A couple of weeks ago I told you about my flight into northern Quebec to hunt caribou. That was nothing compared to the flight into the Talkeetna Mountains in Alaska.
In 1995 my wife and I went to Alaska for our 10th anniversary. We toured much of Alaska before I flew into the mountains for a moose hunt. We had booked a drop camp hunt with Max Schwab Outfitters in Talkeetna. He provided all of our camping equipment, our food for a week and as many flights in and out as necessary.
We put all of our hunting gear into his little two passenger float plane before cramming me in as well. We taxied out into the lake ready for my great adventure. The engine roared and the small Cessna raced down the lake. Then we lifted off for a fifty mile journey into the wilderness. Trust me, that was the easy part. We circled the hunting area and headed in for a landing.
“Where you going to land?” I asked Max.
“On that beaver pond,” he replied, as if there wasn’t any problem.
Now trust me, I’ve caught brook trout in larger beaver ponds than that one. But he touched down on one end and taxied to the other.
In Alaska you can’t fly and hunt the same day. There was nothing said about scouting, so my hunting buddy and I climbed to the tallest ridge and started scouting. I had asked Max what he had seen in that area.
He said, “There’s one that’s too big….”
Wait a minute! How can a moose with giant antlers that we are hunting be too big?
Most outfitters knew where this giant was, but never hunted him because of his huge body size. In Alaska you have to carry out every bit of edible meat before moving the antlers. This giant was estimated to be nearly a ton live weight.
Well, I shot him the following morning. It took my hunting partner and I 23 hours to field dress that bull and get the meat to the pond. But that wasn’t the worst part. Max had told us to be really careful, because there was a sow grizzly with three cubs in the area. Where do you think she would have been with a dead moose on the ground?
We got the meat to the lake and decided to build a raft and get the meat back closer to our camp. We never saw the bear, but when you’re in the Alaska backcountry, you never go anywhere without a loaded gun. You even sleep with one.
During the week, Max flew in and took my antlers and meat back to town. We hunted hard and never saw another moose but instead we saw black bears and numerous caribou.
When it was time to go home, Max flew Gene out first. He got back to the pond and picked me up about 11 p.m. that night. As we flew back to Talkeetna, he landed on a larger lake.
“I’ll fly back and pick up the rest of your gear,” he said. “I couldn’t get the plane off the water with the rest of your stuff. I’ll pick you up on the way back to town.”
So he left me in the Alaskan wilderness with no gun or provisions. I checked my pockets and found a book of matches and a partial roll of toilet paper. I figured if he never returned, I could at least start a fire. There was a big dead spruce tree right next to shore.
But he landed a while later and picked me up. However, when we flew back to town, he said, “The lake is so smooth, I can’t see the surface. I’ll drop down a foot at a time until we touch the water.”
Moments later we taxied back into town. There’s an old saying in Alaska: “Those who don’t learn how to fly in this country are dead. Make sure you pick out the good ones!”