Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Hunting Alaska - expensive?

Why is it less expensive to hunt in Canada than Alaska? Even Africa seems less expensive.

You are right about cost here. It is cheaper for Alaskans to go to Canada and shoot two muskox than fly out here to shoot just one...

Supply and demand.

Limited access here drives up costs.

Yes, I get it, the prices are quite prohibitive for many folks. Not sure that the guides would have a business if they weren't able to get people to pay these prices. I suspect that logistical costs are the bulk of their charges. My personal experience with a half dozen, maybe more guides, up here is that only a couple are charging greater prices and living large(r). Most are charging what the market will bear and just getting by each year. If you would like to know the true costs of hunting in Alaska then I'd bet that 2021-2 will determine the actual costs. Hard times will clean out the ones who were operating on the edge of profitability. Many were hit hard by our lockdowns if they didn't have a side-job to see them through the tough times.

I'd encourage you to come to Alaska to experience the sheer size and wild beauty of the Great Land. It is MASSIVE. It is inaccessible without a plane, boat, sled, ATV, or dog team. You'll never even see the least amount of this place--no matter if you live a thousand lives. Pick a place that strikes your fancy and let your guide open up a little corner of Alaska to show you something magical. You will NOT regret your time spent here...even if you end up suffering poor weather and an empty pack. It is a radically different beast to tackle. That is why we continue to challenge ourselves and people continue to spend their hard-earned dollars on high-end adventures. I hope that you find a way to make it happen for you, too.

Should you desire a top-flight experience for many species of animals I know only a couple of guides/transporters personally whose services I recommend without hesitation. Good people, good areas to hunt and professional coordination of services. And, as I like to joke with people about Alaska, "You don't need to create any drama up here. It will be provided to you free of charge!"

Cheers

IceKing is absolutely correct. And I like his comment about drama. Every time I have received offers to star on some "reality" TV show I tell them that while drama may sell TV shows, it doesn't sell hunts !

And the fact that distances, terrain, weather and logistics are formidable in Alaska, so are expenses in rural parts of the state where the game is found. $7/gal gas, $11/gallon milk, $3.50/lb potatoes and onions, propane $50 for a small 20# bottle and all that before the $700/hr charter flight to get it to hunting camp !

Well put. Been “up there” and the procurement, maintenance, and upkeep are indeed challenging.

Not to mention the weather challenges.

One of my biggest regrets was toward the end of a caribou and black bear hunt on the upper reaches of the Kuskokwim in ‘92. We were in brown bear or grizzlies every day. The outfitter who had tags would have allowed my friend and I one at $3-4K each at that time. We were actually watching a grizzly about four hundred yards from camp as he said it. We declined.

Now, they are four to five times as much.

What Iceking and Phil said.

If you have to ask you can't afford it.

Hell, I live here, and can't (often won't) afford some of the hunts I'd like to take. But then I'm primarily after meat. The "adventure" is included with the package...

The permitting system sucks.

it does right up until you look at travel cost and the cost of shipping horns back to the U.S., that's where Africa catches up real quick in costs.

Seems like most every issue of Outdoor Life in the 1960's had a story about some "Regular Joe" blue collar kinda guy who saved and skrimped and squirrelled away a little each week to be able to make a hunting trip to Alaska. Literally a once in a lifetime deal.
I don't think that happens as much anymore.

There are ways to make AK more affordable. They require a bit of inside information coupled with a fortuitous set of inside connections.

Phil is quoting 700 an hour flight time. We flew in at least three loads on a bigger plane to just get the stuff to open camps this year. That was around 2200 per flight of one hour IIRC. Ballparking.

Nothing is cheap out there. And no one is making a killing. A living yes. A killing no. Its done for the fact we love our jobs and happen to be able to pay the bills most years by doing it.

But beyond that any time you want a guided hunt its not going to be cheap.

We are talking two completely different experiences. Having enjoyed both, unsuccessful in SE Alaska with Brad Dennison, I still had a tremendous hunt. Buff in Zim appeared to be a given and one was down on day one.

I'm assuming this is tac time? 2200..is that in an otter? Still. It is pricy when you talk fly in.

Sometimes I think its cheaper for non residents. As residents, most buy atvs, boats...some buy airplanes......

My buddy charges $700/hr for his Beaver on floats (or did a few years ago, not sure now). Of course, that's whether you're in it or not (ie: if it's 1 hour each way, you get charged 2 hours).

99 IIRC. some bigger twin engine. Flying in is tough. At least the 99s can take a couple of moose and a few folks and gear all in one trip. A beaver would limit us quite a bit. Last time they had to fly moose out in a couple of trips to a larger lake, all regroup and then fly on out. Have to juggle it all the best you can. Costs for anything are high out in the bush.

