The Man Cave

A big area to find a few elk

Yesterday morning we just barely beat the storm and got back from our elk hunt on Afognak.  Right after we got back it seriously started to blow and we would have been stuck until Saturday if we had not made it in.  It was a successful hunt with 2 elk harvested, lots of hiking and camping, adventure, and spectacular country seen.

This year we decided to start the hunt in a part of Afognak we've never explored before.  At this time of the year it is a 'cows only permit area' - meaning we could only harvest female elk.  So of course we only saw bull or male elk.  And we saw some of the biggest bulls I have ever seen - one after the other. It got to be sort of a joke, and we came up with various names for the area based on the men-only theme.  My favorite was the 'Man Cave'.

In a weird way it was kind of nice to just watch the elk and know that there was going to be no harvesting going on - no pressure so we could just relax and watch them.  And the man cave theme extended to deer as well.  We saw no does - just one big buck after another.  And they too were safe because we were hunting elk and not deer.

After our 3 day traverse through the area the boat picked us up and we moved to another part of Afognak Island.  More to come!  Patrick

These are all bulls - we were only allowed to harvest cows

That's a big bear that made those

Another big boy - he's lucky we were hunting elk

Some good old Afognak salmonberry and alder

Elk love this sort of meadow