jduckhunter
AH elite
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2012
- Messages
- 1,054
- Reaction score
- 2,436
- Media
- 130
- Member of
- DU, JSA, NAHC( Life member), NRA (Life member)
- Hunted
- Namibia, Zimbabwe, USA (PA ,WY,TX,MT,AK,NJ,DE,VA,WV,SD,MA,NC,FL,MD,CA) Canada (QC,NF,ON,NT,NWT,BC), New Zealand
Well my son and I traveled to St. Paul Island, Alaska last week to hunt for King Eiders with Alaskan Eider Outfitters. I had always heard that this hunt could be brutal due to the weather conditions in the Bering Sea this time of year, but I always took those reports with a grain of salt, thinking that the tellers of the tales were just making it sound more dramatic for the sake of the story. Man did I figure wrong, the weather took a turn for the worse on the day we flew onto the island. Landing at a small airport with only one runway running at a 90 degree angle to the wind blowing 30 mph with occasional gusts up to 50 mph was unnerving to say the least. We landed safely though and proceeded to slip and slide our way on foot to the terminal on a solid sheet of ice. Once safely inside we were met by our guides gathered our bags and headed to lodge, which was basically two, two story houses, a few miles down a snow and ice covered road. We couldn't take the boats out to hunt the first two days because of the high winds so instead we traveled to the northeastern most point on the island to hunt from the rocky shoreline. The thinking was that with the wind and the surf both pounding the shore that if we shot any ducks out over the water they would be pushed on shore. It sounded like a good plan, but apparently the ducks had more sense then us and didn't bother to fly in those nasty conditions. So there we sat on ice covered rocks with the high winds blowing sea foam and mist right in our faces, with wind chills in the single digits. Shortly after taking a seat on a large rock about 6 to 8 feet above pounding surf I found myself going into what I call full blown survival mode. I was just wanting to hang on and not be the first guy to say that I had enough, I was determined to outlast the younger guys. Well after about 45 minutes of this abuse the sea and mother nature had another surprise in store for me, a rogue wave came out of no where and I found myself sitting in water up to my waist. I still hung on for a few more minutes, when one of the guides decided that we had had enough and declared it was time to head back to camp, you would not have wanted to be between me and my vehicle. Day 3 was a little less windy and the direction of the wind had changed also to a more favorable direction so the decision was made to take the larger of the three boats out and see how things worked out. I'm not sure how the decision making process went as to who was going out on the boat but my son and I were told that we were going along with two other gentlemen on the first hunt. Talk about mixed emotions, I mean we really wanted to get out and hunt, but...… Well we went and other then swells in excess of 10 feet and my son getting sea sick despite taking Dramamine it really wasn't all that bad. The weather conditions improved as the morning wore on and the four of us managed to return to the dock with 8 King Eider drakes by noon. After lunch the boys launched another boat and the other 5 hunters in camp got their turn on the sea. They did pretty well, returning with 9 drake Kings. I'll post more after a while, right now my wife is telling me that supper is ready.
