We went to southern southeast Alaska to Sara’s family’s home for Thanksgiving. We left a day early, and after arriving in Ketchikan, learned and saw that further flying over to her sister’s home was iffy. Snow squalls were moving through. Our flight over was scheduled for 9:15 am, but we were delayed hour after hour waiting for weather. The desk person said it looked like we’d go over on the 115 pm flight with several others on that flight. Then the Alaska Air flight that many of those people were on was delayed, and so we waited for them as well. Finally, at 2 pm we took off. About 2/3 of the way over, we went through some thunder clouds – pretty rare up here. We hit one pocket of wind, and would all have been airborne from our seats without belts. We broke through the other side, and it was patches of blue sky and pockets of low clouds. I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to see the airport or not. We flew around the outside and finally made the
approach. We were coming in really hot in the single engine airplane, but the pilot greased the landing, and I barely felt the wheels touch. The snow was really coming down. It was the last flight in, and they put the airplane in the hangar while we waited for our ride. One lady in the airport learned her flight was canceled, and since there were no flights going out till the day after Thanksgiving, she was staying put for the duration. She took it in stride, and made calls to family and connecting flights to make cancellations and apologies.

The next day was a pretty nice day. Little wind, and little precipitation. We started cruising the beaches. With so much snow on the ground, the deer would be coming to the beach to find kelp or uncovered browse to eat. We soon started seeing deer, but the first 10 or so were all does and yearlings. It’s bucks only here, so we kept searching. We saw our first buck late in the morning. A fork horn. It looked like it was browsing on kelp, with a big piece hanging from it’s mouth as it ate. When we looked closer, we realized it was not kelp, the poor deer’s jaw. The lower jaw had been shot off, and was hanging from its mouth. It was an easy decision to make this a mercy killing. The deer ended up looking just fine when we butchered it, so the injury must have been recent since there was no way the deer could eat.

My brother in law’s friend and I were dropped off at an island where they kept some four wheelers, and he and I went up some logging roads while my brother in law pulled logs off the beach for firewood. He gave me directions on where to go, and he went in another direction. I saw some fresh tracks on the road, and as I rounded a bend, I looked down and saw a deer. I stopped the rig, walked back, and saw it was a doe. Or was it. I looked closer, and saw it barely had little knubs coming up – sort of a button buck. I drew down, clicked off the safety, but decided to let it go. It looked like we’d see other bigger deer. The higher I got up the island, the less the tracks. Nice muskegs up there which must be great early in the season, but the deer were in the timber, now.

I met back up with my hunting partner, who had a nice fork horn on his machine. He said he called from the road, and the buck came right down out of the timber and he shot it right near the road. We had another hour, so he sent me up another side road. I came to a place where there was all timber above, and a line of timber along a creek with a clear cut on either side of the line of timber. I found a spot near the road in on the side of the big timber, and called. Soon, a doe came down hill to me. I saw the flash of another deer that I thought might be a buck, but it was a small yearling, kicking its heels up playing in the snow behind its mother. I moved up the road a hundred yards and called in the line of timber on the creek. Another big doe came in, but no buck.

I returned to the landing, we put the weather covers back on the 4 wheelers, and my brother in law soon arrived in the boat. We continued scanning the beaches. High tide had passed, and the sun came out. As the tide ebbed, deer started hitting the beaches in earnest. We saw a nice buck on a beach, and as we approached, another bigger buck came out, and then we saw the doe they looked to be following. The first buck was limping, and we later found no wound, but theorized he and the larger buck had been sparring over the doe. We took both bucks, and as we dressed them, the doe did not want to leave. It just stayed there wondering where her suitors had gone. The bigger racked deer was a 4×4 with eye guards, and a very large bodied-deer.

We came to another beach, and first saw a spike with large single antlers. I then saw another deer coming down the beach with the naked eye, the sun shining on it’s hide and easy to see against the black sand on the beach. It was a little larger than the spike, so we took that deer, and the spike went into the woods. It’s hard to stop hunting on days like this, when the deer are easy to come by, but we did and headed home, as being late for Thanksgiving dinner would not go over well.

We came to house in the boat. I jumped off, and the other two backed off. One by one, they tied a line around a deer’s head, threw me the line, and I pulled the boat to the beach. This really worked well to sluice the deer and clean out the body cavity. I then threw the line back, and we continued until all the deer were to shore. Then, Sara’s sister brought down the skid steer to the beach, and I loaded the deer into the bucket. She took the deer up to the hanging shed, and I hung the 5 deer among the 3 already hanging.

The next day was butcher day. My BIL and I tried skinning the deer with the skid steer by tying the head to the back of his dump truck by the head, and pulling the hide off with the skid steer. It didn’t work to well. Only one deer hide came off easily. I think the problem is we hit all the deer in the neck – it’s how we do it here to limit meat damage – and this made this system of skinning not work too well. I saw on an internet description of it that this could be the case.

