I'm planning a combo fishing and caribou hunting trip for this summer. The proclamation has not been released by based on past years I hope the hunt near Chicken East of Tok will be open on the 9th of August. I need to get my plans set and can't wait till the proclamation is issued to be sure, so if the hunt is not open we will spend the entire week fishing instead, without much lost really.

Our plans are to get into Anchorage on the 5th (Sunday) and travel directly to Valdez to spend Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday fishing on rivers and on charters.

Wednesday night we will drive the 350 miles to Chicken and hunt Thursday, Friday and Saturday for Caribou, getting back to Anchorage on Saturday night for flights on Sunday. My father lives in Anchorage so he will be taking care of all the meat and shipping it down when it is ready. He successfully hunted in Chicken last year and mentioned that we will probably need a quad per person (there are 6 of us total, traveling in a rented RV), but I'm hoping we can limit that if not avoid it completely.

It's a pretty fast trip with a fair bit of driving, but we will have 6 drivers and can plan to drive through the night if we need. The Chicken area is supposed to be an *easy* hunt, but if we don't all get something it won't be the end of the world, it's vacation for crying out loud.

Can anyone familiar with the areas give me any feedback? We should already have an RV reserved, but not the quads yet.

Thanks-
Shane

Shane,

There's no doubt that you and your friends will have a great time while up here. I've never been to Chicken, so I just couldn't say how it'll be.

Next time you come up, and I hope you do, I'd suggest limiting your travel and the game pursued. I'm going to guess that for the same amount of money you are going to spend on RV rental, gas and food, you could fly into rural Alaska, target one species, i.e., Nushagak River king salmon in Dillingham, Halibut or salmon out of Valdez, same fish out of Sitka, Black bear in McGrath, Caribou out of Kotts, whatever, and have great success and maybe more fun.

Back when Dillingham had caribou, flying here wasn't terribly expensive, the bush flight was short, so also not terribly expensive, and there were caribou everywhere, so the success rate was high.

Alaska is a big state, and you see very little of it from the road.

You'll have tons of competition for caribou on that hunt and if you don't have wheelers, you will be lucky to get a caribou. Chances are good that they will be miles from the road when the season opens. I've done that hunt 3 times and seena agrand total of 5 caribou in all those trips, 2 cows and 3 calves. You'll need to stop in Tok and get your registration permits before you can hunt and if your not in place before opening day you'll be doing good to even see a caribou. There are much better places to hunt caribou than Chicken but on your time restraint it's probably your only option. Good luck.

Thanks for the comments. Last time I was up we spent two weeks cruising AK in an RV fishing from Anchorage to hell and back, had a ton of fun. We did get a little *ahem* bored of fishing though and wanted to hunt, hike, something- and my old man suggested the Chicken hunt.

His (my dad's) expeience with hunting around Chicken is only one year but he seems to think there are lots of animals around and it should have pretty good odds of getting into a few animals. Please keep in mind that I make it SOP to not think he knows his butt from a hole in the ground. When I was up there fishing last time he had never fished for salmon in any of the places we went and he had lived there for nearly 20 years. He really doesn't get out much.

My understanding is the Chicken hunt is very popular, maybe we should either decided we are doing it big (quads for everyone and balls-to-the-wall) or just bag it for the time being. Tough decision, which I why I asked here.

Thanks again, feel free to make any other comments.

If you can get the wheelers and and get in early you stand a much better chance of seeing a caribou or 50. It's been a few years since I hunted there but nothing has changed, the crowds are still there and the hunt tends to close down early. Another thing, make doubly sure you know that your shooting at a bull caribou, not a cow....Fish and Game likes to hang around there that time of year and people get busted every year. If you guys are certified bow hunters you could always hunt the Haul road but that takes a lot more logistics wise.