The Draw
Every year around February 15 the Alaska Department of Fish and Game releases the draw results for the limited hunting permits for Alaska’s big game animals. Your chances of being drawn for some of the most coveted permits are usually less than 1%. In the modern-day hunting world, many states especially the western states have gone solely to drawing permits for most of their big game animals. Most of these states have preference points that you purchase each year. Many hunting stories start out with the author just being notified of their successful draw. Many of these recipients have been putting in for 10 or even 20+ years. I’m sure this sounds crazy to the normal non-hunter but not to the anti-hunter who played a big part in this plan.
Being an old time Alaska resident hunter of 60 years, I remember when it all started. In the spring of 1968, I had decided to go brown bear hunting on Kodiak Island. That year you were required to call the Kodiak Wildlife Refuge manager’s office to get a permit. It was free but you could only go to one area during a certain time period that was assigned by the refuge manager or his representative. He told me that there had been complaints from other hunters, perhaps guides, about too many people in the field at the same time. It was the refuge manager’s goal to eliminate that problem. I chose Little River Lake for the first 10 days of May. This system didn’t last long. Two years later if you wanted one of the best areas to hunt brown bear in the Kodiak Wildlife Refuge you had to fly to Kodiak before April 1 and stand in line to get the permit for the area you wanted. Two of my friends flew to Kodiak on March 31st only to find people already standing in line. Some of the guides paid their assistance guides to stand in line for them ahead of time. Soon after that the drawing for brown bear permits on Kodiak was initiated. It had nothing to do with the brown bear population.
Around the same time or maybe a little later the Alaska Department of Fish and Game proposed a trophy Dall sheep area called the Tok Management Area. You had to be drawn and you could only shoot a full curl ram. At that time a legal ram only had to be a ¾ curl. There was some resistances but not that much. Neither one of these drawings were implemented because of any shortage of brown bear or sheep. It’s my believe that the anti-hunters got their foot in the door.
Ron and I with our two full curl rams harvested in the Tok Management Area in 1980.
I harvested my first big game animal in Alaska, a mountain goat, on August 12, 1966, in the Gulch Creek drainage. That become my go to hunt every year because the Kenai Mountains were only an hour or so from Anchorage and you could walk-in from the highway. These would be weekend hunts and worked great for poor young military hunters like myself. The first year in that area I counted about 40 goats. I hunted this area for 7 or 8 years and my friends and I harvested 21 goats. Since the largest goat we had taken only had 9 1/8” long horns I started to look for a new area farther south hoping to find Billys with larger horns. Over the years, we never saw less than 30+ goats in that area.
My first goat.
The week after I killed my first goat I dropped by the Anchorage Fish and Game office to talk to a biologist about a sheep hunting spot on the Kenai. He gave me a few recommendations. I told him about my goat hunt, and he said, that they didn’t even know there were goats in that area and had never done any studies on goats. At that time there was a 2-goat limit in most areas of Alaska.
The new area I found was 10 1/2 miles up the railroad tracks from Upper Trail Lake. Once across the lake you walked the tracks. This was a great area. My friends and I ended up taking 7 goats in 4 trips. I personally never shot a goat in that area. The largest goat we harvested was a 9 ½” Billy, so it was a good decision to change areas. We saw 30+ goats on each hunt. During all my years of goat hunting I never saw another hunter in either area.
In 1981 the Alaska Department of Fish and Game proposed a drawing permit system for goats in the Kenai Mountains. The reason they said, in their words not mine, we do not have any idea of the population of goats on the Kenai, but the harvest has been increasing and to be on the safe side we propose a permit drawing system for this area. There were a few of us that official opposed but since it wasn’t an animal that hunters seem to be concerned about it passed. They pulled permit numbers out of the air and for the area that I was hunting at that time they came up with 7 permits. Of course, none of my friends nor I were drawn. Out of the seven drawn only 2 hunted and both were unsuccessful. Two years later they raised the number to 9.
