Alaska Big Game Hunting

Alaska Private Guide Service

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Smokey Don Duncan, Master Guide #136

Serving the Serious Alaska Big Game Hunter Since 1990

Welcome to Alaska Private Guide Service web site where all of your questions are actually answered. Each page; moose, brown bear, black bear etc... is designed to tell you what, when, where and how we do it, what you need to do, how much it costs, other costs, references, how to book the trip and how to get there. There is no "more information", no brochures to send you. We get compliments all the time on the thoroughness and straight, no B.S,. talk. So please take the time to read the information before you contact me; if you do, you should have very few questions and you will know that you have found someone you can work with and trust. My operation utilizes very loyal and experienced guides that care; and we have the logistical capabilities that increase success with out sacrificing comfort. If you still have questions, or you see a mistake or discrepancy, please call or e-mail me.

The name Alaska "Private" Guide Service was chosen to reflect the individual attention, care and concern given to each and every client even though we are one of the larger service providers. We make sure that we can provide the trip you want based on your desires and abilities before you book your trip. And, we address any concerns you may have during the trip. APGS did not start out big and well financed from inexperienced outsiders as many operators have done and continue to do. Instead, we grew steadily as equipment, guides and experience allowed.

I hope you enjoy the web site. Thank you for stopping by.

The Board of Game has opened the brown bear season August 20 and increased the bag limit to 2 brown bears. Also, the Board extended the non-resident river corridor moose permit registration period from July 15th to Sept 8th. (Moose season opens Sept. 5 for non-residents.) This will help greatly, especially for the moose and brown bear combination hunter who can’t stay 15+ days. And the Board has approved an intensive management plan for wolves to help the caribou herd recover from the population crash caused by over population. While the relaxed methods and means allowed for wolf control are allowed only for residents; we are developing new strategies and hunts for non-resident wolf hunters. All fall Brown Bear hunt prices remain reduced and I made the moose and brown bear combination hunt a kill fee for the second animal. Spring Black bear hunters using bait can now hunt same day airborne and you are no longer required to be guided when using our baits. However, do to an oversight in a new unrelated definition, the hunt will have to be either fully guided or outfitted and unguided; which means I, nor my assistants, can help you at all in the field on an outfitted and unguided hunt. I am working through the Board of Game and Guide Board to correct the problem this year but things usually move slow. The BOG also opened up a Spring Grizzly baiting season in Game Management unit (GMU) 20 C for the first time ever. The season stays open from April 15- June 30 and coincides with the black bear baiting season. We will be offering this new hunt in 2013. We are also offering a baited spring brown bear hunt in GMU 17. This late spring hunt, May 5-25/31, is a "handicap hunt". The hunter must have a physical disability that will allow the Dept. of Fish and Game to issue a "methods and means waiver". The waiver will allow us to bait brown bears along the river. This hunt and the GMU baited grizzly hunt are located on the brown bear page near the bottom.

We now have 4 and 5 day black bear hunts and quickie 1-3 day hunts.

Since 1990, Master Guide Smokey Don Duncan has operated Alaska Private Guide Service, APGS. APGS has maintained the highest client satisfaction rate of any business in Alaska because we have a good area, good experienced guides, lots of good equipment, good food, excellent hunting plans and we do what we say we are going to do. APGS provides guide and outfitting service for hunting Alaska Moose, Brown Bear and Grizzly Bear, Black Bear, Caribou, Wolf, and Wolverine and we provide world class fishing trips during the summer or King Salmon, Red Salmon, Silver Salmon, Rainbow Trout, Arctic Grayling, Dolly Varden, Char, Giant Northern Pike, and Sheefish on the World Famous Nushagak River and Yukon River. We operate in Game Management Units (GMU) 17 and 20. We also offer excellent wilderness Photography trips.

