I have taken Rocky Mountain elk, and may someday get a chance to take a Tule elk. That would leave the Roosevelt to complete the trio. I was looking at hunts to Vancouver Island, as I understand that this is the best place in the world to take a true trophy Roosevelt, but, MY GAWD, have you seen what a Vancouver hunt costs? Averages about seventeen grand, which is a little rich for my blood.

Then the idea comes that maybe southwest Alaska could fill the empty space on may wall with a Roosevelt.

However, I know absolutely NOTHING about Alaska's Roosevelt elk and elk hunting. This is the reason for this post. ANY information you Alaskans can give me about Alaska's Roosevelt hunting will be greatly appreciated, especially info on outfitters, average size I can expect and hunt prices.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Here's a start:

http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/pubs/notebook/biggame/elk.php

afognak island, ak. is the place that u are thinking of.

the roosevelt can be taken in n. california by lottery by residents only, in oregon, and the 2 islands.

afognak prices are around 6-7k for elk. i have hunted there it is very tough terrain. permits are lottery.

currently, i am weathered in at kodiak.

good luck.

cold zero

GAHUNTER: I've hunted Afognak Island 3 times for elk, the last time was this past Oct. As of this year, there were 2 drawing hunts with the last one ending Oct. 22. Each hunt period lasting for 2 weeks. Should you be selected, you may not apply again for 2 years. After the drawing seasons, there is a registration hunt which may be closed at any time by F&G if the quota is met. A large portion of the island is in native control & to hunt on their land, you must pay a tresspass fee in addition to a fee to hunt the animal. Basically, the Western & Northwestern portions of the island are open to the public without paying fee to the native corporations.
Having said all that, I can tell you that in my opinion, it's the toughest hunting in Alaska, including sheep hunting. The primary obstacles are weather then terrain & finally (but always to be kept in the back of your mind), bears. We were supposed to be flown in to Afognak on Oct. 6th after arriving in Kodiak on the 5th. We barely made it to Kodiak from Anchorage and then we didn't get to Afognak until the 8th (the day our permits started) due to weather. In the 2 weeks we were there, I'd guess we were tent bound for about 1/3 of the time. We had 30 - 40 mph winds, rain & some snow at the higher elevations. Depending on the area of Afognak you hunt, walking can be extremely tough and I firmly believe anyone getting an elk does so only by luck. We tend to try climbing the mountainside and then glassing down. The slopes are littered with alders, peckerbrush & small patches of timber. While climbing, the brush seems to wrap itself around your feet. Attempting to break out by going through the timber patches is useless. The tree's branches are so close together that you can't get through with your packboard. You'll have to use a packboard, you know. In addition to that, even in Oct., there may be a small salmon run in the creeks - whoa there brother, big bear time. Better keep your eyes wide open & be on the ball.
Also, the bulls tend to have small antlers, both in mass and size. I've been told it's because of the thick timber. For shelter this year, we took an Arctic Oven umbrella tent made here in Fairbanks along with a small wood stove. That tent paid for itself in spades & stood up to the weather just fine. In addition, we also took some fire logs we picked up in town for the stove to insure that we'd have a warm tent & wouldn't have to worry about getting the local wood to burn. I'd definitely recommend you not take a wall tent. Been there & done it & froze to death.
Have rambled on for too long but hope some of my experiences help. Am I planning on going back again? You bet!! Why? Can you spell T H E R A P Y?

Bear in Fairbanks

[ 11-20-2003, 10:33: Message edited by: Bear in Fairbanks ]

Bear in fairbanks,

Could you please give more information on the tent that you used. Like maybe an web page, manufacture, or phone number for same.

Thanks,
peartree

Bear, ditto's on the request for information on the tent. It sound like a good one. We go to kodiak with a wall tent and would like to use a different type. Thank's, Greg

peartree;

use the bombshelter from barneys sports chalet. it'll withstand just about anything.

cold zero

I was also interested in the tent.

