ATVs ruin atmosphere of hunt

The big moose hunting trip is history. Gnarly Dan, Sweet William (a man of delicate sensitivities) and I have returned from the Alaska wilderness. We had a lot of fun on the trip, saw some beautiful country, ate good meals and generally relaxed from the demands of the daily grind (yes, even retired guys face a daily grind).

Oh, by the way, Sweet William harvested a forkhorn bull, too.

We were hunting in an area that required about a 12- to 14-mile ATV ride to access. The trail going in was heavily rutted and made for some slow going for the two of us pulling meat trailers loaded with food and gear. Once we arrived in the area, we started meeting all kinds of other folks who had made the same trip in to access this apparently popular area. Now I know why the trail was so rutted.

We were in a large area with a lot of moose sign, but there were also a lot of other hunters we hadn’t figured would be around. With all the ATVs and off-road motorcycles buzzing around, the ambiance of a quiet wilderness experience was lost to the irritating buzz of the motorcycles’ two-stroke engines.

All of the trails in the area, except the hardened gravel ones, were torn up by folks racing around and playing in the mud. In some marshy areas, the original trail had been rerouted to where a 100-foot-wide trail of torn up muddy ground was what was left. I was surprised at this blatant lack of respect for the habitat and the area.

Now, before you get your shorts in a wad, remember I said we had accessed the area on ATVs. We were accessing our various hunting areas by driving our ATVs from camp to the general area and walking in to hunt. I’m not against the use of ATVs to access an area to hunt — obviously, I used one myself to do just that on this trip.

What bothered me was the way some operators were just racing around and tearing up the trails, apparently just because they could race around and tear up trails with little chance of being caught. There were other vast spaces neighboring where we were with plenty of water to splash and gravel to spin out on that could sustain that type of habitat abuse with little or no permanent scaring of the landscape over time. Why tear up sensitive and delicate marsh habitat?

I was hunting an area along the edge of the big swamp where three game trails came together. I would drive my ATV from camp to a parking spot off the trail and walk in about 300 yards to hunt. I was using a ground blind that provided both concealment from watchful eyes and a dry place out of the wind and rain that occurred almost daily during the time we were there. My enthusiasm was stoked by the fact that a cow moose walked by within 15 yards of the blind only 20 minutes after I had set it up and settled in. However, that proved to be the only moose I saw from that location during the hunt.

Bill jumped his bull about a half-mile from my location around 2 p.m. on Labor Day. I heard the two shots and wondered if that was Bill. When I returned to camp a little while later to see what was up, I found a note telling where to find Bill and his moose. I met Gnarly on the way out and we both proceeded to help Bill butcher his little bull.

Gnarly and I are planning a couple of late-season day-trips since both our moose tags are currently unfilled. Another moose will sure help on that ever-present grocery bill.

Now that the termination dust is settling on this fishing season, I’d like to congratulate Samantha Oslund on becoming the new Cook Inlet Northern District Sport Fish Assistant Area Management Biologist in the Palmer office. I first met Sam at the Alaska Board of Fisheries Upper Cook Inlet meeting in 2008. She had just recently transferred to the Palmer office from Anchorage.

Sam got her start with Fish and Game in the Anchorage Sport Fish information office, so she came to Palmer well versed in the regulations and all the where, why and how questions people always ask information staff. Once in Palmer, she started to learn the particulars of the Cook Inlet Northern District.

I was involved in making several sport fishing presentations to various groups, including the state parks volunteer training program each year, and asked Sam if she would be able to help out. She scheduled the appointed days and did a great job of explaining the regulations and other programs the department had going on. Frankly, I was impressed with her knowledge and public speaking abilities.

Over time, I would stop by the Palmer office to find out what was going on and would usually stop by to chat with Sam while making the rounds of the biologists available that day. She always had some little piece of information that I hadn’t heard yet.

I am confident that Sam will make significant contributions toward the management of our Northern District fisheries resources and is the right person for this position at this time. Congratulations — now where can I find …

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. You can leave him a message by emailing sports@frontiersman.com.