Hunting Bison In Alaska, with Jack Jaeger

Backcountry Hunting Podcast

Joseph von Benedikt

Backcountry, Rifle, Deer, Podcast, Elk, Mountain, Sports, Hunt, Wilderness, Cartridge, Hunting

4.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2025

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode takes us far out into the Aleutian Islands off the west coast of Alaska's mainland, to hunt wild bison. Recorded audio-journal style, we're bringing it to you raw and unedited.

Hunting by invitation with Jack Jaeger, who is designated to hunt buffalo for the tribal elders, we circumnavigate the island on a small fishing boat, landing in a skiff and hunting up from the coast when buffalo are sighted.

With a big cow taken and the quarters packed out and hung to age, we weather howling winds and slashing rain, and then ascend into the Island's high peaks in an attempt to find a big bull.

Thwarted by fog, fierce winds, and relentless rain, we had to pull out and get dry and warm. Then, for days, we hunkered down and waited while the airline canceled flights day after day.

This was type 2 fun at its finest, folks! If you're interested in trying a similar adventure yourself, contact Jack Jaeger. His info is in the show notes below.

ENJOY!

Contact Jack Jaeger on Facebook

Call or text Jack: (808) 854-1127

Email Jack: [email protected]

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Alaska, 2025, audio journal entry number one.
0:07.6	There are bison in the Aleutian Island chain.
0:12.7	And with the right set of circumstances, they can be hunted.
0:17.0	They were planted here in certain areas in the 1930s to 1950s from what my
0:24.5	mediocre research has shown and they were planted here as a resource for the indigenous
0:30.7	people. And I've received a unique opportunity to come hunt with one of the representatives that
0:39.8	harvests a buffalo each year for the tribal elders.
0:44.7	This is an extraordinary opportunity that I'm still astonished has come my way,
0:52.3	and I'm so grateful to my host. I'm just going to call Jack for the time
0:57.8	being. The Aleutian Islands, by the way, are a volcanic chain that sweeps across the North
1:06.2	Pacific and divides it from the Bering Strait, or the Bering Sea, I should say. It extends out from
1:15.1	the Alaska Peninsula and makes a big sweeping curve pointed toward Japan. Across the bottom of it,
1:23.2	there are warm ocean currents, and across the top, there are frigid ocean currents, and across the top there are frigid ocean currents and across the top
1:31.4	of the alaska peninsula and the Aleutian islands the weather collides savagely throughout the year it's an
1:39.4	area known for unpredictable and extreme weather. Lots of rain, huge amounts of wind and very, very strong
1:50.5	wind. But where I'm at currently on the south side is a little bit of a warm pocket. Jack has
1:59.5	called it Alaska's banana belt.
2:02.1	And it's because of those currents that come across.
2:04.8	In fact, when I arrived here yesterday, it was 20 degrees warmer here than it is in my hometown in southeastern Idaho.
2:14.7	So it was interesting.
2:16.0	It's been raining off and on ever since I got here.
2:18.8	Big flurries of snow have blown through about an inch stuck and then I think is melted off pretty quickly.
	...

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