More hunting plans

The planning continues! As I’ve mentioned in previous columns, I was invited to go on a sandhill crane hunt, which will hopefully include some geese, by my friend, Ted, this coming September. Ted has offered to pay for the guides and has already booked the hunt with a downpayment. I am very appreciative of Ted being thoughtful enough to ask me to go.

When he asked during a phone call last fall if I was interested in going on this hunt, my first response was, “Why me?” His answer was that neither of us was getting any younger and this would be a good time to do this. Ted is in his sixties and is doing well, health wise, but like he said, he’s not getting any younger either.

We met and became friends several years ago. We have similar backgrounds with wildlife management degrees, and both had a strong interest in waterfowl hunting. I’ve had two black labs which I “trained” to hunt ducks, or rather, they trained me (sadly, both are long gone now), and Ted currently has a young black lab he is working with for both waterfowl and grouse/ptarmigan.

I met Ted through what I’ll call a “business” situation, but we soon discovered that our personalities meshed well and that we shared a lot of common interests. We spent a lot of time discussing “the world” after the meetings we were both attending over the years. We don’t agree on everything and have had some good discussions about our different viewpoints. Ted is quite knowledgeable, well-spoken, and has some interesting perspectives on things. I enjoy talking with him even if we disagree on specifics of the topic we’re exploring. One of the first things you want to do in planning a hunting trip is finding a compatible hunting partner. I think I can check off that box here!

Ted found the guiding outfit we booked with and, it turns out, they have been guiding sandhill crane hunts in the Delta Junction area for at least six to eight years, so they know their business. Coincidentally, I have another friend who has hunted with this same guiding outfit for cranes over the past three years and he can’t speak highly enough about the guides and their efforts to put their clients on birds.

We’ll be hunting out of “layout” blinds and will be shooting from a sitting position. I’ve never done that before so I might need to get some practice over the summer to see what I can do. The guides have already recommended parameters for the shotshell load we should be shooting and it’s not a light load. Right now, I’m planning on using 10-gauge, 3 ½ - inch bismuth shotshells at around 1500 feet-per-second (fps). If, for some reason, that doesn’t work, I’ll be bringing a 12-gauge, 3-inch shotgun, again with bismuth shot, to use for grouse hunting on the days we’re not crane hunting. I’m debating bringing along a 22 rimfire rifle in case we find the snowshoe hare population has rebounded sufficiently.

In researching information about campgrounds around Delta Junction, I learned from “The Milepost” travel guide that somewhere between 150,000 to 200,000 sandhill cranes pass through the Delta Junction barley fields every fall in their migration to their wintering grounds. Geese, some Canadian but mostly specklebelly birds travel through the same areas at about the same times, so I’m hoping to get a chance at them as well.

The campground information would allow us a place to stay with my small motorhome while we’re there. We’ll tow a smaller vehicle to have transportation for the hunting and fishing trips without having to move the motorhome once our “camp” is established.

The Milepost also mentioned that the Clearwater River held grayling and had a Coho run in September and October. I expect we’ll bring some fishing gear and might give fishing a try too. I haven’t caught a grayling in over fifty years, not since I was working for Fish and Game doing inventory work along the “yet to be built” oil pipeline on the North Slope.

I’m sure we’ll be stopping into the Fish and Game office in Delta Junction to ask questions and get more detailed information about “where and when” for both grouse and fishing. I hope they can answer some questions about snowshoe hares as well.

Of course, we’ll be watching for the bison as they move around the area. They’re my favorite big animal in Alaska!