We skinned deer and started butchering. Our hunting partner came by and took one deer and skinned another for us. Sara and her sister wrapped, while my BIL and I butchered. It took us some 14 hours to do all the deer, and it was nearly 11 pm before we finished with 7 or more deer. We butchered the 4 from yesterday, plus the 3 in the shed, plus some that were hanging in bags. THAT was a long day, but we’re set for meat for awhile. We gave away quite a bit this fall to our friends and family, and I also hunt for an 80 year old friend in Petersburg. Even though the freezer was looking a bit bare, I wasn’t worried. Seems we can give away most of whatever we have and when things get low, I get lucky and score a pile of fish or deer or grouse or whatever. I think it’s called Karma.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Matt and I went hunting over the long weekend. The first day was very promising. We got one deer that came to the call. Matt shot first, and missed. The deer ran a few yards, stopped and looked back at us quartering away. I aimed and shot with the 30-30, dropping the young buck with a shot to the neck.

We dressed the deer, marked the location on the GPS, hung the deer and continued hunting. We called in another deer further up the hill, but neither of us got a shot. I saw the deer as it came up the hill next to me. It suddenly stopped, but never looked my way. I thought it would keep coming, so held off shooting. That was a mistake. The deer turned and trotted away. I think it saw Matt looking down at it from directly uphill of where it was headed.

We left there and worked our way back to where we left the deer hanging. I tied it on my Bull Pac frame, and we started down the hill back to the beach, calling at good looking places on the way back. I called up a deer to Matt, and he was not able to get off a shot before the deer left. Three deer called in in one day – a banner day for us.

We headed over to our cabin from there, and left the deer in the boat under cover to let it continue to cool.

On day 2 we hunted Admiralty. We saw plenty of sign and buck rubs, but never saw a deer. When we got out to the beach, the boat was gone! The bow line had come untied at the anchor chain. Miraculously, the wind blew the boat onto a beach in a cove about 1/4 mile away, and it beached itself on the tide. If it hadn’t, it might still be bobbing on it’s way to Petersburg.

Matt and I emptied the boat to reduce the weight, and collected beach logs for rollers. We muscled the boat up onto the logs, and after a lot of work, we were able to roll the boat down the logs and back into the water. We reloaded the boat, and I noticed the drain bung area was leaking.

When we got back to the beach of the island where our cabin is, we let the boat go dry on the ebbing tide. I had epoxy just for this circumstance. I mixed it in my hands, and put it all around the bung inside and out. We left it dry, and returned at high tide about 10:20 pm, and found the epoxy had set up well.

The next day was pouring rain and windy. We both were tired from all the problems the day before, and decided to have a cabin day listening to football.

On Sunday, we went back to the area we hunted day 1, but did not see a deer. We lucked out on the weather as the forecast was calling for 30kt winds, but they did not materialize, where we were, anyway. We made it home without further incidence, wet and cold and glad to get 3 good days of exercise in the Tongass rainforest.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Took a long lost friend Charlie with me hunting on Fri. Charlie was the best man at our wedding and moved to Juneau years ago, but until I returned to work for the state, I rarely saw him as he lived on the other side of town.

The trip started out poorly. I have few outboard issues, really. But Charlie seems to be with me whenever they arise. The outboard started right up, and we idled out to let it warm up. We accelerated for maybe a minute, and the engine sputtered an shut down. I could tell from the fuel bulb that there was a fuel problem. It looked like the water/fuel separator filter was clogged and maybe water in the fuel line as it felt like slush in the squeeze bulb.

We were not far from shore, but the wind was making a chop. I started the kicker outboard, which started on the second or third pull, but it, too soon died. I ended up taking off the line to the kicker, which had no filter, and put it on the big outboard, after first cutting off the fuel connection to the kicker line and putting on the connector to the big motor.

This solved the problem, and we continued on as I knew I just bought the fuel in the fuel cans. This may or may not have been smart, as there may have been water right from the pump, but the motor did not give us any more issues, as it turned out.

It was pretty windy in Stephens Passage, but it was the first snow on the ground. We could sneak down the back of the island in reasonable seas. I told Charlie when we got to the middle part of the island, either we’d be able to anchor or we wouldn’t, depending on if it was too rough or not. When we got down there, we found one spot that was in the lee of the wind. We dropped the gear, and I took the boat offshore, dropped the anchor, and tied one end of a roll of line to the anchor, and would tie the other end to a tree above tide line so we could just pull in the anchor when we got done hunting. I paddled back to the beach, and we got our guns and gear ready. We saw a big aluminum boat come by and he ended up going by us, did not find anywhere to anchor, and he turned back. We were lucky we were the first one to this, the only good anchorage for the day.

We headed up in the new snow and soon saw tracks – the deer had moved towards the beach as expected, to get out of the wind and out of deeper snow higher up, with access to kelp to eat on the beach. We moved and called, moved and called. I decided to let Charlie call, so I moved infront of him about 30 yards. I could barely hear his 2 series of calls because of the wind and his soft call. After a short time, I let loose with my louder call. I looked back and saw what I like to see- my partner aiming his gun. A boom, and then a follow up shot. Charlie didn’t move like he’d missed, so I knew we had a deer.

