Benelli Presents: Donnie Vincent's Winds of Adak

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] a little wind and little weather huh [Music] it's november and i've traveled west of mainland alaska nearly to the end of the aleutian chain of islands i'm closer to mother russia than i am the united states this is a place best known for rough weather for king crab and forgotten battles i've come here to experience the archipelago wilderness and to explore her war-torn lands this is adac island the military's first here for the when the japanese invaded atu is that right atu and kisco that's right in 41 42 world war ii world war ii right these band ground caribou were introduced to this island for the sole purpose of feeding the soldiers unfortunately after the navy left the caribou have really struggled with overpopulation this is common for large mammals introduced island habitats removing even one of these bowls can only help the herd as a whole there is no new housing out here everything that you see was left here by the u.s navy at one time they had you know six to eight thousand people out here during the cold war and in all these uh buildings barracks and and houses and now there's about a hundred to 150 people six thousand to a hundred and fifty yeah so you know at one time it was actually the eighth largest uh city in in uh alaska and now it's just a remnant of itself right welcome to hayden windy it is windy dilutions are always windy birthplace of the wind is what ajax is known for so birthplace of the wind all the walls so you can know exactly what tool went where and what was missing who had what out crowbars hundreds of chairs right oh yeah look at that hardcore marine why would there be shooting ports here in case somebody actually breached the roof right so if they got up the roof that you could actually get behind them to this side right and defend or if somebody even came over this side they could then hop over on this side and then shoot back through [Music] [Applause] that's really impressive very interesting interesting that this exists in the smackdown wilderness of adak island [Music] the naval ruins here are unlike anything i've ever seen yeah they become quickly weathered but it also feels as though people have simply vanished like they just picked up and walked out of their lives items you would think that would be packed away lay on countertops directions still hang on walls and keys are stuck in locks it looks as though someone is coming right back you can picture how people must have lived their lives here you can feel their stories spend any time in these buildings in the dark and your imagination will see what i'm talking about so overwhelmingly complex that no one lives here now but the infrastructure that was here is i mean it's truly a ghost town this looks like a movie set it's it's unbelievable that so much work went into all of this and everything that we've seen and now no one's here using it and it's just literally falling and rotting apart it's not creepy at all but what i think about are the stories like i think about relationships that were created here friendships that were created here lives lost here babies born here military actions fought here as i think about i think about the people that were here then and what their stories the people that are existing now across the united states that have stories of their lives on adac and when this stuff was new and this place was bustling i bet they couldn't fathom what it looks like now you know magic the guy that built this was standing here looking at it right now [Music] it's hard not to imagine our stories haunting haunting that's possible [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so much comes to one's mind when shooting a gun especially when hunting in the goal is to take an animal's life the precision the process finding my breath in the weight of the trigger i become numb tuning out the chaos of the recoil i continue to burn a hole right through my target as if the bullet will never stop [Music] a single important shot which is both difficult and rewarding especially in such a powerful place but also sets the stage for what my final shot will be like grab what you need here i'll just throw them in here after days of prepping and shooting and of course waiting on weather it was time to finally see the other side of the island anytime i can escape people get in a tent and find the night sky that's where i want to be picking my way through a landscape with riflin backpack brings an immense sense of space time and purpose and anticipating these very moments build an excitement that keeps me up at night [Music] [Music] [Music] i think this is as good a spot as any for corey to drop me off there's fresh water right here is pretty deep all the way up so you can get pretty close to the big boat the rut is i think even down here the rut is here right now so bulls should be moving in with these cows but i'll come and camp here for a couple days look for look for the right bowl and hopefully find success it's really lumpy a lot of craigs rocks cuts ravines rivers coming down so it's going to take finding some elevation peeking into the next valley find some more elevation peaking in the next valley just picking it apart i'm sure i'm sure there's something here especially seeing four to five groups right from the main boat here but it's going to take a couple of days of camping hiking kind of see what's here we'll get donny up here on the beach with all the gear and then uh communicate back and forth with our satellite phones and then come back and pick donnie up in a couple days [Music] johnny good luck thanks scott good luck yeah [Music] yeah yeah yeah [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh yeah this is my first official morning hunting caribou i've been in adac for three days now but the weather's been horrendous essentially i'm sitting on a little picture a little island out at the end of the aleutian chain everything to my west