Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska I drew DX003 Nunivak Island Muskox! Which transporter?

After 10+ years of applying, I got lucky and drew with a buddy. There are 4 transporters that operate on the Island.

Would you please PM me any strong recommendation?

We are looking for a 7 day trip. We want to go out for more than the typical 1-day hunt in a 4-5 day window. We want to look at multiple herds and shoot large old bulls, squeeze in fox hunting and maybe 1 day of ice fishing. We want to be the only 2 at our accomodations so we don't feel pressured to make it happen on the first good weather day so the other group can go next.

Any other tips or things to keep in mind are welcome?

AK, here we come.

Thank you!

Be sure to check references and get things in writing! I don't know anything about your options there, but I was interested in the same sort of trip when I drew for Seward Peninsula muskox with a buddy years ago. Despite his assurances of a week long trip with fox and ptarmigan hunting included, the guide had booked us and all the other hunters on a 3 day rotation, planning only two days of hunting for each. This was when satellite communicators were a new thing and we had one. Once he found out we were checking in with the wives and leaving GPS points that could be reviewed later he got pretty sketchy. Come to find out he'd been taking hunters to nearby federal refuge lands where he wasn't supposed to go rather than the state lands surrounding us where he was actually permitted to be. I never figured that part out until later when I spoke with the Big Game Commercial Services Board and the Troopers. Things got interesting on day six when I basically called him out on his lies and dirty practices and told him I wasn't leaving the place without a muskox. I finally got a nice bull on day 10 and got out of there. The dude was crooked and thankfully no longer operating. Anyway, enjoy your hunt! Muskox hunting is unlike anything else and it is hands down the finest game meat I've ever had.

Only guy I knew was Abe David. But everyone I knew who drew and went out there were done in a day or two.

That's a great tag !! Conglads on a bucket list hunt.

I have been after this tag for a long time...way more than 10 years. Good on you.

There aren't many operations to choose from that guide on Nunivak. I can't help you with which ones are sketchy and which are not, but I am a bit envious of the tag...

Thank you. Thank you to those who PM'd me too. I will follow this thread and update you closer to our hunt.

We are truly lucky.

Here's Canadian Fruity,
https://talkingradical.ca/bio/

An excerpt, talking about him/herself:
"He shies away from political labels, but is informed by diverse streams of anti-capitalism and anti-authoritarianism, opposition to the colonial past and present of the canadian state, and a commitment to lifelong exploration of anti-oppression politics. His earliest involvement had an environmental focus, and over the years has been involved in social movement spaces that were responding to student issues, right-wing governments, poverty, homelessness, racism, war, occupation, colonization, media issues, and more."

No one by that name applied for - or drew - any hunts.

Interesting!….no Scott Neigh for Nunivak Muskox?

You don’t think a hardcore, leftist, militant-activist would lie do ya? 😂

“ Has been on a journey — to unlearn the faux-objective, overly intellectualized, and disembodied place from which he saw social change at the start; to undo the deep training to ignore the political nature and relevance of his own everyday/everynight; to escape the false certainty and begin to heal the stunted humanity that come with privilege; to learn to see that his self exists in particular ways that were created by the social relations into which he was born and through which he travels;”

I wonder if this is part of that journey or if it’s muskox hunt? 😂

Non resident Aliens are required to hire a guide to hunt big game in Alaska. Are any of these transporters on Nunivak also registered guides, or do we just plan to break the law?

What I think is that CanadianLefty it is exactly who he said he was on a thread many years ago – a left-handed Canadian who now lives in California.

I’m not sure why some feel compelled to import the theatre of the quackfire into these other forums.

He’s a radical leftist and admitted anarchist. You are welcome to ignore that but not all of us will. 😉. It’s important to know who one is dealing with…

OK.

So … the one who posts here as CanadianLefty went on safari in 2004 and came back here and wrote about it.

If you believe that the fruitcake in your link has ever been on an African safari in anything other than his dreams; so be it.

Wow. Must be a member of BLM and Antifa also. So woke that he hates himself for having worked and earned a living possibly. These people are nuts. And talking about themselves as another person. WOW thats some weird stuff. Almost as weird as the Ukraine thing right now.

James Whitman and team will do a great job and they are great guys.

There is a lot of weather and high winds there, when the winds are up there are ground blizzards, hence you are grounded until the weather breaks, hence no hunting, you may run 30-40mi from town on snow machine to find the “herds”, there is sometimes complications like the animals are up on a Mtn side and you can’t get to them

Ice fishing isn’t really a thing as you might be lead to believe

The airplane service is also interrupted by the high winds and it make take a few days to get out of there

Other hunters are rolling in and out and there is schedule overlap,

It does take all day to find one herd, get in position for a shot, cut up and break down the animal, load the transport sled and get back to town, off load the sled, you want to harvest an animal before lunch, you don’t want to ride back to town in the dark, they won’t let you.

You may only have one good day in a week to get in the field, then it may take 3-4 days for the weather to break to get a plane in to get you out of there, the plane may be max’s out on load and you may need to loiter in Bethel or Anchorage to wait for your luggage and/or meat to make it out.

The good news is the local air service and the people of Nunivak are super nice, helpful and understanding

Foxes are incidental, the locals don’t like to mess with skinning them, etc…

Long story short, go with the flow, if you can get an animal the first day you get in the field - take that opportunity, take the biggest bull in the herd. The horn length b/c score isn’t going to be much different to the next herd most likely, and certainly hard to tell with binoculars

7d is a tight schedule for that trip unless you luck out on the weather, maybe plan to do it in 7d but have some flex days in case of complications, especially weather.

Curious how your hunt went?

Good friend got a nice weather window late March and got a cruncher of a bull.

Hope you found success as well.