Our operation's size is unique and delivers advantages to you that most other operators do not have. A short list of advantages would include: 1 Master Guide, 10 Assistant Guides that have worked with APGS an average of 10 years. We have huge guiding areas. We have 17 prop or jet boats and 9 snow machines to get you where you need to go. We use multiple Base Camps that are professionally and comfortably equipped along with substantial portable spike camps to use when needed. Oatmeal and freeze dried are not a food staple and are seldom seen or used in our camps. We do not starve you to death to save money; nor do we try to walk you to death to make you quit early as many operations do. If you can walk 100 yards on flat ground, you stand just as good a chance as anyone else. On most of our trips all you'll need to bring is your hunting gear and weapon.

Enjoy the excellence of experience and let us make your Alaska Hunting , Fishing and Photography dreams come true.

You can see photos of APGS hunts for all the species as seen on Picasaweb. Just select Slideshow or individual photos for Alaska Hunting. You can also see our separate individual slideshows separated by species. Just click on one of the following: Moose, Brown Bear, Caribou, Fishing, and Black Bear photos on their individual pages.

You can watch some of our videos by clicking here. Alaska Moose Hunts and River Jet Boat videos. You can order a 2 hour DVD for $8 which includes DVD and mailing costs.

Guiding Industry News: These updates are listed as the most current first and the oldest towards the bottom. It may help, make more sense, to read them in reverse order. Things don't look good for the guides or the vast majority of clients that we serve. If these massive changes are allowed to happen, 50% of the guides will be forced out of business and the prices will go through the roof to cover the program costs. The new proposed implementation date is January 2015.

Update 2012 The second round of public comment on this Guide Use Area Concession Plan was this summer. The proposed plan is worse than expected. Not only would it send administrative costs through the roof (which the surviving guides must pay) but the plan also restricts the number of assistant guides. That means we will only be able to take a few hunters during short seasons. That will drive up the cost / hunter dramatically. Although the program promoted as "resource conservation ", nothing could be further from the truth. Any conservation results from the elimination of guides and assistant guides and not by sound resource management. It appears to me that even the original supporters do not back the plan but some still back the idea. The fact is, this plan, left unmodified, will be a complete disaster. The fact is that any such plan that does not also include the regulation of transporters is not based on resource conservation and is therefore fatally flawed. The Big Game Commercial Services Board that regulates guides and transporters has refused for 7 years to even attempt to regulate the transporters. Yet the guiding industry has seen major changes that drive up costs and license fees. The resulting increase in the prices of a guided hunt have sent more of our potential clients to a transporter for an unguided hunt. The transporters have 2 members on the BGCSB and they have supported this program plan. I wonder why? Every time they (2 transporters representatives on the board) vote to restrict guides and put them out of business, I can not help but think they are laughing all the way to the bank. I wonder why, when the link is so direct, they are even allowed to vote on an issue that directly benefits them in this manner.

UPDATE 12/7/2010. The vast majority of guides are still in opposition to this proposed program. DNR failed to mention to the Guide Board that the comments on the program were running 2:1 against. DNR has now updated the proposed implementation date to Jan. 1, 2014. In 2011, the legislature gave DNR $120K for development of this program. So far DNR has read the comments and bought some plane tickets for Fairbanks employees to travel to Anchorage to attend the Guide Board meetings. DNR is now trying to hire a contractor to analyze the comments and make recommendations. The issue is the BGCSB has lost control of this process and DNR is trying to sub it's duties out to who knows what. Nobody wants to touch this thing because they know it is not justified because it is not really based on resource conservation no matter how many times everyone says it is. Repeating a lie a million times does not make it true. The Achilles heel is still legislative funding. No money no go. Contact your legislators and ask them to tighten the purse strings.