is russia everything to my east is mainland alaska but it's 1200 miles away and everything to my north is just the bering sea so when i when we have a northerly wind it makes it really hard for us to scoot around the north side and get on the back side of the island where i wanted her caribou he actually were able to do that there was still some significant swells much bigger small than i thought there was going to be but corey's a great captain he was great in the boat never felt unsafe at all these waters can be extremely unforgiving so this is entirely a different herd dynamic than i've ever hunted before i usually am hunting either mountain caribou which are in small herds living amongst the doll sheep or barren ground caribou like out of kotzebue where they are truly migrating they're coming from the brooks range from their caffeine grounds hundreds of miles down to their wintering grounds and then they'll be migrating back this is an island that is 33 plus miles long and 25 miles wide so all of the caribou are just meandering around this island and i think cory said they just flew a survey there's maybe 1700 animals so the odds are stacked way against me but all i have to do is keep picking apart this country and i'll hopefully find one there's all these little folds it actually reminds me of grotesque to say but it kind of looks like a human brain there's just little rocks little folds little streams coming out i just need to look around need to do some hiking i have to do that daylight to dark because it's it's uh really long nights so i have to truly make hay when the sun is shining it's an awesome place beautiful it's weird to see what a vast wilderness exists here both with the ocean and on the island and then also these broken down little microcosm of military bases and where people used to live it's it's uh it's a a great stretch of what humans are are capable of enjoying the wild and also um impacting it in a great way but hopefully i find a nice pull today [Music] just found my first set of caribou since leaving camp this morning this place is super hilly tons of folds lots of drainages and so basically it's trying to find a high spot look all around the high spot go to the next high spot look all around the high spot i've just been picking it apart this is one of the most unique and beautiful landscapes i've seen anywhere it's basically a flattened out rock with really diminished topography from all the wind and rain and it's completely surrounded by sea so it's just no matter what direction the wind this thing is getting pounded [Music] hunting on this island where the landscape seems too perfect it's easy to picture each metal holding a handsome bowl tending to a harem of cows but it's not been the reality at this point hill and valley have only proven to hold no game that coupled with the vastness and it's easy to lose any and all confidence i've been hiking since dawn carrying a pack and rifle but it would appear i'm the only one that even knows that i'm here hopefully persistence will pay off but nothing on this island appears to come easy nothing so i am completely socked in today it's been blowing like hell which it seemed to do all the time here and it's been raining all day hard rain power mist and uh and the place that i need to go today to hunt is on the south side of expedition harbor which i'm camped on right now and i can hardly see over there and it's a long ways away to just go blindly and yesterday i hiked i did all of these ridges all the way up worked my way all the way up to shag bay yesterday there's two big mountains right here there's a 1500 actually it's a ridge 1500 1300 1500 so i worked my way all the way up along the water up to shag bay and then i worked all the way down just on the southeast side or southwest side rather this ridge and back to camp i probably did mino had to be 10 to 15 miles yesterday on foot and i saw two cow caribou that's it it was uh everything looked perfect it looked absolutely perfect every little ridge i went over i expected to see a little herd with a little harem with a bowl i just kept telling myself that all day long and i kept picking my way apart but two cows is all i bumped into so my plan was today to hike south around beverly cove and then around ganek cove and hunt all of this southwest side the southwest shoreline of expedition harbor but i can hardly see you can hardly see over there so um i think my plan c is to radio for corey to come pick me up in the boat if there's weather potentially tomorrow he has to go around he has to come to town and he has to steam around the north side of the island and this north side is the second deepest trench in the world second deepest portion of the ocean in the world on the bering sea and because of that big slope it can create really steep waves that are really dangerous for boats as i'm sure everyone knows the bering sea eats boats alive and so we have to play it smart with weather here raven out there and so hopefully tomorrow which is friday morning um hopefully he can steam around and come pick me up and then take me to another location and and he kind of warned me that this might be the case i asked him if he would drop me off and let me camp for a few nights so i could still hunt my way around these areas and do a little spot in stock and hopefully find a bowl um but he told me that very likely we were gonna have to um do a fair bit of hunting from the boat because the the bulls are down low and they're down on the beaches and it's just too far it's too much uh land to cover in the short amount of daylight that i have right now so plan c is to have him come and pick me up tomorrow morning and then we hunt portions of this caribou peninsula see if we can't find a uh find a suitable old bowl from having uh having a good time it's just it's it's tricky when you get socked in because you just want to go you want to lay down some boot leather and keep looking over the next ridge but in weather like this it's really tough all you