We began our trip from the mouth of the Kenai River on Thursday August 1, 2000. I was using my Father-in-laws 16’ Hews Craft River Runner with a 40/35 Johnson outboard. Scot and Joe where in Scot’s 19.5’ Harbor Craft powered by a 50 horse Honda. We both started with 15 gallons of fuel each. We exited the mouth of the river at about 10:00 AM and the water was smooth enough to travel full throttle which was about 25 knots.
When first leaving the river you could
make out a mirage on the horizon that is Kalgin Island. We pointed the bow of our boats toward Mount
Redoubt and that put us on the northern shore of the island in a little more
than 30 minutes. We continued around to
the western side of the island looking for an abandoned cabin that a previous
hunter had told us about. With no sign
of the cabin we continued south along the western side of the island. We eventually reached the southern tip
without spotting the cabin. Both boats
had now gone through about 5 gallons of fuel each, so we switched tanks and
headed north again.
There were several nice cabins
along the west side that are probably used as set-net sites. We were drawing close to one near the
Northwest corner when a man came out in his skiff to meet us. He informed us that the two cabins in view
were each on 5 acres of private land and that they had had problems with
hunters breaking into them in the past.
He pointed out a spot just north of his place that he thought would make
us a good camp and we took his advice.
It was a nice spot in the way that it had a sandy beach for our boats to
rest on. Most of the beach was covered
with boulders that a boat would bounce against during high tide.
We pitched our tents in the brush
at the base of a 200’ bluff that we had to climb daily for our hunt. The first day we stayed fairly close to camp
and got acquainted with the thick brush we would be fighting the next few
days. The next morning we were out by
day break and began making our way through the thick brush. We found a couple small swamps, but most of
the island was heavily overgrown with alters and devil’s club. We saw lots of fresh moose signs, but we
never saw a moose. We also ran across a
few trails, but they would usually fade to nothing within a few feet.
Scot and Joe made there way to a
swamp to the south while Steve and I cut a trail to a swamp to the east. Scot and Joe spent two nights sleeping at
the edge of their swamp, while Steve and I chose to hike to ours each
morning. We all sat patiently and
quietly for two days on these swamps waiting for a moose to wander by. One never did and we eventually ran out of
time. We did hear one gun shot, but we
never saw another hunter.
The trip back was a little rougher,
but we still made it from shore to shore in 45 minutes.
I wouldn’t mind going back again,
but if I do I would wait until the moose population was over 100 again. I would also go later in the year and try
calling them in.