Lived in Alaska over 45 years and have hunted every season season since reaching two digit age, other than taking family members out occasionally, 90-95% of my hunts are all DIY solo excursions, while this drives cost down along with omitting guide fees, It's still an expensive habit to feed and success is directly related to careful planning and making sacrifices, AND spending a ton of $$$, all this without adding up loss of pay for taking 2 weeks - month off of work

Having done this for 32 seasons now I can relate to the guides/outfitters having to charge what they do, at the end of every hunting season there isn't much left in profit and most have jobs outside of their guiding operations

Hunting in Alaska isn't expensive. That's true for both residents and nonresidents.

Hiring a bush plane is expensive. That's true for both nonresidents and residents.

Paying for a guided/outfitted hunt is expensive anywhere for anyone.

The trick is to do a DUI hunt without a bush plane. That's not an easy task. But it is doable.

DIY?

DUI is no bueno anywhere!

Ironbender:

You got me there. I must have been DUI when I wrote that post.

KC

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 😀

Meat that must be left on the bone
when salvaged prior to Oct 1:

UNIT Caribou Moose Bison

9B FQ, HQ FQ, HQ
13 FQ, HQ, R FQ, HQ, R
17 FQ, HQ FQ, HQ
18 FQ, HQ FQ, HQ
19 FQ, HQ, R FQ, HQ, R FQ, HQ, R
21A FQ, HQ, R FQ, HQ, R FQ, HQ, R
21B, C, D FQ, HQ, R
21E FQ, HQ, R FQ, HQ, R FQ, HQ, R
23 FQ, HQ, R FQ, HQ, R
24 FQ, HQ, R FQ, HQ, R
25A FQ, HQ, R FQ, HQ, R
25B, C, D FQ, HQ, R
FQ = Front Quarters
HQ = Hindquarters
R = Ribs

I’ve been to Africa three times, killed 17 animal, all archery.
I’ve hunted Alaska for moose, brown, and black bear.
No shot at a moose, got a brown and black bear, and an incidental wolf, all archery.

All in, except taxidermy, the four trips to Alaska that produced three kills, was more expensive than the three African trips that produced 17 animals.
The remoteness of game, float planes, remote camps etc do make Alaska more expensive. I’d like to go back for a moose, but at $25 grand or more all in, it ain’t happening.

For the most part, comparing hunting in most of Africa to Alaska is like comparing apples and oranges.
The nature and logistics of hunting in true wilderness is the difference.
If you choose to hunt bongo or Lord Derby Eland in the CAR , or Nubian Ibex in Sudan you will also pay substantially more than a full contingent of S African plains game.

Alaska in my opinion, is super cheap to hunt moose, caribou and bear if youre skilled. No skills......better pay the money, or you won't come home with sht.

In my world, I build my own boats, build my own boat motors, build my own freight sleds and train my own dog teams for winter hunts.

Build my own home, live on cheap land in an unincorporated borough with no taxes. Process all my own meat. Hunting is a chore, like splitting firewood. It aint some dream of a fkn lifetime. It's a necessary way of life.

If i wanted to pay to enjoy somethin:

I'd want a beach, bonfires, good beer, a nice vintage 4wd and lots of sun. Maybe a harmonica and a good geetar as well.

Some eye candy too, rather than these pale, jaded toyo stove dwellers in carharts dirtier than mine.

I have hunted Alaska three times while my brother lived up there and don’t plan on doing it anytime soon. The costs have skyrocketed, $25k for a brown bear hunt, $20k for moose, $6k for unguided caribou or black bear. It is a rich mans game now, not entirely, but you better save up.

The one thing that really makes hunting Alaska expensive, is the fact that you can apply 6 times for any one species. That's their way of getting 6X the draw fees out of you. You can apply less times than that but for species such as bison, musk ox, elk, etc. with few tags, there is little point in applying less than the maximum amount. Some of the caribou tags with thousands of tags (I haven't looked at the odds so I may be wrong) may be worth a person's time to only apply with only one or two chances. That's how I see it anyhow.

$300 just to apply for all the species at resident prices, not including a license. It is what it is....and totally worth it, to me.

Resident or not a person can go to any meat market order a whole beef or some combo pack(pork,beef,chicken ect) a full butchered beef is about $3000.00 Much cheaper that taking 7-10days off from work plus your new sxs wheeler, and rifle,scope package that you have (easy)$1200.00. I can keep adding it up and It goes on and on.
It not the hunt for me (I like to fill my freezer too) it's being outside paddling a river in my canoe, or just walking a trail. Being outside on some mountain slope in some remote valley.
Well worth the investment in my opinion.

Yep, it sure is expensive to hunt up here. No way to be successful without a bush flight, outfitter and guides. And with the shrinking animal numbers, there’s not much hope for success anyway. Nothing to see here. Africa is nice.

5 hunters opted for a landing craft to gat them, their gear, 3 deer and 2 elk off Afognak recently. They were scheduled for Island Air flights, but after wind kept buggering their plans, called for the boat. At $2500, not much more than a couple Beaver trips. Or 3.

And that’s just getting back to Kodiak. It’s hard to get your headgear around the logistics challenges of AK. It is possible to hunt where logistics are easier, but it may not be the AK experience you imagined. Then again, it may be. An open mind and good attitude are essential, and that sometimes takes work ...

Lol...