Did a quick search on Google and came up with the following....

http://www.frb-biz.com/alaskacanvas/

Barney's also makes some great tents.

Regards,
Dave

If you are looking for a "Tipi" style tent take a look at Kifaru .

Etolin Island also has an Elk draw. You can contact the ADF&G biologist in Petersburg for all the info. It is a very tough hunt and success rate this year was way low. They are there with some 300+ B&C bulls. No guides are working the hunt yet. A successful hunt requires lots of logistics planning and hard work and is costly.

It might go over the counter registration in the next few years.

B&C will only accept a Rocky score because in the origonal transplant there were a few Rockies throwed in by the Oregon Game dept to fill the required number. That mistake was a costly one as all the Rockies have died and the herd is obviously Roosevelts. There was probably no interbreeding even if it is possible.

[ 11-20-2003, 21:28: Message edited by: muskeg ]

Ok folks, here's the info on the tent we used on Afognak Island. It's made by
Alaska Tent & Tarp,
529 Front St.,
Fairbanks, AK 99701
(I'm guessing on the zip code)
Their local phone #'s are: (907)-456-6328 or
(907)-456-5501
I understand they have a shop in Anchorage as well but have no info on it and I've been told the Anchorage shop has this work done here in Fbks. This is based on what I've heard.
The tent is the Arctic Oven and is an umbrella style with a rain fly. The inner material is white colored, rather porus looking and breathable. We experienced no condensation inside whatsoever. Our model was 10' square although they make an 8' square style as well. The entire tent was enclosed so no wind could get in and there are several side openings protected from the weather, allowing for air circulation. These guys know what they're doing & a lot of people depend on their products. We used the smallest wood stove available with 1/3 of a firelog at night. The tent got so hot that you couldn't get into your sleeping bag. We'd lay on top of our bags until perhaps 1 or 1:30 A.M. when we'd begin getting chilly & crawl in. No, we didn't get up & stuff the stove with more wood later at night. My partner has a friend living up in the Brooks Range who has this same tent in the 8' style & uses it in the winter for trapping. I understand that he uses a small propane heater rather than wood. Understand, this will be considered an very expensive tent to many. Including the wood stove & kit, my outfit ran at $1300.00. Yeah, a lot of money but it's gonna last a lifetime. The entire package including poles weighs about 60 lbs., Very good for when you have to consider weight for bush planes. For you guys in the Lower 48 and unfamiliar with Alaska hunting conditions, I can't emphasize enough the need for quality equipment while out in the bush. As mentioned above, we were tent bound for about 1/3 of the time and almost as comfortable as being in a hotel - very warm & dry. I'm not familiar with all styles of tents available but I'd be hard pressed to trust anything else in the conditions we encountered. Sorry for the long diatribe but one thing seems to lead to another. Hope this helps some of you. Bear in Fairbanks

Alaska Tent & Tarp web page

http://www.alaskatent.com

Regrds,
Dave

The Arctic Oven is the premier winter tent. I've stayed with a friend in his and want my own, but can't afford the price.

I've been looking for a used one, but haven't had much luck. I learned a few years ago about an outfitter/guide selling off several (at around $700 each), but foolishly didn't jump on it when I had the chance.

Anybody out there have a used 10'x10' Arctic Oven for sale, by chance?

tsturn:
Didn't mention it because I thought I'd keep that as a surprise for when they get there.
In fact, I've never run into large patches of it although there seem to be small patches everywhere. My understanding, though I don't know personally, is that the larger patches are much more prevalent near the coastlines. The 1st trip we made was to Afognak Lake. The 2nd was 2 years ago to the Malina Lake area and this year was to Hidden Lake. I think the Hidden Lake area was the toughest of the 3 trips. The native corp. now controls the Afognak Lake area & I'll be damned if I'm gonna pay 'em a dime to hunt game that's owned by the people of the state. Don't get me going on that one. I'll write some things I shouldn't. Later. Bear in Fairbanks

I hunted the Afognak Lake area in 1999, having drawn the early (Sep 25-Oct 1) either-sex tag. My hunting partner also had this tag.

