The Hunter's Alaska

by Roy F. Chandler

  Then, there are the PETA and Friends of Animals-type people. Their hearts are great and their intentions good, but their incredibly naive and extremely uninformed pitches sour the guts of those of us who live among and from the great game animals. There are humans who grant equivalency to hogs and humans, fish and humans, and birds and humans. There are others who give animals primacy over humans. In their eyes we must all be vegetarians—although I am not clear on how we would handle the overpopulation of animals that would surely encroach on our plantings.

  Extremism is bad on either end of a normal curve. The difference is that we hunters do not attempt to restrict non-hunters, but they are continually after us to change our allegedly cruel and bloodthirsty ways.

  Sport hunting has never endangered a species. It never will. There are effective game departments in every state to preclude that happening.

  So, how many reasons can we assemble to explain a wish to hunt? I can think of twelve. I do not necessarily approve of all of them.

  1. For the challenge of finding and taking the animal.

  2. As an added reason for enjoying the out of doors.

  3. To obtain meat for eating.

  4. For enjoyment of firearms (or bows and arrows).

  5. As a symbol of manliness.

  6. To restrict or protect animal populations.

  7. For exercise.

  8. For companionship.

  9. For adventure (perhaps danger).

  10. To escape routines.

  11. To collect a bounty.

  12. To teach others.

  Yes, they have other game in Alaska. This is a blacktail deer shot on Kodiak Island. The imported elk herd on Afognak Island should be mentioned as well, but elk are better hunted in the lower forty-eight.

  32 - Random Thoughts

  To eat well on a few days trip into the mountains, pre-make roast beef sandwiches and include compatible servings of thick gravy packed in triple plastic bags. By simply heating the small amount of gravy (which can be accomplished in a corner of a pan held over a candle or the tiniest of spruce twig fires) a satisfying meal is easily and quickly prepared.

  Taxidermists use a ploy to "improve" a hunter's goat trophy. They put a fiberglass plug in the hollow horn base and mount the horn a considerable distance further from the skull than it should be. Such mounts do not fool anyone making official measurements, but they do make the horns about ten percent longer, and that is a lot on an otherwise ordinary goat trophy.

  A goat horn is measured from the tip to the base of the outer horn. There is a definite ending there, and that point should be right down in the hair of the head, almost on the skull. A taxidermist would commit a lengthening atrocity only with an owner's permission, but it is a mighty poor-spirited hunter that needs to bugger up his trophy with phony additions.

  In Alaska, I do most of my practice shooting at rocks in creek beds. Rock shooting is the way I prefer to maintain rifle/pistol skill. In the lower forty-eight such shooting might be hazardous, but in the Great State, creek beds can be hundreds of yards wide with no one else within miles. I am, of course, referring to shooting out to three hundred yards.

  Picking interesting rocks at unknown ranges quite rapidly develops skill at estimating range and the holding necessary to make solid hits. It is also interesting shooting. The rocks usually give off a good puff of dust, and the shooter's interest does not sag as it might pumping away at a known distance on a round bull's eye.

  I ate a marmot once. The whistling rodents are all over Alaska, and I wondered just how edible they might be. A clean head shot with the old .44 Magnum put a marmot down. Skinned, cleaned, and washed the small animal looked appetizing. We stuffed a few potatoes and a lot of arrowroot dug from along the creek banks into the abdominal cavity; then we wrapped the entire carcass in aluminum foil. The meal baked for hours in the coals of our campfire, and when we finally broke it out the meat fell from the bones. I thought the marmot tasted delicious. The flavor and texture seemed comparable to gray squirrel, and the arrowroot imparted a turnipy flavor that I enjoyed.

