Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Alaska float hunt success

Went and did my once in a life time Alaska float hunt with my best friend and his 74 y/o dad, and a guide. We floated the Kichatna River with Hidden Alaska outfitters. My friend got a decent brown bear and I got a 53" moose. We were scheduled to do a 14 day float but cut it short do to circumstances. The experience was about what I expected. Lots of work, lots or rain, more work, and some blisters on the hands from rowing 50+ miles of river. Glad we did it, but I probably won't sign up to do it again.
IMG_0093 by .com/photos/156405073N02/]Tim Richard, on [bleep]

First time I've ever seen a heli tow an airplane out. Someone had a hard landing apparently.
IMG_0088 by .com/photos/156405073N02/]Tim Richard, on [bleep]

I ended up with 684# of meat, with bone in quarters only, at the processor.
IMG_0110 by .com/photos/156405073N02/]Tim Richard, on [bleep]

Damn, TR. That is great.

Alright! Congrats!

Bad azz man.

Congrats! Sounds like a great hunt with good company.

Congratulations well done

A sincere Congratulations! Very glad that you got to make the trip! For many of us, certainly a dream come true! memtb

Congrats, Tim. Glad you enjoyed your visit to our home.

TR ,
Looks like a great hunt .
Your compadre looks like Rick - wonder if he ever got a coyote with a bow .
Nice pics - thanks for posting them .

Sounds like quite the trip! Congrats on a successful hunt/adventure! Nice pics...…..Thanks for sharing.

Congrats, that's a lotta meat! Nice looking horns too.

Sounds like a blast.

What a great adventure. Memories to last forever.

“Lots of work, lots or rain, more work, and some blisters on the hands from rowing 50+ miles of river. Glad we did it, but I probably won't sign up to do it again.”

That’s got to be the most accurate description of a backcountry moose hunt I’ve ever read. No rose colored glasses for this guy!

Congrats on the bull

Love it, I really want to do this

Congratulations.

Got your text the other day but pics in this post are much better.

Outstanding !

One of life's great experiences! Well done.

Wow! great hunt! Someday...

If a guy was looking for a brown bear, I'd highly recommend this river drainage. We saw over 20 bear total. Got lucky on the moose, although we were seeing quite a few tracks along the river, just weren't seeing most of the moose. Also no shortage of wolf tracks along the river but never heard or saw any of them.
Already took my rifle to a gunsmith to get cerekote treatment. Rifle was being attacked by rust from one end to the other after being wet almost none stop for 8 days including while in the wet gun case while on the river.

Sir ... you have definitely earned the bragging rights!

Birdsongs Black T!

Can't tell you how much happier I am rowing counterbalanced oars on the raft. Got some sawyer squaretops at a really good deal and couldn't pass them up, won't ever go back.
Looks like a great tripo.
Who was the guide or service ifn a guy wanted to try and do something like that?

Good job, nice moose.

Why the hell would anyone not want to live in Alaska?

Beginning young of course. 51 years for me- not regretted a moment!

I did a float for moose and caribou 30 years ago and swore off them then. Not for lack of game but for way too much work than hunting time. I remember spending 3 days of a 14 day hunt just packing out 1 moose my pal shot and dragging that dammm raft over miles of shallows hoping for enough water to float the meat laden raft at every bend.
But looks like you had a great trip.

Nicely done! I really would like to do a float hunt sometime.

Hidden Alaska outfitters.
We got lucky and only had to pack my moose 200 yards through a marsh/bog and 400 yards further to a good spot along the river where we could land the boats to load. We also had to pull our boats through some shallows but that was before we loaded the moose, thankfully. We did, how ever, get stuck on a large boulder that was sticking up enough to hang up on. Was stuck for a couple of minutes until we were able to rock the boat enough to free it.
The level of the water in the river really fluctuates a lot, depending on rain. As we all know, Alaska had a very dry and hot summer so when we arrived the river was way down, but when we arrived the rains also started. That basin is a very large catch basin so levels began to rise with the rains, which was a blessing for us, although that also created another problem. It created what a guy might call, false channels. Instead of having the main channel clearly visible, several other channels started to flow water and a guy had a hard time figuring out which channel was carrying the most water. That got us stuck a couple of times, down the wrong channel, which in the end forced us to pull our boats through shallow water.
As we proceeded further down river, the river area narrowed and finally only had a single channel to follow with plenty of water, class 3 rapids, in a few spots. I've never floated any river ever before, which made this even more of a challenge for me.

Fantastic hunt, Congrats! I bet it was one HELL of an experience for a very first float trip. I can just imagine it’s an all out “work your ass off” trip.
One things for sure while hunting- Always expect the unexpected!!

Wow. Congrats. Thanks for sharing.

Sounds like it was a bit of work,but yet also sounds like a blast.

And your problem is what?

Congrats!!!

Awesome! Congrats! I just got back from an unsuccessful brown bear hunt last week down near the Copper River. We saw the same thing with the helo hauling the broke down plane!

Let’s see the bear!

Man that is awesome congrats on an amazing experience and some great tasting organic protein!

It was raining cats and dogs when my friend shot his bear and I don't have any real good pics at the kill site, although I did get it on video for him. This shot is my favorite back at camp after fleshing. Never did get a measurement of the cape or skull.
26632 by .com/photos/156405073N02/]Tim Richard, on [bleep]

Great Pic!!!! GET SOME!!! #Verminators
Gadget

Awesome. Nicely done.

That looks like a damn nice bear! Congrats. What’s the story? What’s that rifle all about? Some kind of silencer?

Your meat weights were right on target. Thank you for bringing out all of that good meat!

Moose hunting is a must-do but it can be a pile of work.

On the bear, we were simply sitting on a knob over looking a small lake/swamp area that the bear were frequenting. Actually had a bigger bear in his scope about 10 minutes before shooting this bear, but he just never got a clear shot at the bigger bear. When this one came out and gave him a shot at 213 yards, he decided it was big enough and took him. .338 win mag with 250 gr. TTXS bullets. Shot him twice and both bullets passed through high shoulder. And yes, he has a suppressor on that rifle.

Congratulations, looks like a once in a lifetime trip. I have been wanting to do this before age creeps up. Would you recommend the outfitter?

Yes I would, BUT I'd also highly suggest going with someone, with experience, on a river float, before going on this hunt, especially if you've never floated a river OR been the ore man. My lack of experience about got us in trouble a couple of times. In the first 5 minutes of our hunt I was unable to keep our raft away from a dead sweeper. Luckily it wasn't anchored down good and we went into it sideways, and I kept my ore above it which gave me leverage on it and it simply moved out of our way with the weight and momentum of the raft. On the first day of floating, I also went down the wrong river channel because I was unable to put the raft where I wanted it although this turned out to be no big deal as there were no obstacles in our way. By the time we were to our pick up point, I was getting pretty confident in maneuvering the raft where I wanted it to go.
Of course if you were one on one with an experienced guide you wouldn't need to worry about any of that, as he'd be the ore man. There were 3 of us with 1 guide, so I got elected to be ore man in one of the rafts.
Also, the outfitter offers more than just float hunts as well.

Bet that suppressor is handy in the alders

Is there anything handy in the alders? Frame packs sure ain't, that's a fact.

Nothing is handy but somethings are less handy than others

I bet that’s fun!

congrats. I enjoy AK because it seems easy but rarely is.

I've avoided float hunts so far due to all the work, but we have talked about floating down into an area and setting up a camp and hunting an area for 10 days or so and then float out.

Glad you got to experience it and congrats again!