We had selected a a bush operation ahead of time, and were flown out to the area on the 23rd. The original plan was to hunt the Malina Lakes herd, but we located them halfway up on the salt-water side of the ridge north of the lakes in some genuinely gnarly brush. The winds were nothing short of scary - we were in a Beaver - and we didn't dare set down in the bay.

We had spotted a smaller herd towards the west end of Afognak Lake on the way in, and recluctantly decided to set up there. We used my then-new Bomb Shelter and hung up a few wind-blocking tarps - nice camp.

We spent the 24th scouting the area we'd seen the elk, but determined they had headed south onto the northern slopes of Afognak Mountain. We headed over that way on opening day and stumbled across the herd up in some rather thick timber. I decided to take a cow, and shot a huge old gal from about 60 yards away - .338, 250-gr Woodleigh, excellent performance. We spotted the herd bull, but he and the rest were trucking up through the brush in high gear, out of range.

We skinned and butchered the cow, and packed out as much as we could carry. Too much, in fact. The clouds had moved in by then and we didn't have a compass or GPS, so we wound up in the wrong drainage and added at least two hard miles to the packing. We finally spotted an open area that we figured was the lake - it turned out to be the the open area to the west, and the ridge we went down became much steeper than we had figured on. By the time this was evident and it was too late to go back up, we were in some nasty Devil's Club. Reaching the bottom, we had to transverse perhaps a hundred yards (or miles..) of dying alders. That was very hard on the sense of humor.

We hung the quarter and sacks of good cuts, and headed back up for the rest. When we arrived it was immediately obvious our kill had been discovered by a bear... It had pretty much buried the meat I had laid out on a space blanket and dragged the innards back into some brush. We backed way, way off and looked things over for an hour with binocs. I won't go into the details of the decision-making process as to whether or not to approach the kill, but after some serious discussion of all scenarios we decided to try to recover the remaining rear quarter and front shoulders. We would not under any conditions have undertaken this in really thick brush, but fortunately the elk had fallen in a rather open area where there was no place where the bear could ambush us. Even so, it was still about as exciting as this lad could handle.

We scraped the moss off the big pieces and left the scene as fast as we could, stopping a couple of ridges away to partially bone the quarters. We hustled back to camp, cleaned and hung everything up and waited for the bear to pay us a visit - in fact, we were up most of the night.

We spent another four days trying to locate the herd, but never got anywhere close to them. As a side note, we were atop the mountain right across Raspberry Strait from the gent - stud! - that took down a brownie with his Buck knife that day.

So, all things considered it was a fine experience. Both of us have had a lot of experience hunting bear and deer in SE AK, and were more or less prepared for the unpleasant conditions and terrain we encountered at times. We had also excellent weather the whole time - very rare! - with nights dropping down below freezing, which kept the meat cool. It was still thoroughy chilled when I got it back to Juneau, and was needless to say some fine stuff.

All in all, it would be worth doing again IF I didn't have to face being held up by the local "stewards of the land", and of course had a really good partner or two.

Jodar,

Good read.

That herd down On Etolin and Zarembo is spreading around. It won't be long before the Elk hunting on POW becomes good.

Brian,

Saw one last year above Ratz Harbor. Either that or it was the godang biggest blacktail in the world!

-Kees-

Don't get your hopes up BW. The POW hunters will just claim it as customary and traditional subsistance hunting and clost it to non-island hunters.

This year they want to keep the Aug deer closure in effect and close the season from Oct 15 to Dec 31 to non-island deer hunters.

[ 11-28-2003, 01:48: Message edited by: muskeg ]

Muskeg,

"customary and traditional subsistance"

That should be funny, but it's way to close to the probable truth to laugh.