Went hooter hunting earlier this week. Had to wait till late morning, as low tide was about noon, and I didn’t want the boat high and dry when I came out. It was a bit breezy, and I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to hear the male blue grouse hooting. As I was setting the anchor on the beach, I heard birds hooting, so I headed up into the woods.

I followed a trail I’d used deer hunting. I headed towards the nearest hooter. I was under the trees the bird was hooting from sooner than I’d expected. I thought he was up one tree. Then he hooted again, and it seemed like a different tree. I kept looking and looking, and then saw him. Lower in the tree than I expected. A dark silouette perched near on a branch, near the tree trunk. I worked my way around until I had a clean line of fire. I traded out the slug I keep in the chamber of my single shot 12 gauge just in case bruno is out early in the year for some bird shot. I fired, and the bird whirled down out of the tree. I admired the large bird, with the orange patch over his eye. I put him in my pack, and headed up hill to the next bird hooting.

This bird was 1/3 or more up the steep part of the ridge, so a good climb. I finally reached the trees the bird was in. I spotted this one sooner than the first bird – again, well down in the tree canopy, on a branch near the trunk. I aimed to shoot and had a hemlock branch in the way. I almost pulled the trigger anyway, and stopped myself in disgust. I thought “did you really hike all the way up here only to miss this bird, have him fly away, and waste the effort?” So I climbed up higher until I had a clear shot from a good shooting position. Then I watched the bird hoot awhile before I dropped him and put him in my pack.

As high as I was on the hill, the breeze was loud enough that I couldn’t hear more birds hooting, so I figured I had to side-hill until I got close enough to hear another. On the way, I came to a ravine that I had to descend down into and follow the creek, rather than risk crossing a deadfall across the creek, as it was a long, long way down. I walked along the creek, which didn’t have an uncomfortable amount of water as most of the snow had already melted and we’d had little rain of late. I came on an unusual sight for our part of the Tongass: a cedar branch. I looked up the side of the ravine to see where the branch came from, and finally picked out the smaller cedar tree. I saw another cedar tree along the way, making 3 cedar trees total I’ve seen on this side hill.

I worked my way down and out of the mini-canyon. I crossed the edge of a muskeg and was headed back into the woods when a grouse flushed from a dead snag in front of me, and flew into a nearby spruce tree 10 yards away. Scared the crap out of me. The hooters almost always do this if they flush from near or at ground level- they do not fly far. I worked my way into a clear shooting alley and dropped my third bird of the day. I put him in the pack, and was starting to feel the weight of the birds now.

I only had one shell left now, other than the 2 bear slugs. I heard a hooter below, and headed to the copse of trees the hoots appeared to be coming from. Then I heard a bird off to my right which seemed close, so I turned off across a muskeg and headed to that bird. When I heard him hoot again, I realized the bird was far off, so I turned back towards the earlier bird. Just as I entered the woods from the muskeg, a hooter was running along the ground off to my right. The bird froze as they always do, and I dropped my 4th bird. As I didn’t hear the bird I was after, I’m assuming this one had been up in a tree and come down to the ground. Getting 2 of 4 birds near the ground rather than up in the trees was unusual – it was like the birds were running all over and rutting like deer do.

Lots and lots of deer sign in the woods, but I didn’t see any deer. They had nipped about every skunk cabbage bud off everywhere I went. I didn’t see any fresh bear sign.

When I got out to the beach, it was a bit breezy so I decided to stay another night at the cabin rather than crossing in a lump with the oil light blinking on my dash (turns out this was just an oil change reminder, when I looked it up in the manual at home). I cleaned the grouse at the cabin, using a technique a college buddy Eric Sjodin and Buddy Bender showed me while we attended college at UA-Fairbanks. The grouse is laid down on its back, and you place a foot at the base of each wing where it attaches to the body. Then you grab a leg in each hand and very slowly pull up on the bird. This will pull the innards and head with the legs, leaving the breast, mostly skinned, behind. The innards and head are then easily separated from the drumsticks.

I cooked up two birds when I got home. I forgot how much meat is on hooters. There was enough left over to make soup, plus freeze the other two birds.

Was supposed to go again today. I’ve been working as a spill responder for the regional oil spill response team while I’ve been home. The Princess Kathleen, a small (by today’s standards) cruise ship that sank in 80 to 120 feet of water near town in 1952 or so, has begun starting to leach some oil. So, the state and Coast Guard are overseeing pumping the tanks on the wreck. The oil spill response team has been monitoring the site, as well as assessing what kind of response would be needed with regard to boom, etc., to protect various bays and coves that have fish bearing streams dumping into them. I discovered I had a sliver in my eye this morning, so knew I better get it looked at after the oil spill response work, so I went to the emergency room instead of hooter hunting after work. After a 2.5 hour wait, the P.A. got the sliver out with a swipe of a swab on a stick, and that was that. Back to Prudhoe on Monday. Weather forecast calling for the
temps to reach 20 degrees by late in the week, so I’ll be lucky to get my whole 2 weeks in this hitch.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

