Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Unit 25A?

Has anyone hunted moose and/or caribou in unit 25A?

Has anyone flown with Yukon Air out of Arctic Village?

Can you float the East Fork of the Chandalar River upstream from Arctic Village, in a raft?

KC

I would get ahold the state trooper out of cold foot and ask him these questions as well.. I been on the dalton hwy several times and I can tell you I seen more wolves than moose. Then again I was not hunting several miles off the road either.. Also some of those "rivers" up there aren't really rivers more like creeks and during that time can be running extremely low you might be dragging the raft more than riding in it. I have hunted the lupine river and it's not much of a river when I last hunted it I could walk across it. Now the sag river which is further North of where you are hunting now that's a river.

On Google Earth a lot of those rivers, including the Chandalar, seem to have long stretches where they are badly braided and full of sand bars.

KC

KC, keep us posted on what you come up with. Retirement working well for you? Sounds like it is.

Oldtoot:

I got an e-mail from the bush pilot, Kirk Sweetsir, Yukon Air, who flies out of Arctic Village. He said he would not drop nonresident hunters on the Chandalar River or the Junjik River because they would compete with locals living in Arctic Village. He said that would be "incendiary". So I'm looking at other alternatives.

Retirement is not for sissies. I'm having trouble finding enough to keep busy. Or should I say being able to afford the things that I would like to do.

KC

Funny, I was going to ask if you'd looked into whether or not Arctic Village was friendly to round eyes. Apparently they're not.

I can vouch for Sweetsir damn good pilot and a good man

He won't steer you wrong on what he tells you

And while he's got mad skills in a plane ✈️ he only seems to use them when necessary not to show off

Guys like him. We call them da kine

KC, et al.

Be prepared to hire a guide if hunting ANY of the Arctic caribou herds.

New caribou regulations (HB211) for all the Arctic herds (Western, Central, Teshekpuk, Porcupine) is in the works, requiring a guide unless accompanied by family member has passed the House. I'm betting the Senate will rubber stamp it, since it is Native politics., It is not related to ADF&G game management or science based. This is in part to allow out of area "family" members to come "home" to whack caribou on Federal lands , and avoid the USF&W restrictions. Ostensibly, it is to "save the caribou" on these slightly declining populations (WACH seems to have stabilized, however temporarily), even tho they are all above minimal goals, and some at, near, or above historic averages. (Repeat previous rants about our 3 1/2 month long, pregnant-cows-only-season here).

And of course to eliminate as many of you dastardly Outsiders and non-area residents as possible, within the law. Some re-assembly of same required.

New proposal will be game "management" by "herd", rather than GMU. I'm thinking about that one, but I see one obvious flaw - inter-herd migration. Those damned illegal immigrants! I wonder if there is an Inupiat word for "wetback"...... . And of course the Porcupine (and 40- Mile, farther south) spend significant portions of the year being hunted in Canada. I know nothing about our international agreements on these herds.

In 23 and 26A we have new ADF&G regulations for caribou, requiring reportable subsistence registration permits (I thought that's what I was doing all along???? - that was voluntary, I guess - but I just got a post card about it from ADF&G). RC907, available by June 15, ADF&G, hunt.alaska.gov, and local vendors. This is supposedly to help manage WACH and Teshekpuk Herd. Yeah, that will work - see below on moose.

I'll pick up mine here in Kotzebue when I get my all-winter "subsistence" federal lands moose permit on July 14. 15th is last day to get one, and is a Saturday (closed). I'm in on evening flight of 13th, going camping for a few days (weather permitting) and back to work the 17th. A plan that came together! So far. Murphy is out there somewhere, the SOB!

I read about the pending legislation ( a fine way to manage game!!!) just this morning in May 4 Arctic Sounder. You can read it on line at www.thearcticsounder.com, or, maybe, hunt.alaska.gov., or the legislative site. Of course, the local hearing on this was also May 4.... Probably good I missed it. I have to live here another year - or rather, am choosing to. Sometimes ignorance can save one a lot of later grief! . Heaven forbid I just STFU!

New restrictive (similar to caribou restrictions imposed last year) moose regulations for 23 have been turned down, at least for now. Seems required moose harvest reports to be returned by subsistence hunters are being ignored about 50% of the time, over-all, when correlated with in-village surveys. Some villages had over 70% non-compliance. This information threw a monkey wrench in the regulatory works and put a hold on it, obviously to avoid a very public and target-rich lawsuit. For now. In the artcle they said subsistence harvest (village surveys based), vs returned harvest reports) shows no decline in success rates, despite a slightly declining moose population. The non-local (read "sport hunt") harvest is "insignificant", with near 100% reporting rate. I'm so surprised.....

Returned harvest reports from Selawik ( a major moose wintering area) showed a harvest of 7. Village survey showed around 40. This article is also in the may $ Sounder as is below.

North Slope Advisory Committee has requested the Federal Subsistence board to implement similar non-subsistence caribou closures on Federal lands in 26A and B as imposed on 23 last year. That will likely be a Gimmee. One year closure to July '18 if adapted. Annually renewable in perpetuity of course. 23 is also up for renewal, and in spite of no discernable decline last year, (stable or slight increase) and the highest recorded recruitment rate last year, will likely be held over another year. Don't look for it to go away. Ever.

Would not killing pregnant cows help herd size any?

Must be. Recruitment with heavy calft weight was up last year. We'll see this year but we had a mild winter so prospects seem good.

Sure seems like when it comes right down to it the native situation can cause a lot of issues, so then why would you give them "control" after causing the issue?

In a word: Politics. Second word: racism, or fear of being called out on it.

Natives comprise 20% of Alaskan voters, and, with some exceptions, vote en-bloc as dictated by their leaders, who are, without exception, Liberals. Most of the "common folk" do not have a wider perspective than their own little comfort corner and traditions, and don't bother to research issues or think through them for themselves, letting their "leaders" do the heavy lifting. Obviously they are not alone in this practice of course. Examples elsewhere abound. You know who they are.

If you are a politician, elected or appointed, that 20% bloc is a handy thing to have in your back pocket, and a fearful thing to contemplate alienating. As I pointed out years ago when Tony "The Weasel" Knowles bought his Governorship by promising the Native bloc to kill the court case on "subsistence", one only has to pick up about 30% of the rest of the state's vote to assure victory. That's about half of Anchorage. The Liberal half.

The guy (Westlake?) that authored HB 211, or whatever it is, won his seat by about 4 votes IIRC. Amid certain voting "irregularities". Why? Because Ben Nageak, the incumbent from Barrow, dared to cooperate the previous sessions with those Dastardly Republicans on certain issues. Both Democrats, but certain things ARE NOT DONE!

I've known Ben for over 20 years, and he was, for a time, my boss in Barrow. He is a smart guy and a fair one. One of a few Dems I am proud to call a friend. Which doesn't mean we see eye to eye on certain subjects....

In rural Alaska, the % of Native voters goes way up, over half, sometimes over 75%. If you are a politician/manager, it is better to sacrifice wildlife resources than your place at the trough by entering a fight that you aren't going to win on the political/public level, anyway. Even easier to sacrifice general-public access to wildlife resources on the lands (mis?)-placed under your care.

If you a liberal, political, urban USF&W or Park/Monuments/ Preserve/Refuge higher-up desk jockey in DC, or a 9th Circus Court judge, it is practically mandatory.