Currently, they still have the permit numbers low and even rotate the areas leaving some closed each year. I would bet you they, Fish and Game, still have not done any aerial surveys and really have no idea how many goats are in these areas other than what hunters have told them. It is a system for their convenience with little regard for the hunter who I think they are supposed to be working for. As the State Constitution states: that they, (Fish and Game) shall utilize, develop and maintain on a sustain yield principle. In order to do that they need to know the numbers. How many of that specie are in that area.
I have no problem with a permit system being placed on a game animal if the population is falling or in a heavy populated area like Anchorage where you need to control access, but not for a convince. Which is what they have done. There are many employees working for the Department of Fish and Game that would just as soon you didn’t kill anything.
My last brown bear taken in the Kodiak Wildlife Refuge in the spring of ‘80.
Permits are hard for most of us to come by and once your drawn you need to go unless you die or get a serious illness. My opinion! An unused permit should have consequences such as not allowing you to apply for one the following year.
I know that the drawing for permits is random and done by a computer. But it is really weird how some hunters draw two, sometimes three and I even knew one hunter who drew 7 permits in one year. That’s unreal. How lucky can you get. My son-in-law Sagen has been putting in for multiple permits for 40 years and has only drawn 3 times, a caribou, a goat and a moose. Two of those were when he was a teenager. Currently, you are allowed to put in for 6 choices which I do. They say you can put 6 in for the same area to increase your chances. If everyone does that you still have the same odds. The only one that wins is Fish and Game who gets 6 times the money. That sounds like a scam to me.
At least in Alaska we still have areas where we have open hunts for most animals. This is not true in many western states. We need to always show up at the annual Board of Game meetings to protect our hunting rights. Make them accountable!
Enough about the permit system and where we are as hunters today but now for my families draws.
Back before I became a guide, I never drew a permit when I put in for myself. I only drew when I put in with a partner and I always put the partner’s name first. I was drawn for the Tok Management Area in 1980 with my good friend Ron Watts. I got drawn twice for Kodiak. Once with Chuck Berry, friend and co-worker who harvested an 8 ½’ boar and then the last time with Lyle Thompson, my commander and friend. We both took nice bears but no giants. I was looking for a 10-footer with my bow.
During my 23-year guiding career I only put in twice for brown bear with my partner Dan Schwarzer. The second time we were drawn for the Sturgeon River area and had to go in early so we could be back for AAA’s spring brown bear season at Cold Bay. Terrible hunt, late spring, everything still frozen in. Only saw one boar who never moved over 25 yards the whole hunt. It snowed a little every day.
My granddaughter Rachel, age 10, with her beautiful 38 1/2” ram taken in the Tok Management Area.
Rachel with her 50” any bull moose.
One of the biggest surprises for drawings was my granddaughter, Rachel. My son-in-law put her in when she was only 9 and she drew. Check out her story on the site, “Hunting with the Grandkids.” That was the first of many draws for my young grandkids. Rachel, a couple years later, got drawn for any bull moose and was successful. Her brother Jared was drawn for any bull moose and twice for sheep in the Delta Draw Area. He was successful on the bull moose and for sheep on the second hunt. Their younger brother Nathan was drawn for any bull moose, caribou and was the only one of them to draw for goat. He was successful on all three. My wife also got drawn for the Tok the second time she put in. But we didn’t take enough time for the hunt to make it happen. Late the last evening we spotted a group of rams with two of them being legal. Just not enough time. There are stories about all of these hunts on this blog.
Jared with his full curl ram taken in the Delta Controlled Use area.
Jared and the family with his any bull moose.
You already know about my son-in-law Sagen being drawn three times. Since retiring I have put in for multiply permits every year and have only been drawn twice. A caribou and a Delta Sheep. My grandson-in-law, Nate, has put in multiply permits for six years and has yet to be drawn.
Nathan with his mountain goat taken in the Kenai Mountains.
Nathan, Sagen and me with Nathan’s impressive caribou.
Nathan, Sagen, his cousin Jens and me with Nathan’s any bull moose.
It seems funny how all the kids were drawn for multiple tags. Now as adults like the rest of us, no draws. In fact, the family hasn’t been drawn for anything in the last five years. Seems crazy to me!
Well good luck to all of you on the draws and if you luck out make sure you go because there are many hunters out there that would give anything just to get drawn!