  In some photos the reader may have noticed that the author carries his rifle on the right shoulder and his pistol on the left hip. As I shoot ambidextrously there is an advantage or two in having the weapons on opposite sides. Primarily, my opposite side reason is that the butts of the two weapons are not repeatedly striking each other. There is also an ability to draw the pistol without having to swing your rifle out of the way. The rifle is carried slung over the right shoulder because a bolt action rifle is best operated right handed. If I have to go after a bear at close quarters, I sometimes turn my pistol butt forward into a cross draw position. This allows reaching with either hand. I have never needed that small refinement, but if one is doing it, one might as well do it all the way.

  No one can learn everything about Alaska and its game, but anyone can add to his knowledge by good reading. Fortunately there are fine books available about hunting in the Great Land. A number of the more difficult to find are listed below. They are worth locating, and they will provide a reader with extensive fact and opinion as well as regale him with interesting and enlightening hunting tales.

  The Wilderness of the Upper Yukon

  Charles Sheldon

  The Wilderness of the Denali

  Charles Sheldon

  A Year Among Sheep at Mt. McKinley

  Charles Sheldon

  The Wild Grizzlies of Alaska

  John M. Holzworth

  Hunting and Fishing in Alaska

  Russell Annabel

  A Naturalist in Alaska

  Adolph Murie

  Arctic Wild

  Lois Crisler

  The Big Game Animals of North America

  Jack O'Connor

  Alaskan Adventures, The Early Years

  Russell Annabel

  I have never read an article that told me how much ammunition to take with me on an Alaskan hunt. I have worked out my own needs pretty well over the years. Other people may not agree. The Old Guide carried only what was in his rifle, but I never knew him to need more than one shot per animal. Jerry packed an extra twenty-round box in his pack. Art Troup and I usually carry our magazines full but our chambers empty, and the rifle OFF cock. In our favorite pocket are five more rounds. Unless the trip is extended, that is all we take. Lordy, if you cannot do the job with nine or ten rounds … !

  When I hunt alone in the mountains, I carry an extra twenty-round box of ammunition in my own pack. Being alone, way out, changes many things.

  Ammunition just stuffed into a pocket is against all of the guidance one reads. After trying belt loops, jacket loops, pouches, and extra box magazines, I am back to loose rounds in my pocket. I have never had them clink at a bad moment (or at any moment), and I have never had trouble with a dirty round. I reach automatically into that right hand pocket, grab 'em all, and in they go, no trouble, no confusion. I guess I will not go on record as claiming that is THE spot to carry extra ammo, but that is my way.

  Wind in the mountains can be fluky. Rod Washburn taught me a trick that I use quite often. Before the hunt I fill a squeeze bottle of the nasal spray type with talcum powder. During an approach, little squeezes of the bottle will check even the tiniest of breeze directions. Squeezing a bottle beats tossed up grass or wetting upheld fingers, and it surely stands ahead of our usual condition concerning wind shifts, which is simply not knowing.

  A brownie or a grizzly normally fishes by stepping on a fish and carrying it away in his jaws. He almost never flips a fish from the water with his paw, as too many popular paintings show.

  A neat little gimmick when camping on gravel bars is to fasten your tent rope by tying the rope end around a small stone and then dropping a big rock on top to hold it all in place. Since you cannot get a tent pin to hold in the soil of a gravel bar, you may resort often to this system.

  This raises the question of why camp out on a bar? The first good answer is that you can avoid a lot of bugs.
You are also close to water, your fire is safer, and you have a flat spot on which to lay your weary bones.

  When I am backpacking where I might need a hatchet, I carry a small tomahawk like this one.

  The tool is very light and thin bladed. It slices more than it chops. I recommend a tomahawk of this model for any backpacking hunter.

  An acquaintance took a charging brown bear at very close range. He mistakenly aimed to hit the bear between the eyes. His bullet struck the brownie in the nose and drove on in to explode the bear's brain. A perfect shot for an instant kill.

  In actuality, my inexperienced friend was spared a possible mauling by a ballistic fact of which he knew nothing. If his bullet had been delivered between the eyes where he had intended, the bullet could have ricocheted off the bear's sloping skull, and the brownie might have avenged his instant headache on my friend's tender body.