can see is a short distance and you basically have to stumble into something uh to pull it off and it's very very unlikely to do so and getting yourself in all your gear pretty wet in the process so we're gonna hang tight i'm gonna hang tight um it's an amazing place it's unlike anything else i've ever seen the sea life around here is uh it's astonishing how many sea ducks live here sea otters seals sea lions orcas and basically i've seen all of that right from my campsite just by walking around and checking out this little peninsula this little bay that i'm on right here so i'm gonna hunker down the rest of the day and write in my journal and do some reading and hope tomorrow we can find some weather to to get corey in the boat over here so we can keep hunting [Applause] it'll work out i'm positive it'll work out it's a good day to catch up on sleep i just got word from corey he and scott are going to attempt the north side to come pick me up but his messages on my inreach device aren't easy to decipher i'm receiving bits and pieces that i believe to be out of order but it sounds like it's blowing in from the north i don't know if the seeds will let him around that north side but i'll keep an eye on the horizon and be ready either way [Music] so [Music] thankfully the boys made it but they both seem a little shook up they said their trip to come get me may have been the worst swell that either of them have ever been in and they've been doing this for quite some time now with even more weather in tow it's not safe for us to continue hunting caribou on this side so corey and i switched gears and planned to steal a few days to go duck hunting with corey's head guide ben no matter the weather adac always offers up an opportunity to hunt and fish on the leeward side so in the morning docks it is then you need me on the other side you want to undo the bungees again sea docks mean weather even the good days come with risk painted birds both the real ones and the imposters boats and blinds and rocky ledges the men that hunt them aren't only hunters they're waterfowlers and to me that's a big difference it's shotguns and shot hot coffee or maybe it's cold water follows our layman ornithologist with a twisted mind one that take their donuts with a side of wind and rain a special kind of people and ones that i respect mightily if i had to hang my hat on one last haunt it would very likely be for ducks with a perfect crew i've waited my entire life to hunt harlequins my entire life for this day [Music] i've already had some landing in the decoys and they are so they love cartoon life looks like a child made them if you will and they're really really good eating i have not eaten them yet but corey and scott and ben have told me they're phenomenal table fair so i'm really excited for this hunt and i'm already starting to see bald eagles are starting to land around us because as i shoot ducks they're going to try to steal them for their meal so it's it's it's a little bit of a race to get get the down verb for the eagles but it's cool it's just part of it in alaska which is something that's really awesome but this is the bering sea it's a misty rainy old day perfect for duck hunting and i am stoked [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] as you can see harlequins call this place home set up on most any protected water near kelp beds and sea lions and see these painted little devils pitch into your blocks now if we're talking pacific guiders and scooters well that's an entirely different experience hunting docks here has been a dream come true but i've been doing so with big caribou bulls in the back of my mind and an eye in the weather it's looking like tomorrow might be our day to try for caribou again but this time we're going to the ends of the earth to hunt and find our bowl hunting in a place so exposed and with so much weather inherently must be embraced with patience a shortcut here means your family gets a phone call and the us coast guard goes to work it's an all or nothing decision these aren't easy seas to turn around and i can tell that corey and scott aren't exactly sure that this is going to be ideal or even possible the change in weather is slight and the window in which to use it even more so nothing is done here without the risk of losing a boat and human life nothing we'll give the weather one last look in the morning and hopefully feel good about our decision either way [Music] the weather forecast indicated that we'd have our window of manageable seas and so we headed out of sweeper cove with high expectations unfortunately it didn't take long for us to find our first bit of trouble [Music] okay so there's water that'll sit in the bottom bowl of the right course so there's a little lever that you open and when you do that it drains the water so you'll feel there's a little water separator in the bottom of that raycord and you can see the fuel sitting on top and the water sitting on the bottom so we just drain the water off it just comes off the bottom yep yep okay it's sweet and it doesn't take much so that it doesn't take much water that much water in it yeah all right we're ready to go adventure the adventure [Music] the most dangerous parts of our journey were not filmed what you see is what we can show you at all other times we had our heads on a swivel and holding on with white knuckles the waves were massive and worst of all disorganized but thankfully corey and scott are no strangers to this water and capable of navigating its unpredictable ways it's incredible that we made it hey cory look over here there's a really good bowl you see at the end of the bay there yeah it looks good it's not really nice one yeah yeah yeah there's a couple of them and there's a couple of cows they're right on the shore yup and look at there's um look it up top there there's one bowl and a cow bedded above but he looks smaller he looks younger i think that one down on the beach looks best yeah he's really tall really tall look at it almost looks