This year’s month-long moose hunting season for the Wrangell and Petersburg area closed Oct. 15 with another record number of moose taken in Unit 3 and Unit 1B. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game office in Petersburg recorded 162 moose taken, topping last year’s historic harvest by 15.
KSTK’s Leilani Combs talked with a Wrangell hunter who harvested his first bull this year.
Wrangell resident Michael Ottesen Jr. got his first moose while hunting up the Stikine River this year.
I started moose hunting about five years ago with my uncle up at his camp, and basically just been up there every season, trying and trying and trying. And this year it finally happened.
On the morning of opening day, Ottesen says that the fog was so thick there was just a wall of gray. After about 20 minutes of waiting for the mist to clear he was ready to grab his bag and search for a better position.
I was kind of getting my pack ready, it was really quiet because it was so foggy, and all of a sudden, I just started hearing stuff. You could hear stuff running through the meadows out in front of me.
After a moment of the disembodied sounds in the distance, a female moose emerged. Followed by her calf, the two stopped just feet away from Ottesen. Then came another cow. This cow was trailed by a bull, but he was too small to satisfy the hunting regulations.
Then I could hear another bull grunting in the fog. All of a sudden he came out of the fog, and I could just see his paddles as the sunlight hit him, and I saw the two brow tines on each side, and then I knew he was legal.
The large bull seemed to be after the cow who had come ahead of him. As the bull slowed for just a moment Ottesen took his shot, hitting it behind the shoulder. Then it was all over.
Ottesen says he hadn’t initially realized how large the bull was, but with two brown tines on each side and antlers that were just over 50 inches wide, it was legal in two ways. Ottesen had landed his first bull moose.
His uncle later estimated the moose at around 850 pounds.
Of the 162 moose harvested this year, 13 of them were too small to meet legal size restrictions for the hunting license which requires the antlers to have a spike or fork at least 50 inches wide or two-by-two brow tines on each side, or at least three brow tines on one side.
This is nearly double the seven illegal moose harvested in 2025 according to final tallies from Alaska Fish and Game.
Unit 3 encompasses the islands south of Admiralty and east of Baranof, and north of Prince of Wales, like Kupreanof, Kuiu, Mitkof and Wrangell islands. Unit 1B includes the mainland across from Wrangell and Petersburg.
One of the two moose taken on Wrangell Island was illegal, and according to Wildlife Trooper Alisha Seward there were four illegal moose reported to her in Wrangell in total this year. But she said overall it’s been a very successful season.
“I think all of Game Management Units 3 and 1B had a very good harvest,” Seward says.
