Gear for Alaska hunt?

pict

pict

Joined
Jan 7, 2003
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Fellow Survivors,

I have been handed the trip of a lifetime. My brother-im-law has invited me to hunt with him in Alaska and another friend has given me the tickets to get there. We will be in the Wrangell Mts.

I have three weeks to get things together. I will have a .41 mag loaded with Cor-Bon 250 hard cast and a .22 pistol for spruce hens/ptarmigan/rabbits. My rifle is still undecided, as it stands the only thing I have personally is a .30-06. I am trying to locate something bigger.

My brother is loaning me all the cold weather gear I'll need. I do need to buy gortex pants and some boots. Any suggestions?

What blade would you take to Alaska? My small knife is going to be a Newt Livesay NRGS that I have set up as a psk neck knife. I do not have a hatchet or axe but we will have a chain saw and an axe at base camp. Do I bother to take the Ka-bar?

I'm sure I'll bounce other questions in the following days. Mac
 
Go to Campmor or Cabela's for clothing.

For boots, I'd find a Redwing store. You just can't try out boots over the internet.

The Timerline hatchet is nice because it's 440_ and has a nice edge which may be good for skinning. It's also small, ~9" overall.

The Garmin Geko 301 is also very small and if you're a little lost it can get you back to camp. Very simple, but it has an altimeter and elec compass.

Don't leave home without the Pocket Survival Kit.
 
ras said:
The Timerline hatchet is nice because it's 440C and has a nice edge which may be good for skinning. It's also small, ~9" overall.
Click to expand...
Your linked site says "The Timberline Bush Pilot Survival Hatchet was designed by Russ Kommer. This compact hatchet features a 4" 440 stainless steel blade with Scotch Brite satin finish and peg puller."

Usually no letter reference to 440, means its 440A.
 
dullone said:
Your linked site says ..."440 stainless steel blade"...

Usually no letter reference to 440, means its 440A.
Click to expand...
Don't recall where the "C" came from -- may have been wishful thinking.
 
i have hunted alaska twice, i found that cabela's dry plus worked well for me, even when hit with the remnants of a typhoon on one trip. i wore both fleece pants lined with dry plus and a rain parka with dry plus. the guides seemed to like the helly hanson rain gear but it is rubberized heavy stuff, and you will sweat a lot no matter what you wear. as far as boots are concerned, i was fortunate that the area i hunted i could use my rocky stalkers, and they did a good job in the wet , many places hunters use the cabel's ankle fitted hip waders due to the marsh like conditions.

as far as a knives and cutlery, the guide carried a camp axe, ( a gransfors hunters axe would be ideal), a saw,( maybe one of the wyoming saws would fit the bill). a 5-6 inch fixed blade knife and a sharp pointed folder that he used to cape the hides. i like the knives of alaska brown bear combo for this use. this and a wyoming saw would work well. some of the guides used a repala filleting knife for boning out kills to transport the meat without carrying bones. not very expensive but would cut well. there is not much chopping to be done especially if you have a chain saw and axe in camp, so all you need to carry is you game processing tools, and your survival gear when you are hunting. the ground and woods are usually very wet so take multiple firestarting methods and dry tinder with you, some guys i know have even taken to carrying part of a highway flare to use to start a fire quickly..

also there is a lot of water around, but you need some way to purify it when you are out hunting, take a filter and /or some purifying tablets, i did not and had a particularly thirsty walk back to camp after stalking a moose for 5 hours. i really wished i had some aqua pure tablets that day let me tell you as i walked from beaver pond to beaver pond all filled with ice cold crystal clear water. i have a friend that had a worse experience as he had no water with him at all after a tough day of hunting he dragged himself back to camp bone dry but surrounded by streams, i always have a fresh bottle of aqua pure tablets or a polar pure bottle with me when i go hunting now!!!

have a great trip, give us a report when you get back.

alex
 
pict said:
Fellow Survivors,

I have been handed the trip of a lifetime. My brother-im-law has invited me to hunt with him in Alaska and another friend has given me the tickets to get there. We will be in the Wrangell Mts.

I have three weeks to get things together. I will have a .41 mag loaded with Cor-Bon 250 hard cast and a .22 pistol for spruce hens/ptarmigan/rabbits. My rifle is still undecided, as it stands the only thing I have personally is a .30-06. I am trying to locate something bigger.

