A golden sunrise burned through the morning fog as we scrambled to set decoys in the mud flats. With the tide starting to roll in, our timing was good.
No sooner were the decoys in place when the first flock of brant came in. Five of the little geese fell from the flock. Two wore bands. Hunkering deeper into the curtain of tall, green grass atop a cut bank, a pair of brant cupped in next. Both dropped. Then a flock of pintails swooped through, followed by a string of cacklers; Taverner’s to be exact. The action was nonstop. In less than two hours three of us had limits of cacklers, Pacific black brant and ducks, mostly pintails.
Back at camp we cleaned birds, downed a quick lunch then hit a little creek for coho. We caught limits of those delicious eating salmon, too. The first of a five-day cast-and-blast adventure was off to a great start.
It was mid-September 2018 when my dad and I joined good friend and noted guide Jeff Wasley of Four Flyways Outfitters in Cold Bay, Alaska. Wasley was off the clock on that trip. He’s one of my favorite people to hunt with and we don’t get to do it nearly enough. Back then, three brant and six dark geese were the daily limit, and you can still shoot eight puddle ducks a day in The Last Frontier.
I’d been to Cold Bay many times. For Dad, it was a first. Dad is 84 years old. If you were to ask him what the most memorable hunt of his life has been, he’d say, “That time Scott and I hunted and fished in Cold Bay!” He’s been all over Alaska with me. He loves everything about Cold Bay: the bird hunting, the fishing and the wildlife viewing.
The Stage
In 1990 my wife and I moved to the Alaskan high arctic where we were schoolteachers for most of the decade. The first village we lived in, Point Lay, was situated on the northwest Arctic Coast, on the Bering Sea. Each fall, right about the Sept. 1 waterfowl opener, black brant migrated down the coastline. I hunted them, along with other birds and big game as that was our only source of meat. There was no store in the tiny village of less than 100 people.
Row after row of brant flew down the coast on their way to Izembek Lagoon, in Cold Bay. It lasted three to four days every fall. I vowed to one day hunt Cold Bay in the winter, just to see the gathering of all the brant before they continued farther south.
The first time I hunted Cold Bay with Jeff Wasley was in late November. We targeted brant on Izembek Lagoon and sea ducks on the Cold Bay side of the peninsula. We chased willow ptarmigan in the hills; they were already pure white.
Izembek Lagoon encompasses 150 square miles and holds one of the largest eel grass beds on Earth. It’s the eel grass that attracts waterfowl in mind-boggling numbers, in an array of species.
On that late-November hunt all of us shot limits of brant the first two days, then a storm hit. A big storm. Heavy rain and steady winds in excess of 50 mph kept us from getting out to hunt. Two days later we hunted the lagoon late in the afternoon. “The wind just changed,” Wasley said, pointing to the clouds skipping overhead. “If this keeps up the brant won’t be here much longer.”
As if on cue, right before dark the brant started chanting across the entire lagoon. Sentinels spiraled high into the sky, so high, they were mere dots. Then the rest of the brant erupted on the lagoon. Nearly 100,000 brant took to the sky at once, hit the air currents at an astounding altitude then were gone. “Most of those birds won’t stop until they get to San Quintin, Mexico,” noted Wasley. “And they’ll make the 3,000-mile journey in 60 hours, nonstop. I’ve been down there when they arrive. It’s a sight to behold.” Seeing them leave was a sight I’ll never forget.
In addition to being the best waterfowler I’ve had the pleasure of hunting with, Wasley spent four years as a waterfowl biologist for the USGS. His passion for and knowledge of waterfowl—in fact, everything Alaska—is vast, genuine and appealing. Wasley’s been a full-time guide since 2008 and is not only a resident of Cold Bay, he’s the mayor.
“Last year over 80,000 brant wintered here,” Wasley shared. “I watched the lagoon freeze up, big tides move in and turn over massive chunks of ice 3 feet thick. Eel grass was frozen to the underside, and when it was exposed, that’s what the brant were feeding on. They were pulling it right off the bottom of the ice.”
Twenty years ago, only a couple thousand brant wintered on Izembek Lagoon. Today, along with the brant, you’ll also see what’s likely the largest gathering of Steller’s eiders. Though they’ve been closed to all hunting since 1991, they’re a sight any waterfowl hunter would appreciate.
