Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Hunting Alaska - expensive?

Au Contrare! Saw it in the paper once... two cars hit head-on on the Seward Highway; one was DUI driving the wrong way, but the other was just drunk, "driving the right way!"

I hunted Alberta last year - guided - bush plane included for moose at less than half the price it would have cost me in Alaska. We only saw cows, but still.

You can do cheap camping trips in Alaska too.

"Wet clean-up on aisle 4!"

I kept trying to get my buddies to come up and deer hunt but none of them ever did. All they had to pay for was the flight to Alaska and their hunting license/tags.

No kidding. I know more than a few places to hunt. I even know ones where you can see quite a few bulls. But rarely a legal bull.

Anymore the idea that you can do a non flight hunt and have a quality hunt with better than a 25% chance of success, well its simply not there so much anymore. Even fly out hunts have been burned out, folks had cash, could fly out wheelers into the bush just to hunt.

I know of one area where a 60 inch bull was easy. And its gone to the point that a legal 50 is awful hard to find.

I'm not sure last time KC was up, but things continue to change. And the big mop up on cows close to the road systems for the benefit of the insurance companies has cut moose numbers particularly a LOT where we hunt/hunted. Where we used to see moose all over, we see moose now and then sometimes not for a week or more at a time.

It does not help that in the non air accessed places people continue to feel the need that they have to have a wheeler trail like a checkerboard every half mile or mile it seems. I know that the moose in one area have not been overly thinned, but I cannot find where they have relocated to much, except for the fact they seem to be much more nocturnal than they used to be. And very knowledgable of what a wheeler or boat sounds like coming close....

Thank you for not being on a reality TV show.

Alaska sounds cheap to me, our caribou camps are $7600 per trip, gas ends up $31 per gallon landed.
If one wants a remote wilderness hunt and no other hunters in the area, be prepared to pay. In the past, I even had some hunters cancel because it was too remote, and then they discovered from the literature that there were ferocious grizzlies around, ......... too much for someone who's idea of "remote" was only seeing 75 other hunters per day!!
If you want "remote", understand there's a cost!!

Just like a divorce, because it's worth it!

Exactly!

Bears AND no one else around! Dang, that sounds scary.

It's been 28 years, but a friend and I did two DYI float trips for moose and caribou in the early 90's and were successful both times. We didn't have dreams of B&C critters so we kept our expectations reasonable. Ended up killing nice examples of both species on both trips. My buddy's caribou ended up making B&C.

Also hunted there while in the Navy and stationed at Elmendorf. Was able to kill a moose in two years of trying. Had a Dall hunt in the Chugach's all lined up and prepared to go when our aircraft was deployed to Spain and the Mediterranean when the Iranians took over our embassy.

I've hated the Iranians ever since........

What I see a lot of times are people coming up to do DYI cheap. I also know folks that get that Supercub bug. People who go out hunting on the neighbors CRP land have no clue what those expenses look like.

Rookies floating rivers often turn DIY into DYI... that would be Do Yourself In...

it depends. Looking at Alaska for the big bears and moose, they run up north of twenty thousand. That's for one animal. Africa gets REAL expensive for the Big Five, but on a plains game hunt, you can take five six animals including eland and kudu for half that and that's including air fare. Hell, you can do a seven day buffalo PG for 15K all in .

I had a great experience, though unsuccessful, hunting brown bear with Brad Dennison in 2015. Crap weather but he worked his tail off and we hunted two extra days. We crabbed and shrimped and ate well. Another great experience is a trip to northern BC. My 2020 hunt with Stone Mountain Safaris was deferred to next year but it's a fly in horseback hunt in pristine wilderness. It's fourteen days of hunting for goat, elk and moose with tags for black bear, wolf and mountain caribou thrown in on opportunity. I hunted with them for elk and moose in 2008 and had a great time. These are not inexpensive hunts but given the total experience and the quantity and quality of game they are very fairly priced.

I've seen plenty of funeral processions over the years but I've never seen one with a Wells Fargo Armored Truck following the hearse.

I'm going to AK this spring for a grizzly. Bob

Lots of great answers to this post. Kudos gents.

It saddens me how much it costs to hunt here.

But it is indeed worth it.

Never minded the cost, airplanes are expensive; but they took me out of the game when they required moose come out in quarters, and can't be deboned any longer.

Can’t be deboned in some areas but I don’t see why us old guys can’t saw the quarters into smaller pieces 😀