It was a large doe. We dressed the deer, put in the GPS coordinate, hung it to cool, and kept hunting. Interestingly, Matt got a deer at about the same elevation, on the other side of a large creek, from where we got this one. We continued climbing but saw no sign, so side-hilled, came down and back to Charlie’s deer. We didn’t see anymore.

We cut off the lower limbs and head, and tied the carcass whole to my Bull Pac, which has turned out to be a great pack. I was able to carry the deer quite easily once I was standing erect, and we made it down to the beach and back home without incident. It was great to spend the day with a long time friend and even better he got a deer.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

I went back of Douglas Island today. Not much sign down low, but there was some scat and tracks up along the side hill at the base of the virtual cliff that goes straight up for maybe a thousand feet.

I did the usual move and call. On one spot, I called once or twice, and a doe had come up towards me to within 20 yards, but I never saw her. The only time I did see her was when she jumped sideways and across the trail then back downhill. I tried calling her back but she never came back. Guess I should have stood up and tried to see if I could get a shot at her moving away. I was thinking right after the point she came up to that I couldn’t see was right where I would have put my usual hunting partner Matt, down hill about 20 yards and looking off to where I couldn’t see.

Didn’t see anything else. It was flat calm on the way out and the way back. I could hardly believe it after the wind last night. Looked like quite a few fresh trees blown down in the woods today. There was no one in the launch parking lot yesterday afternoon nor this morning, and only one there when I got back. Forecast may have scared folks off.

What a great day in the woods. No wind. Rained some, but in the big woods it all doesn’t get to the forest floor. Leaves and devils club leaves are down now, and good visibility. I didn’t see any buck rubs, so don’t think they are in the country just yet. But shouldn’t be long.

When I got to the beach, there were two big sea lions growling off shore. Not at my, it’s just what they do. Huge tides today, and I came out right at high tide – a 20+ footer. When I came around false Outer Pt where the road is, a humpback whale was crusing and looked like someone up in the parking lot was getting a show.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

We went hunting on Admiralty on what turned out to be one in 5 decent days. In the 40’s and beautiful weather, really. We saw quite a bit of sign but no deer. Most of the leaves are down now on the blueberry bushes and nearly all on the devil’s club, so much easier to see.

I’d patched the little plastic punt I use to put the skiff out deep enough so it’s not dry on low tide. I’d patched it, but the patching all fell off. I rowed in from the skiff, and hard to believe I didn’t just sink, as I could barely pull the boat up the beach. I finally found some dope that works on plastic, and patched the boat on Sunday, finishing today. We were gonna hunt on Sunday, but it was pouring rain and windy and with only one deer so far this year, we found it easy not to go.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Kurt and I hunted South Douglas Island today. We left at sunrise, anchored the boat as I’d told him the tides were “perfect”, and headed up the spine to get up to the higher country. As usual, what looks like an “easy” hike never is so easy once you’re in the woods. The spine was actually several knobs with valleys in between, so it was up and down. We did get into lots of sign, but never saw a deer.

We decided to head down early in the afternoon. We knew we’d come out on one side of the point or the other, so were not all that concerned about where we came down. We made a steady walk down, but I did call here and there were I had a good area to see.

When we were fairly close to the bottom, I blew the call, and we both heard some animal take off in a hurry on the other side of a little valley. At first I thought the call scared it away. Then I see a head coming from the other side, down the gulley, and up our side. At first I couldn’t figure out what it was. The blueberry bushes are much higher on Douglas than where I hunt on Admiralty.

A lot of things went through my head – is it a dog? A wolverine? A squirrel (but knew it was too big for a squirrel. Finally, the deer broke out of the blueberry bushes and came right up the trail towards Kurt. When it was right next to me (maybe ten feet away, but not looking over at me, but up at Kurt), Kurt fired as I had my fingers in my ears.

We dressed the deer, tied it to Kurt’s pack, and had what we thought was a short pack to the beach. But the steepness of the hill fooled us. It was much further than it looked, and down some pretty steep areas, but nothing too bad.

When we got to the beach, we put the packs in the beach fringe in the woods so the eagles wouldn’t get at the deer, Kurt left his gun, and we started for the skiff. We planned to skiff around the point and get the gear and go home.

We were quite a ways from the skiff, so another long trek. By the time we got there the last thing I thought would happen, happened. The boat was tided. We tried to put some beach logs under to roll it, but it wouldn’t move. So, we knew after awhile we were there till somewhere around 8 pm.

Neither of us was up for the long walk back to the packs. We huddled in under the boat canvas thinking we could still go around with the full moon, but by the time the boat floated, we both knew it would not be safe to go out in the dark in the ocean and try to retrieve the packs.

So, we’ll try in the morning.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com