I received an update from my friend, Doug Moore in Talkeetna, Alaska. You will remember Doug as the guy who showed me Southeastern Alaska in 2007 after the Mayors Marathon. Doug came down to California last May to shoot the Western Classic Trail Shoot as well. He drew a mountain goat tag on Kodiak Island. He took his son Justin along with a Kodiak deer tag.

Justin and I just got back from Kodiak from a 10 day trip that was supposed to be a mountain goat and blacktail deer hunt. Unfortunately the lake I was supposed to fly into was amazingly still frozen. This left only two other lakes in my unit I could hunt and they were already full of other hunters. We decided to bag the goat hunt and concentrate on a deer hunt. The air taxi was able to drop us into a nice lake that was in the middle of deer country. The weather was terrible, typical Kodiak, but we hunted hard. On the second to the last day Justin was able to connect on a nice buck at 326 yds. The deer was bedded and Justin took a long time to settle in on a long uphill shot. I’m really proud of him. I doubt I will get any more hunting in this year, so this will be all the fresh wild meat we get. The deer was actually very large bodied for a Sitka blacktail. We got 70# of boned out meat off of him. That was about 10# more than I usually get.

Now I don’t get into politics much, but the news that Sarah Palin, of Wasilla, Alaska was chosen as a running mate to John McCain, certainly perked up my ears.  Sarah is a fellow University of Idaho Alumni.  What is notable is that she typifies the independant spirit, that I treasure in our Western women.  The “step in and git it done” attitude, so typical of outdoors loving ladies, has served her well in the political arena as well.  When I think of women I am proud to know (my wife being the most notable), they all have an appreciation for the outdoors and nature, as well as understanding the role of renewable resources. 

Below is a Bio of Sarah:

Governor Sarah Palin made history on Dec. 4, 2006 when she took office. As the 11th governor of Alaska, she is the first woman to hold the office.

Since taking office, her top priorities have been resource development, education and workforce development, public health and safety, and transportation and infrastructure development.

Prior to her election as governor, Palin served two terms on the Wasilla City Council and two terms as the mayor/manager of Wasilla. She has served as chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which regulates Alaska’s most valuable non-renewable resources: oil and gas. She was elected by her peers to serve as president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors.

Sarah Heath Palin arrived in Alaska with her family in 1964, when her parents came to teach school in Skagway. She received a bachelor of science degree in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho in 1987. Palin, who graduated from Wasilla High School in 1982, has lived in Skagway, Eagle River and Wasilla.

She is married to Todd Palin, a lifelong Alaskan, a production operator on the North Slope and a four-time champion of the Iron Dog, the world’s longest snowmachine race.

Todd and Sarah commercial fish in Bristol Bay with their children – Track, Bristol, Willow and Piper. Through Todd’s Yup’ik grandmother, Alaska’s Native heritage plays an important role in their family. Track enlisted in the U.S. Army on Sept. 11, 2007.

Palin is a lifetime member of the NRA and enjoys hunting, fishing, Alaska history, and all that Alaska’s great outdoors has to offer.

 

I will certainly be keeping an eye on the presidential race with Govenor Palin “in the mix” now.  She has won the hearts of outdoorsmen in Alaska, and it will be interesting to see how the rest of America responds. 

I’d be interested to hear your point of view on Sarah and her outdoors heritage as well. 

Ed Fanchin is the man who got me started measuring for Pope and Young.  He has had a string of archery success that has come from hard work and determination.  Anyone who has met Ed knows he is a humble individual that puts forth the mamimum effort in what ever he does.  The results bear it out. 

From Ed’s recent trip to Kodiak Island:

Look at the Topoography.  This is not what I would call “easy country” by any means.  I don’t believe that anyone who can take a buck here with archery equipment didn’t earn it.

Ed and Randy’s spike camp, and one of the numerous foxes that visited regularly.

Ed kept the meat cool under water in the alpine lake, wrapped in multiple layers of plastic.  Here he is making another “Meat Deposit”. 

