Wrangell AK

[tg]

Any of you Alaska guys ever hunt Blacktail on Wrangell Island in Southeast AK? it probably will not be this year but I hope to make a hunt up there when visiting family in the next year or two, maybe a moose hunt up the Stikene(SP) but probably just deer with a fusil to keep the time allocations spread equally.

 

[BrownBear]

Being an island, make arrangements for your powder well ahead of time. I haven't hunted deer there in over 30 years and lots has changed for sure. We found the best bucks in high muskegs late in the season and above treeline early in the season. Deer calling is a premium skill, and the more folks that have been doing it before you got there, the better you have to be at it. I've seen moose on the Stikeen on a float, but never hunted them. Lots of black bears, too.

 

[rawhide]

havn't hunted in wrangell but I have in hoonah. about 10 years ago for brown bear with my cousins. most of the deer we seen were near a water sorce. wrangell is a neat little town you will enjoy it there.

 

[tg]

I have not been there since 1978, I am sure things are different, I would like to drive up and take the ferry, hopefully taking my powder in my truck if it is leagal and I would have transportation once there, my daugher went up in 94 and never looked back so to speak, thanks for the replies, this is looking more like a next year deal as I look at the deer seasons and my schedule this fall.

 

[BrownBear]

Enough powder in a horn for a bit of hunting is pretty easy to lose in a truck, unless one of TSA's bomb sniffing dogs happens to walk by your truck. Not worth the risk to me.

Evidently there's a procedure for declaring powder and such, then having it secured in a locker on the ferry with no problems. I haven't tried it and have only heard about it second hand.

But someone from there in Southeast, and Wrangell in fact IIRC, reported carrying powder that way here on the site a year or so ago. I think the title of the thread was something like "Black Powder Sources in the Seattle area."

If I get some free time later today I'll go thread hunting, but in the meantime a phone call to the Alaska Marine Highway system or online query to their site should yield a definitive answer.

 

[BrownBear]

Did a Quick Search and found the thread. Less info than I recall, but Karl Helwig of Juneau (the OP) said this when I asked about the ferry:

"I have brought it before and the ferry folks were happy to just put an ammo sticker in the windshield."

Worth double checking before you start the trip.

 

[tg]

"Worth double checking before you start the trip."

Thanks for the legwork, I was not going to try it on the sly, definately not worth the risk or the bad publicity for all of ML land that could occur.

 

[BillinOregon]

TG: I've always wanted to hunt the Sitka blacktail myself. I was in Wrangell about 20 years ago for a fishing trip. Lovely place. Black bears literally in town. I'll bet you'll get your deer. I would think the main issue with the powder would be getting it in and out of Canada. Surely it is available somewhere in the panhandle ...

 

[tg]

I'll figure out something Bill. I have a lot of time to plan,I may wait two years if I decied to have a new Carolina gun to take along, I would rather wait a while and do what I really want than to make a half arssed trip That I will always question later.