Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Ptarmigan and snowshoe hare near Anchorage?

Someone tell me about it. My son is stationed at JBER and doesn't know where to start.

Thanks,

John

Google it

Not likely to find much for either close to Anchorage or the Valley. Both areas see quite a bit of pressure and both birds and bunnies can be hard to find.

It may take getting out of town a ways to find good numbers of either. Paxson always seems to have decent numbers of ptarmigan. I don't know the rabbit situation this year as we've been gone most of the fall either with me on the slope or traveling to deal with family illness.

Wish I could be more help to your son. Thank you for his service.

PM sent... no good bird or bunnie hunting anywhere close to Anchorage.

I had some great times hunting both with a bow around Kenai in my youth. Ah, thanks for the memories.

It's not really close to Achortown, but sooner or later your son should drive to McCarthy. He will see lots of ptarmigan on the road between Chitina and McCarthy.

KC

Near is a relative term in Alaska. If you can drive there in a day, it's near.

Delta hare population seems to be very much on the upswing... FWIW.

Corrected for excessive wordiness.

Good catch! Good correction.

Always got a good laugh out of the lower 48 boys complain about driving 200-250 miles to go hunting i tell them that's nothing. Then tell them about driving up to the North slope to go caribou hunting 700 plus miles one way..

Several hundred miles of which are gravel road and you need to factor in the cost of a new windshield and maybe a tire or two into the cost of the hunt.

hell I drove 420 round trip Tuesday here, just to sit through an 8 hour CEU class.. ugh...

Dicey to drive 80 on our highways.

400 miles there is like 600 here, IMO.

Been listening to Steve Goodman?

Generally true. I did manage to make it from Anchorage to Lake Louis in a relatively speaking short time driving my wife's autobahn bomber, but I had to be really attentive to frost heaves! I averaged 60 mph, and that included two stops and some slow windy sections. You're generally lucky to average 50 mph with no stops on AK highways.

God forbid if you are in a hurry trying to get to Tok.. Tok cutoff hwy holy smokes probably the worse stretch of hwy in Alaska ..

Plus it smells like ass, i mean Walt, in that area.

Redundant!

Funny clip!

Yep, you can't apply 100 miles will take 2 hours or less...

Of course we are still infatuated with scenery and will stop at the drop of a hat to take photos of a rainbow, eagle, or just terrain, especially changing leaves...

Takes us about 8-10 hours from Delta to Wasilla generally speaking.

There are stretches we could hit 80 plus.. there are stretches where 35 happens....

I remember working in Glennallen one summer and a co-worker and I went fishing after work. I think he was going around 70 and managed one of these on a frost heave.

it was 1986.... the first frost heave the 86 GMC 3/4 ton truck of mine hit scared both myself and my parents pretty good.....

Since then I've gotten used to them, but they still can sneak up on you... I think there is a bad stretch right before waltville there somewhere even now,t though they were/are working on them about every time we come through.

<10 miles RT via snowmachine, and barely more than an hour from start to finish. That was 8 years ago, so hopefully they'll be making their way on the upswing soon. (Probably a 4-day ride from Anchorage unless you Irondog it! )

Try the valley. Lots of game out there. Wasilla fishook, eklutna lake, riverbeds all might hold good rabbit hunting. (My favorite) drive along the roads and scout the ditches to find the rabbits....

Check out hunting small game, on base.

There's plenty of woods there. All you need are Wabbit Tracks.

Smitty of the North