Now I knew Ed was TOUGH, but this photo of his pack out to the extraction point PROVES it.  The Badlands 4500 held up its end in this deal.

FOUR P&Y Sitka blacktails.  Ed on the Right with his friend Randy on the Left.

These are just a few of the pictures from Ed’s stirring narrative on Sage Creek Forums.  Click on the link to read it in Ed’s words and get the feeling for everything from the weather, to each trophy shot.

I didn’t want to bring this up before the Anchorage Alaska Mayors Marathon, but now that it has passed, I can bring it to all my readers attention.  (I didn’t want to scare off the Team in Training folks I trained with.) It just serves as a reminder that there are still places in the West that wildlife is part of the landscape that we have to take into account in our daily activities.  There are cities in all of the 12 Western States where urban wildlife is a reality. 

From the Anchorage Daily News on June 18th 2008

On Saturday, the 50-year-old competitive skier and triathlete was run over by a grizzly as he and a running buddy were finishing a three-hour workout that took them from Hillside Park up to the base of Flattop Mountain and back.

Rogers happened to be wearing a heart-rate monitor for training at the time. He thought his maximum heart rate was 180. He later looked at the monitor and realized he’d hit 193.

“You hear about people dying of fright,” he said. “Well, this was scary, and I’ve the data to prove it. I think it aged me about five years.”

Rogers suffered no injuries, though

Read the rest of the story HERE

Now is the time of year when the snow is melting off of the Coast range and I start thinking about heading off into the hills to see if I can scout out some bucks and bears. With green grass growing in the higher elevations, it isn’t unusual in the West to see hungry spring bears grazing and soaking up sun. Usually the bears I see will turn tail and run at the hint of human scent, but in wild places where people work alongside wildlife that isn’t always the case.  It goes to show that wildlife can lose their fear of humans in their quest for an easy meal.

Thanks to my Alaskan friend Mike Stark who sent me these pictures, he had an explanation to go with them…

These pics are all from Prudhoe Bay Alaska, some of them have been around a while, still amazing though.  The last pic is one of a bear they named Toby when he got into the Prudhoe Bay Hotel and up to the second floor.  They decided that he was a little too used to humans and had to put him down.

This has to be the most unique tracking collar story I have heard of.  An Alaskan wildlife biologist collared a mountain goat and a year later they discovered that a black bear was wearing the collar! 

Follow the LINK to read the story that appeared in the Juneau Empire on February 24th, 2008. 

We will start with the Alaskan Brown Bear because it is the first alphabetically in the Pope and Young Records. If you are after the largest land predator in North America, then this is it. Ursus arctos middendorffi is the larger coastal brown bear. For record keeping purposes the Alaskan brown is found south and West of the dividing line from the P&Y measurers manual:
“…beginning at the Pearse Canal and following the Canadian and Alaskan boundary to Mt. Natazhat, then west-northwest along the divide of the Wrangell Range to Mt. Jarvis at the western end of the Wrangell Range. The boundary proceeds north along the divide of the Mentasta Range to Mentasta Pass, then in a general westerly direction along the divide of the Alaska Range to Houston Pass, and westerly following the 62nd parallel of latitude to the Bering Sea.”

Scoring for all bears is the sum of two measurements. Length plus Width taken after a sixty day drying period, after all meat and tissue has been removed from the skull. The minimum measurement for entry in the P&Y records program is 20 0/8 inches.

Needless to say, you can only get an Alaskan Brown Bear in Alaska so I have presented the top ten areas for number of entries and average score. The vast majority of the Pope and Young Bears have come From Kodiak and Amiralty islands, both of which are well known for their high bear densities. Click on the thumbnails below to see the full sized charts.

All information presented is from the Pope and Young Club Bowhunting Big Game Records of North America, Sixth edition 2005 published by the Pope and Young Club Chatfield, MN. Not responsible for numerical errors, typographical errors or omissions, due to the author’s poor typing skills or plain bone headedness.