Sage advice: Don’t look a gift hunt in the mouth

We’ll continue the theme of mixing fishing and hunting in the same column again this week. Let’s begin with fishing.

For those of you looking for a little more adventure than the just completed kids fishing derby held last Sunday on Finger Lake, the Skwentna Roadhouse is hosting its second annual Skwentna Pike Fishing Derby. Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association and the Big Lake Aurora Lions Club are sponsoring this event. The derby began Feb.1 and will continue through March 31. Adult tickets are $25 and youth tickets are $10. Tickets are available from the Skwentna Roadhouse, Shell Lake Lodge and the Northwoods Lodge.

Prizes will be awarded for the largest pike, the smallest pike and the largest total pounds of pike weighed in for the derby for both adults and kids. Legal fishing methods include hook and line, bow and arrow, and spear. All ADF&G regulations must be followed and everyone must comply with sportfish licensing requirements. No frozen fish will be accepted for weigh-in. Official weigh-in stations include the Skwentna Roadhouse, Shell Lake Lodge and the Northwoods Lodge.

Participants in last year’s derby were mostly local folks with cabins in the Skwentna area. This year, the derby host and sponsors are hoping to attract some Anchorage and Valley residents who can either snowmachine or fly out to the area and spend some time ice fishing. There are several local area lakes that will provide excellent fishing opportunities.

Now you see where the adventure comes in. Access to the area in winter is by snowmachine or airplane only – no roads to Skwentna! The lodges all provide great winter accommodations and food and fuel is readily available. For more information about Skwentna Roadhouse or to learn more about the pike derby, visit skwentnaroadhouse.com or call 733-2726.

Last week, I mentioned that I harvested a moose under a hot spot registration hunt permit. One could argue whether this is really hunting. There were no long stalks or heavy backpacking requirements. I didn’t have to concern myself with surviving in a winter wilderness wearing either snowshoes or skis to move around in the deep snow while hunting moose.

There was no high-powered rifle needed to shoot reloads specifically developed for cold-weather hunting. I wasn’t concerned about leaving a trip plan with a responsible person in case I was late returning from the hunt.

For those who have ever “road hunted,” this registration hunt may be one of the easier versions around. The permit requirements intentionally kept the hunters near the major highway corridors and only 10- or 12-gauge shotguns shooting rifled slugs were permitted.

Basically, the hunter would drive around the area encompassed by the permit until a legal moose was spotted. Only cows or calves were legal. If the animal of interest was in a position where a safe shot could be taken and was on either public land or where the hunter had permission from the private land owner to take a moose, then a successful harvest was usually accomplished.

I’ve been on three hot spot hunts in two years. On two of those hunts, Gnarly Dan was the permit holder. I held the third hunt permit. Gnarly successfully harvested a nuisance moose on the first hunt. On his second hunt, we drove around for two days and only saw two moose, neither of which presented a shot. My wife and I spent less than two hours looking for moose before I shot the small cow I harvested this year on my permit. We saw 12 moose total in that time period — some days are hot and some days are not!

A combination of several factors led to my choice of shooting a small cow. I’m not as young as when I killed my first moose, my physical condition has degraded over time and I don’t handle 125-pound quarters in 14 inches of snow as well as I once did. I ended up calling a friend to help finish the gutting and quartering and to help haul the meat all of 50 yards to the truck from the kill site. My wife and I butchered the moose in our garage and we now have a nice supply of meat in the freezer.

I’m not really interested in arguing semantics here. If Fish and Game is happy calling this a “hunt,” then who am I to argue? I can very easily live with calling this a hunting experience.

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.