Moose season finishes with Unit Three record

This year’s moose season finished with a final count of 127 animals, which is a new Unit Three record, according to Petersburg Fish & Game.

Last week when the season ended on Oct. 15, final preliminary numbers showed 125 moose harvested this year, but hunters had an additional five days from the end of the season to report their kills to fish and game. Since the end of the season, two more moose were reported. The additional moose were shot in the Stikine River area and another mainland location.

In 2017, hunters set a unit record of 119 moose harvested in the season. That number was beat by eight moose in this year’s final results.

In Unit Three, which encompasses Mitkof and Wrangell islands, residents and nonresidents alike could take one bull moose during the season. For the moose to be deemed legal, it must have spike-fork antlers or 50-inch antlers or antlers with three or more brow tines on at least one side or two brow tines on both sides, according to the 2019 through 2020 Alaska hunting regulations.

At the halfway mark of this year’s moose season, which began on Sept. 15, moose numbers were above the five-year average with a moose count of 64 at just 17 days into the season.