This is a great read. And a book that I realized was written about the place I am sitting, only in another time and certainly another world before oil and internet and communications. 3 guys get to where I’m at from Nome by schooner, then build a place to live, then set out to live off the land over the winter and look for gold in the area the following summer. Lots more to the story as you’ll see if you read it.
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A friend asked the other day about oil development in ANWR. I told him my opinions on both sides of the issue, including how the Porcupine Herd is different than the smaller herds that occupy Prudhoe Bay and western Alaska. Unlike these increasing herds, the Porcupine herd is much larger – over 100,000 animals – and has been declining for unknown reasons in recent years. I’ve not checked recent numbers, so perhaps the population has stabilized. I do remember it had dropped from 150,000 to 125,000 or less animals. This herd uses eastern Alaska and Western Canada for it’s range. The part it uses in Alaska in ANWR is a place where the mountains bow northward, on a plain about 50 miles from the ocean to the mountains. I realized yesterday as I was on my rounds that what I was looking at WAS that bow. I’d always thought the mountains looked closer here than in Prudhoe Bay, and realized I was located right on the western boundary of ANWR, and so was
looking at the very topography I had only looked at on topographic maps before. From where I sat in my truck to the base of the mountains seemed even closer when I thought about a herd of 100,000 or more animals using that plain to calve. It certainly would be a sight, perhaps not unlike the buffalo in the west before they were killed off. Anyway, it gave me pause for thought as to what, if any, impact oil development might have there – maybe a pipeline from a drilling pad and nothing else might not bother the herd, or would it? It surely seems that directional drilling, where the actual drilling and oil extraction would be done outside the refuge with a pipe drilled down, and then sideways under the refuge, would be much less of an impact, yet defenders of the refuge were staunchly against this, too, last time I heard.

It’s March 26 today, with blowing snow and a temperature slightly below zero – it was -7 when we checked at 515 am this morning. Visibility is down to being measured in yards, so no travel is allowed unless you’re part of a 2 or more vehicle convoy, and I’m sitting tight in my truck in the camp parking lot and monitoring my radio in case anyone needs me. My job this winter is the environmental technician on an ice road from Prudhoe Bay to the edge of the ANWR. Seems like winter is hanging on longer than I’d guess it would, as the temperature has only been above zero once, I think, over the past 12 days I’ve been here. But many days have been sun and more sun and just beautiful weather looking out over the coastal plain to the Brooks Range. I’ve seen an arctic fox and a few ravens this hitch, but that’s it for animal sightings.
–
Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Temperature got to 44 below zero this morning. With barely a breath of wind, the wind chill was 72 below. Nippy. But the sun is out and it’s clear weather and doesn’t seem as cold as it did when I worked nights. Had a hard time staying warm even in the pickup truck this morning. My left thigh got cold near the door.

Any rigs or camps look like there’s a tornado stirring up fog around them. The exhaust from the equipment on the rigs just hangs around the rig in this cold, creating their own crappy local climate.

Haven’t seen any life here as of yet. Not even fox tracks.

I’ve noticed for my 2 weeks hitches, the first week goes by quickly, then the next 2 or 3 days are sllllloooowwww, then the last few are okay. Still a long two weeks, and I sometimes physically feel these 2 weeks coming off my life.

I just got another opportunity to do some fisheries consulting in west Africa – this time in Nigeria. Supposed to go in about a month, and hope the political situation there remains calm. Would be traveling part of the trip to the lower Niger river – and right back in oil country.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Skinned the animals today. I remember there was a musk gland on the mink. I saw some puss-looking stuff come out around the bung hole, and put my nose down to smell it. That was the wrong thing to do. That would be the musk gland excretion. Stunk up the whole house. I had candles going, lighting matches, etc. to get rid of it before Sara came home. Luckily I had enough sense to take it outside to finish skinning it. With 3 whole hides I’m going to see if I can get a hat made rather than selling them. Plus, I didn’t do such a great job of skinning the marten. Hopefully this will carry over to next year when I’m planning to go all-in trapping with my brother in law in Dec.

That’s it for trapping season. I get back March 1 from Prudhoe, and will need to get right over to the cabin if I want to clam dig this season as that’s when the minus tides are. The steamer clams we used to get by the cooler load have disappeared and no one seems to know why. We can get pink neck clams and butter clams, but they are more work and the butter clams are notorious for paralytic shell fish poison.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Set my traps a few days ago. I’d caught so few marten along the beach, I thought I’d go to the base of the ridge across from our cabin on Admiralty Island and see if that would be more productive. I hiked up the hillside, and realized when I got up near the ridge base that I would have to post-hole through a quarter mile of open country to get to the base of the ridge, and was not up for that. I’d set a few traps across the uphill side of a series of beaver ponds near the bottom, and a few sets on the way up the hill.

I returned today, and got a small mink for my efforts and no marten. I am on the local Fish and Game advisory committee, and another member mentioned he’d trapped the same area I was in the past 2 years, but not this year, so that may explain the low numbers.

The weather has been just plain nutty. It’s snowing feet at my brother’s in Virginia, is 18 degrees in my hometown in Bolivar, NY, and yet it’s about 40 here, with most all the snow gone at sea level. The forest floor was bare when checking the traps today. Even on the slope, it’s hovering around zero in Feb, when I’d expect it to be twenty below at least.

I got one of my wood piles restocked this time off. I put in so many logs the year before last that I think the wood I have in the round will last a decade or more. Seemed like not enough work to buck up, split and stack the woodpile storage area that we’d emptied this winter. Another of equal size is almost empty, so I’ll probably fill that next time off.

I had two Mali assignments planned for this spring, but one has been cancelled, so looks like one left. I’ve been boneing up on my fisheries science as we’ll try to set up a fish sampling program there so Mali can track their fisheries and institute some conservation measures if necessary on the Niger River.

–
Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com