The most famous, notorious and respected islander is the brown bear, a top predator that is considered one of the largest in the world. On this expedition it is not about him, although on Kodiak you will always have to take his presence into account. After all, high in the mountains of Kodiak lives another mythical animal, as white as the eternal snow that covers the tops of its biotope. This time, one of the iconic North American game species is the moutain goat or snow goat. The second species in my sights lives a little lower, the Sitka blacktail or blacktail deer that I had also dreamed of for years. It is no surprise to my friends, who know that besides mountain hunting, hunting with bow and arrow is closest to my heart. The chance to be able to combine this on an island like Kodiak was more than a boyhood dream….
Preparation of equipment, logistics and physicality are absolutely necessary to bring expeditions like this to a successful conclusion. Not only physically or mentally, but also a large part of the administration in terms of paperwork and permits are involved. It starts from behind your desk, with the search for how to get the necessary licenses. Step two, and certainly not the most unimportant was to find an outfitter and guide with good success ratio. With my connections within the Sitka gear community, I quickly ended up with Cole Kramer. After my first contact with Cole, it turned out that it would be almost impossible to obtain “tags” or labels. The only option left for a guest hunter is the American lottery system. You register yourself for a fee to participate in the draw in order to win a tag. On about 5500 tickets, just under 500 tags would be raffled. Despite the fact that the odds were much higher than, for example, a large ticket of Euro millions, we had still mentally prepared ourselves for losing.
But not shooting is always wrong! In November 2021, my father and I had both bought us a lottery ticket for the February 2022 draw. After the trek, the information came through slowly and we kept a close eye on the official website every day. Until we suddenly got a phone call from Cole himself. As an official guide, he had already received the results and could hardly believe that we were there. Many hunters before us took several years to win their tags.
So it was official, September 2022 would be the month we left for Kodiak for Mountain goat and possibly a Sitka blacktail
Plane ticket check, visa check and many hours of fitness later it was soon September. Brussels, Frankfurt, Anchorage and finally Kodiak. We were met by our guide Cole in a typical V6 pick-up truck. At Cole’s home, the final details of the logistical part of the trip were perfectly arranged. Food for the next ten days and everything to be able to brave the fickle weather on the mountain. The next morning the adventure would begin. That evening we had enjoyed a fresh local pint and of course a hamburger.
In October we drove with the Pick up to the drop zone, the last piece of accessibility for the 4X4. From there it continued, packed and dropped, on foot. Fantastic landscapes that passed us by slowly, only focused on the tough technical climb above the tree line. Only during the short breaks, to catch my breath, could I hastily enjoy how beautiful the area was. The first day is always the hardest. Acclimatization is the message. Cole as an experienced guide soon showed how well he knew the area and soon we had spotted a large group of animals a few hundred meters above us. Like white dots on a mushroom, they stood out nicely on the green alpine grass, bathed in the sun. It amazed me time and time again how these animals navigated and moved unhindered in this inhospitable terrain. After a quick meal and a climb of several hours, we were very close to it. Mutually agreed, the plan was to first let my father shoot a billy, billy is the English term for the bucks. The nannies or goats were also open, but they preferred to be spared to take care of the offspring. Despite the very physical challenge, my dad can stretch a very nice billy with a perfect shot at 150m.
After some tall tales around the campfire, with a full belly, we slept like roses. The next morning it would be my turn to measure myself against the mountain and its inhabitants. And to make everything even more difficult I would use my compound bow. This is what I had trained for countless hours.
That night the weather changed. And if something works on the tempers, it is drizzly and bad weather. We were, from the rising of the sun, completely immersed in a thick fog, everything started slower that morning. After a few rainy hours, the wind picked up and the thick sticky fog gave way to more gusts of rain. Two other guides together with my father would start the descent to bring the stretched game to the refrigerator. Cole and I stayed behind to sit out the bad weather. Later that afternoon, the constant rainfall broke for a while and we were treated to short sunny spells. My guide absolutely wanted to take a look beyond the shoulder of a ridge that day, especially to find a passage to gain some more altitude the next day. Without proper GPS you are as good as lost here, even experienced guides like Cole take every step, tent, change in their GPS device. Vital for themselves but also for their customers. The group of mountain goats that we had spotted the first few days could not be that far away.
When you say that the weather on Kodiak can sometimes be erratic, that is putting it mildly. On the island you can literally get all seasons in 1 day. Wind, pouring rain and fog with occasional dashes of sun follow each other in rapid succession. Well-adapted rainwear is a must, along with some thermal layers of clothing that you can take off or put on if desired depending on the efforts and temperatures made. I was a little proud of myself when I first noticed the small white moving spots on the slope of a steep peak in front of us, I got a big smile and a thumbs up from Cole.