Ted Spraker, who sits on the Board of Game and on the Guide Board (BGCSB), again stated his disappointment that this program is not moving forward in a reasonable time frame. He said the BOG has held off putting widespread restrictions on non-resident hunters (our clients), basically renewing the threat. However we have 2 issues: 1 F&G gets 85% of its revenue from non-resident license and tags. So the Game Board is going to be reluctant to shoot itself in the foot. And those non-resident hunters are also those hunters that shoot bears and wolves. Take them out and you now have another problem to deal with. I have no opposition to this program if it is truly based on resource conservation. But that is not the case at this time. And the big obstacle there is at some point, for this to proceed forward, there will have to be allocations made. Allocations between residents and non-residents. Allocations between guided and non-guided. Sound simple enough until you look at reality. For a fact, the non guided hunter is typically a transported hunter. IE: a transporters client. Every time the guides have battled transporters they have lost lobby, usually more than they gambled. Anything that threatens to raise the cost of a transported hunt for residents is the great fear and the main reason everyone has refused to get a handle on transporters. As a resident, I understand that. But we cannot move forward and call this based on resource conservation or call it management until we control transporters and make those difficult decisions on allocations. Win or lose. And guides will lose. Big time. We've never won and will lose this battle. Transporters/air taxis just have too much money, influence and resident support. So just about anyway this program proceeds will be detrimental to guides and our clients' pocket book. The inherently fatal flaws are as follows.

Updates: 1/20/09, 11/8/09 You should be aware that the State of Alaska is currently working on a plan to get back to exclusive and semi-exclusive guide use areas, GUAs. This may sound good at first until you get down to the implementation details and the effects on the guiding industry. The bottom line is: 70-80% of the hunting guide business like mine will be put out of business. If guides get 1 GUA then 50% of the guides will have none. If every guide that gets one GUA actually gets 3 GUAs; then 80% of the guides will be put out of business. Your selection of available - potential guides will decrease dramatically. The surviving businesses will have been the high bidder for the area. Consequently; the businesses will have to charge higher fees to cover their bids.

You can thank Alaska Professional Hunters Association, APHA, who lobbied the legislature to create the Big Game Commercial Services Board (BGCSB) (AKA Guide Board) in 2005. APHA has been getting large contributions each year from Dallas Safari Club $10,000, Houston Safari Club, $5000, and Safari Club International. This Board has been hell bent to "FIX" the guiding industry. The BGCSB is working through the Department of Natural Resources to create the exclusive use areas. The timeline is the areas are to be awarded by July 2010 and by Jan. 2011 most guides will be out of business. So beware, no matter who you book with! There will be a number of guides who take deposits and then file bankruptcy out of spite. Now it appears as DNR may not make the January deadline to request proposals from the guides and have them awarded by July 2010.

A four year report card for this Board would read as follows: “F”. This Board operates under the Title Dept. of Community, Commerce and Economic Development. With a title like that; you would think they are actually trying to help the industry grow. So far the Board has raise our license fees 2 times in 4 years. They have failed, no refused to address any out of control transporter issues. They have restricted where guides can hunt by making it near impossible for a guide to test for a game management unit. They have thrown the industry into turmoil. No guide can be sure he will survive the next year or so. And they have started down the road to turning the whole state into a private hunt club where only the rich can afford to hunt. For example; will you be willing and able to afford to pay the State through me an extra $5000 kill fee for a brown bear or moose? In addition to my guide fees of course. How about an additional $100/ day for a land use fee on top of everything else? That is where this Board has steered the boat. And if you don’t have the money; you ain’t hunting with a guide or maybe not at all when they get through with adding fees and taxes. And if all of the above is not bad enough; the legislature sets the license and tag fees and APHA has been recommending to Fish and Game and the Guide Board to ask the legislature to raise those fees substantially. Presumably, they have also been asking the legislature directly to raise the fees. I think they hope it will drive away more unguided non-resident hunters than it drives away guided non-resident hunters. The rich hunter stays and the poor boy leaves.

You can see my harsh comments to the BGCSB and DNR about proceeding with these plans by clicking on this link. The next BGCSB meeting is in December 2009 in Anchorage. The Board has a web site on the State of Alaska web page. See the guides letter to the legislature 12/16/09.

See additional Alaska Hunting Regulation News

Smokey Don Duncan, Owner, Master Guide #136 and P.H.
Wayne Gregory A.G., Fishing and Waterfowl Guide
299 Alvin St. Fairbanks AK 99712
Phone: 907-457-8318 Email: apgs@gci.net

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