This year’s moose hunt began at a breakneck pace with 17 animals harvested in the first five days, but rainy, windy weather has slowed things down in the second week.
As of Wednesday, Sept. 30, two weeks into the hunt, the number of moose killed had crept up to 24, one away from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s harvest guideline. Fish and Game biologist Carl Koch said so far, all but two were legal kills.
Koch said nice weather at the beginning of the hunt may explain why it went so fast at first.
“I spoke with several hunters this weekend who said things slowed down with the change in weather,” Koch said. To avoid the wind and rain, moose move around less and stick to areas with more cover, making them harder to locate.
On the plus side, rain will help raise water levels, improving boating access for hunters, he said.
Koch said another explanation for the slowed pace of the hunt is that it becomes more difficult to find legal bull moose as the hunt progresses.
Later in the hunt, “many of the easy ones were already harvested,” Koch said.
Chilkat Valley moose hunts used to be a lot shorter back when the area was an any-bull hunt, Koch said. Hunts would typically last less than five days. Once the hunt switched to antler restrictions in the mid-1990s, it started taking longer for hunters to reach 25 moose.
This year has also been a big year for proxy hunting, Koch said. He attributes this to the Canadian border closure, which prevented some from moose hunting in the Interior.
“This year we had at least four proxy hunters who were successful in the first weekend. That’s a bit unusual. We typically get maybe two or three proxy hunters who are successful for the entire hunting season,” he said.
The hunt will close Oct. 7 unless the Department of Fish and Game closes it early.