Kuiu Island Bear & Fishing Trip

My dad and I are looking into taking a trip to Alaska this spring (end of May / early June) to catch some halibut, salmon, & rock fish and were hoping to spend a couple days searching the shoreline for black bear. We are already past the draw dates for the tags, but it looks like there are leftover tags still for Kuiu Island. We've been looking at lodges that will rent self-guided boats and have found these two places on Point Baker, Prince of Wales.

www.caldermountainlodge.com/

http://www.woxoflodge.com/

Both will outfit us for fishing, and allow us to use the boats for bear hunting as well. Does anyone have any experience with either of these two or recommendations on another that would put us close enough to Kuiu to hunt?

Any other recommendations about heading up that way?

Thanks!

You might want to look again as to the leftover tags for Kuiu. That would be very rare.

http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=huntlicense.undersubscribed

Hunt DL031 at the link above does not include Kuiu. Maybe it is listed somewhere else and I am missing it. Last year, the Kuiu hunt had twice as many applicants as it had available tags.

Good luck.

Yup...
I read that one wrong! Is there any point in hunting any of the other islands with the leftover tags? ...I suppose they are "undersubscribed" for a reason

Otherwise, it will be a fishing only trip, or wait until next chance to apply for a tag.

whiskeydog said:

Yup...
I read that one wrong! Is there any point in hunting any of the other islands with the leftover tags? ...I suppose they are "undersubscribed" for a reason

Otherwise, it will be a fishing only trip, or wait until next chance to apply for a tag.

Click to expand...

I bought one of those leftover tags last year. It was hard to gauge what kind of a hunt it could have been, as it rained almost torrentially all six days, making it very hard to see anything through the rain. In past hunts, I have seen bears on some of those remnant islands, which is why I decided to give it a try. Saw one bear on a small island and dozens of bears on the big islands.

As much as I like hunting there, I am not sure if I would do that again. A real crap shoot as to finding bears on those smaller islands. Not much habitat to keep them on those small islands. But, if for some reason I don't draw one of the other hunts, there is a chance I would do it again and try to capitalize on what I've learned in my five other hunts in the area, even if it means I am counting on a big dose of luck to find one.

Thanks for the help! We'll talk it over and decide whether it's just going to be a fishing trip, if we want to wait for the next draw, or if we want to buy a tag and fish with binoculars around our necks just in case.

Your initial post gave me a snicker- sorry.

i would caution you when judging by looking at a map and seeing the islands "close by"

One of the hairiest things I've ever done was crossing those straights in a 34' boat when the wind kicked up- green water coming over the cabin- nasty. You have to be very careful with boating around up there- prepare for the worst though I've seen some of those leeward bays like glass in the am. Then you have some huge tides up there too...that can leave your boat high and dry 1/4 mile from the water.

Listen to what Beendare has to say I have been very close to the area you are talking about and let me tell you myself and a good friend got in one hell of a mess trying to navigate some of those islands up there. It takes very little wind to make the seas up in those straits a mess.
We were trying to get around a point into a sheltered inlet that ran several miles where we had been seeing bear sign and let me tell ya it got a little western to say the least going up and down 10 ft. waves in a 22 ft. boat we finally got turned around without capsizing luckily. You can die up there be very careful. The boat rental had three other men out in another rig that spent the night in an old forest service cabin that night while the US coast guard and AK. state troopers looked for them. Don't play games with mother nature in AK. is what I learned from that whole experience the inlets can be fairly calm and when you get into the big water it can be a whole different ball game. You realize that when you see 100 ft. boats washed ashore up there shipwrecked. I think KUIU island is a little haul from POW how many miles is it across the strait? Very good hunting though I have heard I have only hunted POW.