  But, a scope-sighted rifle starts the bullet more than an inch below the line of sight. Somewhere down range (about 25 yards or so) the bullet crosses the line of sight and later again drops below it. So, at extremely close range, as my friend's shot was, his aiming point between the eyes compensated and was correct for the bullet still traveling below the line of sight to hit the bear in the nose.

  I suppose there are two points to be made here. The first might be that someone seems to look after dumb hunters, but do not depend on it. The second should be that at point blank range your rifle shoots low. You should know that and plan for it.

  Pistol marksmanship depends almost entirely on sight alignment. Exact sight relationship over the short pistol barrel is critical.

  An excellent way to develop sight picture and trigger control is to dry fire your pistol at a blank wall, without a target. This practice eliminates the attention catching bull's eye and allows the shooter to concentrate on his sights and his trigger release.

  I often sit in my living room dry firing at my television screen. I can choose a blank area for practice as mentioned above, or I can aim at selected targets on the screen.

  An important factor in successful game shooting is to get off when desired. There is no slow, timed, or rapid fire in the field, but there are moving targets and perhaps charging ones. Holding and squeezing for interminable periods before the trigger breaks is not practical marksmanship for the hunter. Game too often shifts its position while the perfectionist is struggling with his wobble area and fining his sight picture. The hunter must get his gun up, see the sights, and fire.

  A well-lighted TV screen with its quickly changing pictures can provide realistic and effective practice for all of the above for both rifle and pistol. If the shooter loiters on his trigger pull he will be aiming at something different then he intended. Using programs that include big game photography can offer a multitude of angles on actual game.

  An Alaskan hunter carrying a bolt-action rifle should have his magazine fully loaded but his chamber empty. When shooting appears close, he should slip a round into the chamber, but not before. Even then, the safety must be on until it is time to aim. The exception to the safety-on rule might be going after bear in the brush. Then there is no time to fiddle with gadgets.

  Safety must remain paramount, and a hunter carries his rifle a thousand hours for every hour he uses it. Cartridges in chambers are not necessary until the last moments, and until then they are bad news.

  If you are going in after dangerous game, and if there is room in the woods or brush, carry your rifle shouldered as if ready to fire but with the muzzle low. If you hold the rifle high, so that you are looking across the sights, your vision is badly obstructed—particularly just below your rifle and your forward arm. Just drop the muzzle fifteen degrees, and notice how your field of view clears up.

  Gun cleaning is something I do because I feel it is necessary, never because I enjoy it. I never pamper my guns. I consider scratches and gouges acquired in fair chase as badges of honor. If checkering gets too worn to be useful I have it recut, not for looks, but so that I can get a decent grip on the gun. Cleaning makes my gun function better. I rarely scrub it up for looks.

  I once used a rifle for two years in Alaska without even wiping it off, much less wiping it out. I never had a malfunction, and it shot well. My intention was to determine, as best I could, just what not cleaning a gun really would do. The rifle looked grubby, but I have seen worse that were occasionally cleaned. I do not think I learned much of anything by not cleaning that piece—except that I did not feel confidence in the rifle because I was unsure of how good a shape it was in.

  Ordinarily, a hunter cannot conveniently carry along a complete or elaborate cleaning kit. My field kit consists of a rod and a small can of WD-40. I use my worst t-shirt as a rag. No one needs more. I like the WD-40 because I can spray it on liberally without fear of gumming the works. It gets under moisture, yet I am not trying to grab a grease-slick bolt handle or barrel.

  When I go into high country, I sometimes carry an army-surplus cleaning rod that unscrews into a half-dozen pieces. I stick a few rifle cleaning patches and the WD 40 in somewhere, and I am in business. If I need a rag, as mentioned, I use my t-shirt.

  Above base camp I sometimes carry the rod, but never anything more. I have occasionally shoved my rifle barrel into a snow bank while clumsy-footing around. Tapping on the barrel and blowing into it while waiting for the snow to melt out does not appeal to my spirited nature. A rod comes in very handy in such cases.