“Goats”. 300m further on, a small group slowly but surely came towards us. With the fog as our ally, we crept up to a point where the animals would pass us unnoticed between the jagged rocks over the ridge. “Don’t move” whispered Cole and a few seconds later the first goats with lambs walked past us. I made a small movement when the buck came over the ledge, it must have been less than 10m. The billy had noticed something and didn’t trust it anymore. I felt my heart in my throat and the courage sink into my shoes. But my guide with years of experience imitated a goat, which made the animal hesitate and his doubts disappeared for a while. Just enough time to my bow and fire a shot at less than 20m. As if in a movie I saw my arrow in delay hitting the animal perfectly behind the shoulder. The billy made a small spurt up only to collapse and roll past us, a real danger during these mountain hunts, losing your trophy in the inhospitable terrain of high peaks and deep gullies. But luckily he didn’t go far and we saw him a little lower. During the descent everything puzzle pieces fell into place and I really realized what had just happened….
There was little left of the last daylight, just enough so that I could take a few pictures and the game could be expertly boned. In Alaska it is a legal obligation to unpack everything from the stretched game, only the empty carcass and intestines may be left behind. When the sun sank behind the highest peaks, the wind followed by thick wisps of fog picked up again. With headlamp and GPS we found our way back to the camp. Well packed with trophy and the game roast, still an exciting descent.
Nothing better than a Yeti mug of strong coffee and a dash of Jägermeister to seal the adventure.
The next morning the long descent awaited us with a full backpack. But still in the daze of a successful hunt, everything went smoothly and we celebrated again with mountain goat fillet on the BBQ…..
Sitka black tail deer is an “over the counter tag”, which means that you can go to the local hunting shop or weapon shop to buy a license or tag. The hunt for this deer continued on the other flank of the same mountain, in the rolling grasslands just below the vegetation border. What would make it even more exciting is that the brown bears did come up to this height, so we had to watch out. Here too it was my father who was first allowed to push to find a nice buck. This time it turned out to be no easy task to find a nice representative trophy. After two full days of scouting, we finally found one in our binoculars. As craftsmen, our guides mapped out a route and an ideal position to take a shot. Good luck! Another perfect shot and a nice trophy in.
My guide Will urged me to go a few hundred meters higher, according to him on a hunch and a good feeling. Guides sometimes have a 6th sense and just as he had predicted, we found a blacktail higher up, worth stretching. The day turned out to be too short to take a chance, also because we were again surprised by the unpredictable weather. The retreat was blown, back to our tent, hoping for better weather gods.
And as Will had felt it from his tea water, we found a beautiful deer indeed, just not on our flank and to make matters worse at the very bottom of the mountain. It became a race against time. Despite all our technological gadgets such as binoculars and spotting scopes, it is always difficult to find when you lose sight of the game, especially in this terrain and with such distances. We had crept closer as best we could, taking into account the wind and the natural movements of the animals. If there is one, he is usually not alone. We sat on a flank covered with bushes, like small islands of green between the rocks and boulders. Fortunately, we had also spotted the 2 hinds that were grazing quietly on the same flank. It became a cat and mouse game. In one of the bushes I saw movement in the branches, it turned out to be part of his antlers. The deer had sunk 50m lower and the only piece of cover in his circumference was where he had been hiding, neatly out of the wind. It became a mission impossible, more than 50m to bridge, with the hinds nearby, very difficult terrain and especially no blade of cover. On all fours I crawled closer but the senses of these animals are sharp and despite my ninja moves I was seen. I took my chance when the deer stood up and stood wide. Not a perfect arrow this time but it still went down, just enough to give a catch. My blacktail had arrived. And as many hunters know, the hard work had yet to begin. Everything nicely boned and loaded in our backpacks, the heavy one could start to go up. When night falls in Kodiak, it is dark, pitch black, as if nothing existed outside the circle of your headlamp. My guide climbed steadily up a dried-up meltwater channel and I followed as best I could. It was a hellish climb of 4 hours, between slippery boulders and unstable ground. I fell asleep like a log when my head hit the pillow.
Between the climb in the evening and the descent that morning there was only a cup of hot coffee, a few hours of sleep and a lot of stiff muscles….
But the satisfaction you get from experiencing all this, with all the efforts, is indescribable.
The last two days we enjoyed the American hospitality and the good food before we returned home.
Leaving on a trip is almost as intense as returning to friends and family, with a head full of adventures and very beautiful memories……