My brother is loaning me all the cold weather gear I'll need. I do need to buy gortex pants and some boots. Any suggestions?

What blade would you take to Alaska? My small knife is going to be a Newt Livesay NRGS that I have set up as a psk neck knife. I do not have a hatchet or axe but we will have a chain saw and an axe at base camp. Do I bother to take the Ka-bar?

I'm sure I'll bounce other questions in the following days. Mac
Click to expand...


What type of game will you be hunting? 30.06 is plenty for anything in Alaska at reasonable distances.

As for clothes and boots.....If you will be flying into Anchorage just spend a few hours shopping to pick a pair of xtra-tuffs and some gore-tex bibs and a rain coat.

have a good trip!
 
pict said:
Fellow Survivors,

I have been handed the trip of a lifetime. My brother-im-law has invited me to hunt with him in Alaska and another friend has given me the tickets to get there. We will be in the Wrangell Mts.

I have three weeks to get things together. I will have a .41 mag loaded with Cor-Bon 250 hard cast and a .22 pistol for spruce hens/ptarmigan/rabbits. My rifle is still undecided, as it stands the only thing I have personally is a .30-06. I am trying to locate something bigger.

My brother is loaning me all the cold weather gear I'll need. I do need to buy gortex pants and some boots. Any suggestions?

What blade would you take to Alaska? My small knife is going to be a Newt Livesay NRGS that I have set up as a psk neck knife. I do not have a hatchet or axe but we will have a chain saw and an axe at base camp. Do I bother to take the Ka-bar?

I'm sure I'll bounce other questions in the following days. Mac
Click to expand...
check out the hatchet @ the bottom of this page - http://www.grecoknives.com/GRECO250a.htm

but, you're forgetting flashlights!
1). the Underwater Kinetics 4AA eLED - this light is just amazing. it's super-tough, it's waterproof/dustproof/shockproof, when i run it with lithium batteries it keeps its original level of light for close to 15 hours, and that runtime + the level of light you get out of it, is what makes this light the greatest hiking light i ever used. i wouldn't dream of hitting the trails without it.
- this is where you can get it
- this is what Quickbeam thinks of it

2). the Princeton Tec Yukon HL - this light is also super-tough. nearly waterproof/shockproof, you get alotta runtime from either the 5mm LED's (120 hours) or the luxeon (25 hours), and the luxeon is brighter than the original incandescent version of the Yukon. i usually wear this while i'm hiking, even tho i don't often turn it on.
- this is where you can get it
- this is what Quickbeam thinks

3). the Petzl Zipka Plus - super-tough, super-small, super-light. three levels of light (high/medium/low and also a strobe mode), aren't too bothered by water but not waterproof. this is what i use when i'm around the campsite.
- this is where you can get it
- this is what Quickbeam thinks
 
go to outdoorforums.com hunting. This is a website all about hunting in Alaska. Lots of info in archives. Never been but my buddy did a caribou hunt and says he only took his hip boots off to go to sleep.
 
Guys,

Thanks for the great advice and links. I've been running around borrowing gear for a few days and it looks like I'm not going to have to spend too much to get it all together.

I will say that it is a huge task for a guy who normally lives in Brazil to outfit for Alaska! Talk about your extremes. Later this week I should have a list of the gear I'm taking.

Mac
 
Luopo,

Thanks for asking. I had an awesome time. We mainly hunted wolves and bear. Didn't shoot either but we did have wolves come in several times to the call and respond vocally often. I did get a bunch of spruce hens and Ptarmigan with a .22 revolver. Those spruce hens are tough! I saw one hit with a .357 mag and fly off after leaving a good portion of guts and a 20 foot blood trail.

Alaska is incredible. The weather ranged from 15 to 45 degrees and it was very hard to prepare for. The clothes I took (Gortex & wool) did very well but my boots were not up to the job. I did buy a Gortex parka from Cabellas for the trip. It paid for itself on the first seven mile ATV ride in freezing rain.

We ended up staying in a cabin so it wasn't as rough as I had envisioned. We had heat, no water, and were able to sleep in actual beds. It snowed just about every night. I think we got a total of 18 inches. It was at that borderline at the top end of an ATV's operating ability and the start of snow machine weather.

I told my brother-in-law that this was the first of my trips to Alaska. The next time I'll take better boots and a set of lightweight overwhites. It's a shame I can't post pictures here. Mac
 
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