  However, I fear that most of my time on the summits I have nothing along to clean out a rifle bore. I would not recommend not having a rod, but I admit to too often ending up that way. When you are laying out a pack to carry all day, it is very tempting to leave out a cleaning rod. With luck you will not need one, but man, is it tough to clamber all the way down to the willow line to try to find a stick long enough to clean out a rifle barrel.

  An obvious solution to the above problem is to tape over your rifle's muzzle. (You will see photos in this book of hunters so prepared. They used a single covering of masking tape.) In my military days, we were issued condoms for other purposes, but we used them to blouse our pants and to pull over rifle and machine gun muzzles. A bit of tape does better.

  Any rifle used in hunting big game in Alaska should be equipped with a carrying sling. Most of the time your rifle will be hung over your shoulder. Some writers advocate the use of a rifle sling in shooting. I have written that I do not. I have seen a few men crawl into a hasty sling for a shot, but I never felt handicapped because I did not. I DO feel held back trying to shoot moving targets using a sling. My feeling on a rifle sling is that its function is for carrying, not for shooting. A simple sling consisting of a leather strap looped at each end is probably the best. The military type slings that I often end up with are unnecessarily heavy. A sling should not be so wide that it will not grab your shoulder and stay on, but it should not be so narrow that it bites and hurts either. In Europe, where there is more shooting than hunting, 1/2-inch wide slings are encountered. Equipment nuts in our country sometimes show up with slings so wide that they look like cobras. Neither is right. One-half inch slings can be too weak and they can bite your shoulder. Cobra-type slings can slip from shoulders when a rifle is slung because they are too wide to get a grip behind the shoulder point. I believe that a sling 7/8 of an inch to 1-inch wide is best.

  Douglas S. Cooper demonstrates how a rifle can be slung over a Yukon-type backboard. Worrying about such a refinement may appear trivial, but as the rifle keeps slipping from your shoulder (and it will), and you are compelled to hang onto the sling, much as Cooper is in this photo, to keep from having the rifle dangle from your elbow for seemingly endless hours, you will wish you had a tall upright to loop over.

  That is why I have repeated this advice throughout the book.

  Seventeen of nineteen winners at the Camp Perry National Matches used Vihta Vuori gunpowder in their handloads. If you load your own, switch to this powder. It is so superior to the stuff we have been using the last
fifty years or so that it is difficult to describe. Incidentally, Federal uses it in their match ammo. The words are pronounced Veeta Vor-E.

  I find myself embarrassed that every road sign in Alaska has been shot full of holes. As a sportsman I would like to think that men allowed to carry guns at any time, and who do carry guns a lot of the time, would be above blasting directional signs. It appears that is not the case. There is no way that we can blame out-of-state people for doing the sign shooting. There are just too many bullet holes. I do not know a hunter who would shoot at a sign, and I know a lot of hunters. It makes me wonder who these guys are who go around getting kicks out of obliterating metal signs.

  I never recall carrying a canteen in the Alaska Range, and only rarely anywhere in Alaska. There is water everywhere. Sometimes it can even be found on the very tops of snow-less mountains. We used to say that any running water in Alaska was drinkable. That was almost true. In the mountains you did not need to worry about pollution, and with springs, streams, even rivers everywhere a hunter could rarely thirst.

  About twenty years ago that all changed. Some strange bug got into the water, so we are told, and now no one should drink any of the water unless it is treated. I find that stunning. I suppose the experts are correct. To hell with it. I still drink it straight from the stream anyway.

  One of the most enjoyable aspects of Alaskan hunting is that a hunter usually has time to look over his trophy. In other areas, it often seems that a hunter blasts at game only fleetingly glimpsed and probably little more than recognized as legal for shooting. It is nice to locate an animal, stalk him some, look at him a lot, study his horns and condition, and finally decide to take him or let him pass.