The Cold Bay Experience
In addition to living in Alaska for nearly a decade, I’ve traveled much of the state in the past 34 years. From the Arctic through the Panhandle, the Aleutian Chain to the Interior, there are many special places. But Cold Bay is a wingshooting and fishing paradise.
Years ago I penned what was then the most comprehensive guidebook to flyfishing in Alaska. To this day, Cold Bay holds the largest-size average of coho salmon I’ve seen anywhere in the state, and I’ve fished a lot of places. The small stream fishing for Dolly Varden is also exceptional. They’re not big but they’re fun to catch all by yourself.
Catching four of the five salmon species in a day is common—king salmon don’t run in streams here. While Wasley has made his mark as one of the most respected and successful waterfowl outfitters in the state, he’s also an exceptional fly fisherman. He used to guide fishing trips all summer on the central coast rivers north of Cold Bay.
“A lot of folks come here in September and early October to hunt ducks and geese, but their focus often changes when the coho are in,” Wasley says with a smile. “Last September we had two guys book a cast-and-blast trip but all they did was cast. They hunted one day but caught and released coho from daylight to dark the rest of the time. They took home 50 pounds of fresh coho.”
Last August a group of buddies and I traveled to Cold Bay to hunt ptarmigan and fish for salmon. Ptarmigan numbers are cyclical; the past few years have been exceptional on this part of the Alaska Peninsula. If you’re willing to walk, you can make short order of a 10-bird-a-day limit. Early season, berry-fed ptarmigan are my favorite-eating upland bird, even over chukar and pheasant. They’re worth taking home, along with fresh coho fillets.
Winter Challenges, Rewards
In 2019 my wife and I moved back to Alaska. By the fall of 2020 we were once again Alaska residents. This meant I could get an emperor goose tag over the counter. She still accuses me of this being the main reason we moved back because I knew I’d never draw one of the 25 nonresident tags in the lottery.
I’ve seen emperor geese while deer hunting on Kodiak Island, as well as when brown bear hunting near the southwest coastal village of Egegik, but nowhere have I seen them in such numbers as in Cold Bay. That’s where I went to hunt one of the most prized geese on the planet.
It was late November. Three buddies joined me, all nonresidents. Their goals were to hunt common eider and prized sea ducks on the Pacific side of Cold Bay, brant and ducks on Izembek Lagoon. We were in camp for seven days and didn’t ever make it into the open Pacific waters due to severe weather. Alaska can ruin the best-laid plans. Brant were plentiful but we had to break ice every time we hunted them in the lagoon. We also scored on some of the best green-winged teal hunting I’ve seen. One afternoon we got three treasured Eurasian green-winged drakes.
We couldn’t get a boat into the open ocean to access the beaches where we wanted to hunt emperor geese, so Josh Powell, the camp cook, and I grabbed a rig, drove south then hiked to a beach. In addition to being an excellent cook, Powell enjoys waterfowling, and I love hunting with his dog, Eudor, an awesome Drahthaar I’ve killed a lot of birds within Cold Bay over the years.
A number of beach geese worked the shoreline at low tide, looking for kelp to feed on. They found our decoys, too. Emperor geese are lightly pressured and flock to decoys with aggression. Some flocks came in too bunched-up for a shot. Others lacked the fat-headed gander I sought. Finally, a flock of four cupped into the wind and dropped their bright orange feet. Picking out the big bird was simple. It dropped in the decoys.
It was a bittersweet end. I remember when the emperor goose season closed in Alaska and it looked like it would never open again in my lifetime. Then, when it did, I knew this would be my only chance. Cradling the most handsome goose I’d ever seen, my dream had become reality.
“Because Izembek Lagoon is protected by 30 miles of barrier islands, we can usually get out there and do something fun,” says Wasley. “Folks love beach combing, and following big storms we find some pretty cool stuff.”
One November afternoon following two days of severe storms, five of us found more than 800 glass floats. Finding one is a rarity these days along the Pacific Coast, so to find them washed ashore by the hundreds is a gold mine. I took home a cooler full of floats that trip.
