Expand your hunting horizons

I’ll make a quick mention of the coho situation and move on. The numbers as of this past Tuesday are looking more encouraging, but still not good for the Deshka River, with 4,744 coho counted through the weir.

The Little Susitna isn’t fairing nearly as well, with only 515 fish counted through. If this truly is the midpoint of the Little Susitna coho run for this year, returns are dismal (minimum escapement is 10,100 coho) and you should expect serious restrictions or an outright sport fish closure of the river in the near future (update: ADF&G closed the Little Susitna to coho fishing effective today.).

Today marks the opening of several hunting seasons in Game Management Units (GMU) 13, 14A, 14B and 16. Check the regulations book to see exactly which subunits have open seasons because there is a lot of variation within GMUs. Affected species include brown/grizzly bear, caribou, moose (bow and arrow only), sheep, goat and wolf. Several of these hunts also require permits, either registration or drawing. However, if you’re antsy about beginning the hunting season and willing to drive out of the Valley core area, you can find something legal to hunt in a general open season starting today.

If you’re more into small game hunting in the GMUs listed earlier, both grouse and ptarmigan seasons also open today. Again, check the regulation book for bag and possession limits based on where you are hunting. If you bag some grouse or ptarmigan, consider providing one wing from each harvested bird to Fish and Game. Rick Merizon, the state small game biologist located in the Palmer office, is looking to develop an age structure profile of the populations of grouse and ptarmigan and needs the wings to accomplish this. There’s a short discussion about the program with instructions on how to get your wings to Merizon on page 125 of the current hunting regulations book.

Snowshoe hare hunting in those same GMUs has no closed season, but the bag limit varies, so know your limit before going out to hunt.

This season I want try a couple of hunting tools that are a little out of the ordinary for small game — a flintlock smoothbore and an air rifle. Hey, people don’t call me eccentric for nothing.

The flintlock smoothbore is actually a reproduction of a firearm commonly traded to the Indians and used by white explorers in the westward expansion of America from the mid-1700s through the shift over to breechloading firearms in the 1870s. The gun is known as the Northwest Trade Musket and is about .62-caliber or .20-gauge and shoots either a round ball of about .600 diameter or a load of shot ranging from about 3/4 to 1 1/4-ounce. For defensive purposes on the western frontier, a so-called “buck-n-ball” load consisting of the round ball and a few buckshot pellets was also used.

Surprisingly, this flintlock shoots the round ball accurately enough out to around 50 yards or so that it could be used for moose hunting with good effect. I’m planning on using it to hunt grouse and maybe snowshoe hares with shot loads, but it’s nice to know I could kill a moose with it if opportunity occurs once the firearms season begins.

Air rifles powerful enough to hunt with have actually been around since before the Lewis and Clark Expedition in the early 1800s. In fact, they had one with them during their trip. Mine is a PCP style, or pre-charged pneumatic, in .25-caliber made by Benjamin and known as the Marauder. The test target I received with this rifle showed it is easily capable of grouping several shots into a hole smaller than a dime at 25 yards and falls into the same power range as a .22 short rimfire rifle.

I’ve read several hunting articles on various Internet air rifle sites about the .25-caliber that describe successfully harvesting animals as large as coyotes out to 60 yards by taking only head shots. The pellet weighs around 28 grains and reaches a velocity of about 900 feet per second. These numbers put the rifle just a little behind your standard .22 long rifle in power.

With this level of accuracy and power, snowshoe hares should be easy prey. Head shooting a sitting grouse will be a little harder, but the gun is certainly capable of making the shot. Hopefully, I’ll get the chance to see if it can.

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.