by Jeff Lund

Through the second growth

by Jeff Lund - Host of On Step Alaska Podcast 

 

October is an excuse to hunt lower elevations but my buddy Ryan would rather find deer than excuses so we planned on hunting the mountain as if the date was August 15. (Alpine deer season opens in Southeast, AK, in most units, on August 1st)

By October most people have settled into their low elevation hunts, keying in on muskegs, clearcuts or road hunting but October is an underrated time to go high. The waning daylight coupled with notoriously bad weather (the Ketchikan area averages 18 inches of rain each October) makes the hunt less comfortable by every measure, but it’s worth it. 

 

Through the second growth

Clearcuts make fantastic summer habitat for deer because of all the new forage. But as trees take root and shoot up thanks to the climate, the forage is squeezed out. Trees then compete against each other for sunlight and grow tall and close together. The per-acre density of second growth forest can be more than twice that of healthy old growth. If you’re attempting to punch through young second growth, the only move is to put your head down and push forward like a quarterback on 4th and 1. It’s best to call an audible and go around. 

 

We passed mostly same-age second growth and a large boggy clearing. The Anadromous Waters Catalog says the creek is home to steelhead and silvers. The water hardly moves and the river bottom is peaty muskeg. This isn’t the fault of logging. Tributaries often meander through or near muskegs and do have stretches of pebble bottoms that work for spawning. I’ll never bring my fly rod here, but the lower sections with faster water and pockets make me curious. 

The end of the logging road has been claimed by grass and is free of alders so far, but give it another five years. We started on a primitive trail, checking OnX to make sure we were on the right line. There are a few trails here. The one we want is unmarked until further into the muskeg down so that someone hunting it won’t stumble upon a path to the alpine. Ideal habitat is not the problem in Southeast Alaska. Get to the alpine. That’s where you’ll find them. The issues are weather and access. So if you’ve cut a trail or even improved a game trail, you certainly don’t want to announce it. 

 

In the alpine

After three hours, we broke into the alpine and set up the tent while low clouds obscured the top of the peak. Between brief periods of clarity, we ate moose sausage, cheese and crackers and looked around. The mountain eventually opened up. 

“Buck”

Picture crumpled tinfoil set sloppily into a bowl. Imagine the folds and creases vary from 25 to 100 yards and are peppered with clumps of alpine cedar and spruce. That’s this bowl. Absolutely perfect alpine habitat for deer, even in mid-October. There is enough food to keep them high and enough cover for safety. This buck was on the opposite side but we had a play. It was in a chute with 50 yards of deer cabbage, grass and lupine gone to seed on either side so as long as it stayed out, we’d be able to relocate it. 

We worked around to a patch of tenacious, 15-foot spruce trees, 300 yards out. 

Ryan watched through the scope as I attached my bipod.

“The bedded buck is a fork,” Ryan confirmed. 

“It’s a spike,” I argued.
“Wait, hold up. There are two forks and a spike.”
“I’m on the forkie behind the bedded spike.”

“I don’t see a bedded…oh, ok. I see. Whenever you’re ready.”

Even in the alpine my typical shot is 200 and in, though I am comfortable to 300 especially since the days of attempting to get my pack settled for a rest has been replaced with a Spartan Precision bipod that has a magnetic attachment unlike collapsible bipods that get caught on every twig on brushy hikes. 

I settled my breath and squeezed. 

Buck down, Ryan then picked the other forkie and sent it sliding down the dying vegetation. We boned out the meat, hiked back to camp, then in the morning began the long trek back to Ryan’s boat.

People across Southeast probably spent a lot less energy tagging bucks of similar size at lower elevations, but October alpine is too tempting.