I’d like to book one and go within the next 2 years if possible. Anyone familiar with an outfitter/lodge who does these hunts. If I can combine it with some fishing all the better.

I did a little reading on what Larsen Bay Lodge does on Kodiak and that is a possibility. If I could bring a non hunting wife along, great . . . but not a requirement. Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

This is also on my bucket list.

I’d love to do this, but I believe the terrain is beyond my age and physical disabilities.

In the right year a Thanksgiving hunt can be done sitting in a boat...

I agree, and I know a few places that hunt from a boat, personally that’s no what I’m wanting to do.

You will probably be hunting the same way more or less if you’re staying at the lodge or onboard a boat.

After breakfast you’ll go to your selected spot by skiff and they’ll drop you on the beach with a walkie. You can hunt as far up the mountain as you want and bring your deer back to the beach to be picked up by the skiff. On a boat based hunt you may move after a couple days if you aren’t seeing game. At the lodge you’ll be confined to a smaller area, though it’ll be plenty big. Doubtful you’ll be shooting from the boat.

Kodiak is a great place and on good years a really great hunt. Thanksgiving is the timeframe to look at, the rut will be going and the deer should be lower down the mountain. IME October is the toughest time down there, deer are at the middle elevations in the thick vegetation and they don’t move like later during the rut.

Is that what Rick was doing when he spied the cougars?

If you go in October halibut will be around but deer will be high.

As November comes into December you’ll have a hard time getting halibut out of Larsen bay.

Mike Flores is still running a boat far as I know. I’d pick second week of November personally.

I hunted and fished with Mike Flores several years ago in PWS. It was a great hunt and a great time.

https://ninilchik.com/affordable-alaska-fishing-packages/

He was inside the boat... but not out in the skiff.
Demon rum! Scotch hangover...
We seldom shoot from the big boat.

An important change for the worse on Kodiak happened year before last. The nonresident limit was dropped to one.

Man that sucks. 1 deer for that much logistics ain’t worth it.

Oh well, I had my Turn.

I gotta get down to SE and shoot one in velvet above the clouds. If I could find one with split g2’s.. be awesome.

My current best Sitka looks like a medium 2.5 year old whitetail. Screwed up on a nice heavy but not wide 5x5

Anyone hunt out of Old Harbor and stay at Kodiak Sportsman's Lodge? How was it?

Sitka deer are not native to Kodiak, if that matters to the OP….I prefer to hunt critters where they’re native when feasible, however Kodiak most certainly has the reputation for quality Sitka deer hunting.

Most of the bigger islands have lodges that cater to hunters and can accommodate a non hunter being along, from what I have been told. I have no experience with any of them but thought I’d pass that along. Fishing for anything other than maybe rockfish may be a bit slow if you go when the deer are rutting. That, and the seas likely will be a bit sporty.

I was seriously looking into Kodiak until they lowered the NR limit to one. I switched my planning to POW island. Looks like NR deer on Kodiak will become limited to an add-on for a sheep hunt, which I’ll never be able to do.

This is on my to-do list.