the human world back to the boat.
First thing we do is stach the 4 empty coolers we brought up into the alders. These coolers we brought to haul meat back on the plane with us and help us as well in case we got a deer or elk early. Next we had two other coolers we needed to hang. We were all only packing 3 days of food up with us and at least one of us was going to return to the beach on a food haul on day 3 and hopefully be hauling at least some deer meat down. All dry food was in one cooler and the other filled with ice had some cheese (us Wisconsinites can't survive without it), sausage and venison lunch meat in it. There was a nice section of dark timber and that served well for us to get our two coolers hung up good and high.
And so we begin to climb. Straight up. Slowly. Into pure hell. It's steep, the kind of steep where you need to grab vegetation above you to help. Problem. Everything hurts to grab. It's almost all salmonberries. Hey that looks nicer over there, it's more open. Why did we come here, it's a field of devils club. I see a patch if alders ahead, let's try going through those. Poor decision. What we learned by the time we got to the top was that the best routes were to look for tassel grass tops as those areas at most only had shorter salmon berries that you could work through. We also found that heading for the dark timber, even if it was only a few trees could provide some much needed relief for traveling up.
We has started our hike up around 3pm and we reached the top where we wanted to camp around 7pm. It was only about a 1.5 mile hike and 1500 feet up. We had a little over an hour of light left and my wife and I began to set up camp while the other two with us went on a water run. They got back about 1.5 hours later and we had camp pretty much all ready including the bear fence all energized and ready to go. We could see clouds rolling in and the wind picking up and sure enough it got quite breezy and poured that first night. Thankfully both our tents held up just fine with no leaks and we were all dry and warm come the next morning.
Gellar
Well-known member
From Larry smith outdoors? He’s filmed a few ice fishing episodes close to where you canvas back hunted at last year for giant perch. Before there would be 1 or 2 cars in that spot, now if there is less than 20 it’s a slow day.
Slm864
Well-known member
Imagine that! Someone shoots a video series and all of the sudden everything changes. Gotta love it!
seeth07
Well-known member
Yup that's the one. He was a pleasure to meet, really nice guy. He was heading out today to go hunting blacktail
Gellar
Well-known member
He wasn’t even discreet about the location and anyone with a map can find the spot. The local guide that took him got a lot of negative feedback for that.
seeth07
Well-known member
We wake up before light and head to the food stach and cooking area to get some coffee going and eat breakfast. It's nice that's it's 7am and still dark out. My plan for this morning was for my wife and I to hike along the alpine as far from camp as we could to the northwest. The other two were going to stick near camp and glass all they could from there including bowls below the next ridge to our southeast. Erica and I depart and by the time the sun starts to come up we hit the highest peak in the area by camp. The views from here and that morning alone made my trip.
We quickly glass around and don't pick out any elk. Based on the landscape, it would seem that an elk would stick out really easily. We sip on some coffee for a few more mintues before continuing on our planned journey for the day.
Going down this peak and towards a saddle, I spot a deer pop out from some dark timber and start to feed. 2 more follow out, it's a doe and two fawns. I look around and immediate spot something with my eyes on the next peak over on the sunlit face. Looking through the binoculars I discover it's a deer. I pick up deer after deer on the hillside, over 20. They are all coming out to feed on the grass and bask in the sun. Two of them are fighting. It's close to a mile away and with 10x bino, I can't tell how big they are. We aren't picky though and having camp meat is of high priority.
(First deer we spotted, just above saddle in center of this photo. The peak is what we will be sidehilling to the deer on the peak/face just to the left in this photo)
I look at my wife and said let's go after them, it's on out way anyways. We get down into the saddle and begin to sidehide around a peak on our way towards the next peak with the deer. Along the way we run into two more deer, some fawns and have a fun close encounter with them.
We get about 300 yards away from where the bucks were and we are able to pick out a *large* forkie but not the other. We decide to sneak closer since we had sporadic pines to work with and we couldn't locate the other buck. We just about get into the saddle between the peak we are hillsiding and the peak with all the deer when a small forkie emerges from the pines. We get setup with the rifle, a mere 75 yard shot. I tell her that this is a much smaller buck and we should wait and find the larger forkie. Shortly after, he follows the same path as the small one and it's on.
We quickly glass around and don't pick out any elk. Based on the landscape, it would seem that an elk would stick out really easily. We sip on some coffee for a few more mintues before continuing on our planned journey for the day.
Going down this peak and towards a saddle, I spot a deer pop out from some dark timber and start to feed. 2 more follow out, it's a doe and two fawns. I look around and immediate spot something with my eyes on the next peak over on the sunlit face. Looking through the binoculars I discover it's a deer. I pick up deer after deer on the hillside, over 20. They are all coming out to feed on the grass and bask in the sun. Two of them are fighting. It's close to a mile away and with 10x bino, I can't tell how big they are. We aren't picky though and having camp meat is of high priority.
(First deer we spotted, just above saddle in center of this photo. The peak is what we will be sidehilling to the deer on the peak/face just to the left in this photo)
I look at my wife and said let's go after them, it's on out way anyways. We get down into the saddle and begin to sidehide around a peak on our way towards the next peak with the deer. Along the way we run into two more deer, some fawns and have a fun close encounter with them.
We get about 300 yards away from where the bucks were and we are able to pick out a *large* forkie but not the other. We decide to sneak closer since we had sporadic pines to work with and we couldn't locate the other buck. We just about get into the saddle between the peak we are hillsiding and the peak with all the deer when a small forkie emerges from the pines. We get setup with the rifle, a mere 75 yard shot. I tell her that this is a much smaller buck and we should wait and find the larger forkie. Shortly after, he follows the same path as the small one and it's on.
Slm864
Well-known member
Slm864
Well-known member
Beautiful country. Keep it coming
seeth07
Well-known member
But there is a problem...
seeth07
Well-known member
After some adjustments to get her almost standing and shifting uphill slightly, she gets settled in. These two bucks had no clue and just continued on with their business. Wind was in the right direction and strong enough to mask the sounds of the movements giving us all the time she needed to make sure she could make a clean shot.
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