like he hasn't um he hasn't rubbed his antlers on anything but i suppose it can't run through hours right there's no trees yeah it looks like he's just fresh on a velvet yep okay well that's um where do you want to go in i think we should uh put in over here and just go right in between these rocks right here yeah we'll go up in those rocks basically get you in up there and then you can hike uh hike over and you see this ridge maybe if if i either hug the rocks then maybe i can get up on the flat up on that flat ridge and then maybe if i hog that dish that whole thing out the way they are at the end here they won't be able to see as we come along right right okay looks good all right let's take we uh we're on a portion of the island that is somewhat protected and we've now found 10 or 12 caribou right along the beach and one of them appeared to be a good bowl maybe two of them so scott and i are gonna dump the zodiac in and get to shore and start a stop hopefully it works out [Music] [Music] [Music] i think if i just pick my way along the shore very nondescript not in a hurry i can go right here okay right there yeah for sure he is so i need a knife now right now it's all the way around his throat so i'm trying to get money okay don't see that every day was all the way around his throat suffocated that was literally one of the most rewarding things i've ever experienced in my life as a hunter what a grateful year unbelievable unbelievable okay great thank you good luck [Music] i'm just going to pick this shoreline apart there's maybe eight animals nine animals at the end of this little bay the seas are super rough today really got my butt kicked coming here was nervous a few times and uh this was warm water it would have been like a roller coaster today no problem this is really cold water we're in the bering sea and uh there's no swimming not very far not very long and i know this is a little contradictory but there's a big bull down here that i want to that i want to kill and get some more meat from so i'm just going to pick down these rocks as nondescriptly as i possibly can and try to kill this ball [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so they're all pretty much facing away [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] here are some things to be afraid of [Music] growing old and died running out of songs not being strong enough not being brave enough never ever knowing what to do [Music] we are hunters in fact the hunting and scavenging of meat is what's made us the successful humans we are today this bull along with all of his ancestors were placed here to feed an army to provide for soldiers should they become stranded during war and to stave off famine if we don't hunt here they'll eat themselves out of house and home and they're doing just that hunting for all of us is important but for the caribbean that call this place home it's imperative whether that's difficult to digest or not humans are nothing more than pieces of the puzzle this is reality this is conservation and the world we live in your hands and what they do here are some things to keep [Music] this perfect springtime [Music] [Music] my body never ever knowing what to do [Music] and what they do [Music] what better way to reflect on the previous day's hunt than to walk amongst the naval base runes with a stacked 20-gauge looking and listening for 8x chuckling ptarmigan often you'll hear their laughter before the flush this is what crisp fall days were made for warm sun in your face and a shotgun in hand these birds won't make it past dinner i usually find tarmac in most every place that i hunt in alaska from mountain tops while hunting doll sheep to river corridors while hunting moose but this is the first time chasing these tasty little birds amongst abandoned buildings these are special times that i won't soon forget [Music] incredible animal and unbelievable table fare super fun to hunt arm again i've hunted them on quite a few places in alaska obviously this is my first time on adac but remarkable fall is a time of restlessness it's a time for the hunter and for preparation of winter adeck is perfect for this as she provides a bounty of which few men will ever see a bounty of the wilderness and of the water in the field is where we hunt but all of our harvests whether by rifle or shotgun or fishing rod are carried to the adac butcher shop also known as corey's garage so we'll trim this off we're going to keep this for grinds serious business can be done with smiles we tell tales that we just lived through we talk tough and we laugh outside of raising a family or perhaps being victorious in battle in my opinion this is as fulfilled as a man can feel we make our cuts we package we do all of this to share as hunters and providers this is who we [Music] are [Music] yeah there's two of them just like that [Music] [Music] [Music] to spend time in any wilderness brings a man perspective both in size and of significance i felt that way almost immediately on adac the landscape is vast but smothered by wind and rain only the volcanoes appear to touch the sky the bering sea waves are bigger than i ever imagined they would be and every bit is powerful the winds of adac speak their own language and if you listen you'll hear whispers of history it speaks of tales of a great ghost town a naval air base left to be reclaimed by the fantastic weather they tell the formidable imperial japanese army taking hold on american soil and of the spy games during the cold war even the caribour ruin of war just as the rocks on her coast are sculpted with the tide my time on ada can shape me a great deal more that's what we're left with in this world you know our wild places and that describes adac perfectly wild and out in the middle of the bering sea she'll be waiting waiting for the next visitor to step off the plane and you can be sure she'll greet them with all of her might [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Benelli USA

Views: 560,464

Keywords: Benelli, