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The unusual hunting picture and the story behind it. Part I.





DigitalDan had asked about the story behind this photo. BTW, yesterday was just miscommunication between him and I. No problems here.

This photo was taken on one of three trips I was lucky enough to have gone on to Kodiak Island deer hunting. I lived in Anchorage for fourteen years and that where all the other photos of fish came from.

My buddy had met the son of the gentleman that owned the boat and he got to know him and arranged a hunt for us on Kodiak. The boat was a 60' commercial purse seiner with a refrigerated hold. The skipper made his living with the boat netting salmon and working as a tender for other boats since it was one of the few with a refridgerated hold. Sorry, no fridge girl on this one. Like most Alaskans he enjoyed hunting and was all for a deer hunting trip during his off season.

The journey started with the flight from Anchorage to Kodiak. The airport at Kodiak is very unique to say the least. On approach to Kodiak you come out of the clouds and the plane starts getting close to the water with no land in sight. Lower and lower, you can start to see the waves, lower and lower, no land in sight - are we ditching?. At the last second, at an altitude of about 30', the runway appears, tires squeal, touchdown. When you get out of the plane you realize what has just happened. At Kodiak planes can only take off and land in one direction. There's a mountain at the end of the runway that does not allow for a second chance, go around or mistake of any sort. I have no fear of flying but this one makes you go - hummm - every time.

Met up with the skipper, got a ride into town, got to see the boat, went shopping for essentials, box of wine, malt beverages, a variety of evening libations, etc..

On the trip was myself, my two friends, the skipper and a friend of his that was also a commercial fisherman that lived in Port Lyons. We picked him up in Port Lyons on our way around the north end of the island. The boat was a fantastic home for our trip for the next six days. It was a floating motel with a nice galley, warm bunks at night in the v berth, and everday a changing, waterfront million dollar view. It was a nice change from the typical hunting camp.

The northern end of Kodiak is heavily forrested with old growth spruce, some open areas, very pretty, but not the best for hunting. Too may dense areas. As you round the corner and start heading south the scenery changes, the landscape starts to open up and you start getting exicited. This is huntin' country. Open grassy hills mixed with alder patches, fewer stands of thick trees - it just looks right.

On to the hunting part. One of the adventures myself and my two friends went on, involved getting off the boat and hiking up 1200' to the top of a ridgeline and following it for about 4 miles. It had previously been hunted by some friends of the skipper and they had suggested to hunt there. They had shot a bunch of deer off this ridge just a few weeks earlier but, they also had cleaned it out. We only saw a few deer on our hike. I spotted a small spike early on in the morning at only 75 yards that I passed on. It was too early in the day to shoot a spike and drag it back down down the hill to the beach. Besides, I've learned from experience that dragging a spike with no "handles" on top is a royal pain in the azz.

We hiked the ridgeline for a couple of hours and hadn't seen anything worthy of shooting so we decided to stop for lunch at the end the spine at it highest point. There was a saddle between us and the next ridge that we glassed while we were enjoying our afternoon break. No deer so we decided to head back to a pick up point where we would catch a ride in the skiff to our floating lodge. About 20 yards around the corner of the peak where we had been sitting and eating lunch was a nearly round 4' diameter cave in the rocks facing south. THIS WAS A FREAKIN' KODIAK BROWN BEAR DEN. Talk about bearanoia. It's a very creepy feeling to realize that this cave had been clawed out of the shale by umpteen generations of Kodiak brown bears. We made losta noise and it didn't seem like anybody was at home but none of us were willing to go inside and see. Even with a flashlight and a high powered centerfire rifle in my hands I just didn't have the balls to take a look. We decided to just leave. It had been a long day and a cold one was starting to sound pretty good.

I'll do a part II later on. There's still more to the story.

fish head