Panhandle Exposure
SE Alaska Outdoor Adventure Blog

We finally made it out deer hunting for the first time since we’ve been back from our 3 1/2 month sabbatical. Guess what? We forgot our picture taker at home. D’oh!

Weather was decent, overcast skies, about 32 degrees. We had a fresh snow over the night and in to the early morning. Only thing we had going against us was it briefly got warm and turned to rain, then cleared off and froze. We all know what that means, and we all hate it. Crunchy snow.

We started up the trail around 11:30ish, a very late start. We hit decent tracks fairly early in the hike, a good sign for us indeed. A set of what appeared to be nice buck tracks. We followed the tracks briefly until they started going up on to a ridgeline. At that point we decided we wanted to take it easy and just cover as much ground as possible in the valleys along the muskegs. We headed to one of our hot spots.

Once we got to our valley of brush we immediately started seeing fairly heavy deer sign. A very good thing indeed. We elected to follow a set of nice tracks back up into the valley. Along the tracks we found several fresh rubs - A very good sign that a horny buck was around somewhere. We decided to sit in a cluster of trees in the middle of a muskeg and try our luck at calling. No dice. From there we decided to head further up into the valley. We eventually came to a muskeg that looked like it had a deer highway working through it. Again we called with no luck.

With darkness quickly approaching we decided to call one last time in the heavy brush and timber. After the first series of calls we could hear somthing walking through the crunchy snow, but never could get it to come in any closer. We finally had to call it a day and head back to the trail as it was geting dark quick (Tends to do that this time of year in these parts.).

Even though the day was a bust, it was still nice to see that the deer numbers seem to have rebounded after a few previous winters of harsh weather.

With the forecast being somewhat decent for tomorrow, were going to head out again and see if we cant score. We know theres a nice Sitka Blacktail buck hanging out in the area and we are looking to score!

As we near our sea-duck expedition, things aint looking so hot. In typical Southeast fashion the weatherman just cant get things right for us!

PKZ031-181400-
STEPHENS PASSAGE-
400 PM AKST MON NOV 17 2008

…SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY TONIGHT…
.TONIGHT…N WIND 30 KT DIMINISHING TO 20 KT LATE. OUT OF
INTERIOR PASSES…GUSTS TO 40 KT IN THE EVENING. SEAS 6 FT.
.TUE…N WIND 15 KT. SEAS 3 FT.
.TUE NIGHT…N WIND 20 KT. GUSTS TO 35 KT OUT OF INTERIOR
PASSES. SEAS 5 FT.
.WED…N WIND 30 KT. GUSTS TO 40 KT OUT OF INTERIOR PASSES.
SEAS 6 FT.
.WED NIGHT…N WIND 25 KT. GUSTS TO 40 KT OUT OF INTERIOR
PASSES. SEAS 6 FT.
.THU…N WIND 25 KT. GUSTS TO 40 KT OUT OF INTERIOR PASSES.
SEAS 4 FT. RAIN.
.FRI…N WIND 15 KT. SEAS 4 FT.
.SAT…N WIND 25 KT. SEAS 5 FT.

Honestly, what can you do in a 16′ SeaArk in that? Not much my friend. Here at PHE.com we like to keep our feet dry, and our heads above water.

This is what we dont like:

Ahhh well…There are still many days left.

On a side note, I’ve been seeing tons of Goldeneyes around….We here at PHE.com do admire the way a nice fully plumed Drake Goldeye looks….

Just for tease…

Until next time….

Well, we finally made it out. After a long time away, we finally got a chance to do what we love best, hunt.

However, it was not without a few hiccups. As I sat cleaning my shotgun, a nice little metal bar fell out of the chamber…I thought to myself….”Hmmm, this has never happened before.” As I tried to put it back in, I realized that there was a hole with light shining through it that went all the way through the reciever into the chamber. DAMNIT, a pin rusted out, my shotgun is now KIA. No worries though, my good buddy Butters lent me his Beretta Pintail to hunt with.

After that nice little episode we finally made it out. Our destination would be one of our favorite late season spots. With a season high tide of +20.1ft we figured it would be a good day.

After a nice little walk, we got our decoys set up, and we decided to try a new Mojo DOVE to add a little motion to the spread. Throughout there day we had some movement as far as birds went, but overall, the hunting was not great. Whenever the birds were moving they were moving in large flocks of +50 birds. Its hard to decoy them in when there is that many sets of eyes looking at you! All in all, we managed 3 Widgeon, and 1 Buff. Abby made some great retrieves proving to be a valuable asset when it comes to puddle duck hunting.

As it stands plans are in motion to take the sled out on Wednesday and see if we cant score some sea ducks.

Stay tuned….