Hunting in layout boats, we got after the sea ducks, too. From coveted harlequins to long-tails, red-breasted mergansers and the largest duck in the Northern Hemisphere, the common eider, we had some great hunts. We even scored a bonus king eider, a rarity in this part of Alaska.
The Big Picture
As if the world-class waterfowl hunting and exceptional coho fishing isn’t enough, don’t forget Alaska’s unique wildlife. On one hike for ptarmigan last August our party saw 11 brown bears in a few hours. Cold Bay is home to some of the biggest brown bears on Earth, and seeing one of these behemoths is worth the trip.
I’ve been fortunate to hunt ptarmigan in a lot of places throughout Alaska, but last season’s hunt with Wasley was one of the most memorable. “Let’s take the boats across the lagoon and hunt around Frosty tomorrow,” Wasley suggested over dinner. No one objected.
As we headed across the lagoon, tens of thousands of brant filled the sky. Ribbons of bright green eel grass painted the water’s surface at low tide. Pintails fed along water’s edge in big numbers. Flock after flock of cacklers landed on the tundra to feast on ripe berries. Flagging cacks on the tundra is an experience waterfowl aficionados will never forget.
We split up into two groups working the hill country at the base of Mount Frosty, the most prominent peak at Cold Bay in the still-active volcanic chain. The other group killed more birds than we did. We saw more brown bears than they did. We also ate more wild blueberries. Everyone was happy.
Heading back to the lodge, the tide was high on Izembek Lagoon. Sea otters came in by the hundreds. I’ve seen a lot of sea otters in a lot of places around Alaska, but nothing close to this encounter. Half the members of our group had never seen a sea otter. It was a special moment watching them feed, pups frolicking on mom’s tummy.
Then we caught a whiff of something awful. “Dead whale?” someone asked. Wasley and I looked at one another and smiled, not saying a word. Moments later Wasley killed the motor and handed his binocular to a buddy. More than 200 walrus were piled onto a sandy beach.
They were a ways off but we could clearly see them through the glass. Some were pink, some almost red. Some had bigger ivory tusks than others. The calves stuck to the edge of the pod, in the water. Everyone took in an eyeful. It reminded me of the time Wasley and I were beach combing and came upon a pod of walrus on the beach we walked. We watched them for a long time. It doesn’t get much more Alaskan than a walrus encounter.
Trailering the boats, someone in the group brought up happy hour. Someone else countered with fishing for silver salmon. Fishing it was. Within 10 minutes we’d shed our upland clothes and slipped into waders. Fifteen minutes later we were battling coho after coho.
As darkness approached, the air calmed with just enough breeze to keep mosquitos at bay. We were spread out along the meandering creek, the sounds of splashing salmon echoing across the tundra. Friends whooped and hollered. It brought a smile to my face knowing they were relishing in what makes Cold Bay, Alaska, so very special.
Browning Citori 825 Field
On last August’s Cold Bay cast-and-blast I shot Browning’s new Citori 825 Field. I’ve hunted ptarmigan throughout Alaska for more than 30 years, and this was my first experience with a double. I liked it.
My biggest takeaway is the 825’s balance, which makes for fast shouldering and smooth follow-throughs. I have a shredded rotator cuff awaiting surgery, yet still I could maneuver the 825 with ease and precision. I also love the smooth, fast trigger on this gun. The refined Fire Lite 2 trigger is a mechanical design that offers immediate second-shot capability, a big bonus when targeting speed demons like ptarmigan. The trigger doesn’t rely on recoil to set the hammer for the second shot, which yields a trigger pull with less take-up, a crisper break and reduced over-travel. In other words, there’s no wasted time recovering from recoil. It shot both Browning Wicked Wing and Winchester Xpert steel shot equally well. (Steel is required when hunting in the refuge.)
The Citori 825 has a newly styled receiver with a low-profile design that aids with recoil control and minimizes muzzle jump. This means you can easily stay in the gun and track fast-flying birds; I look forward to trying it on forest grouse and mountain quail back home.
The front hand is also moved closer to the bore line to optimize swing and pointing ability, and you can feel it. A slim new top lever design accents the styling of the receiver, and the safety/selector is easy to operate and intuitive to find, meaning all you have to think about is target acquisition and timing your shots. browning.com
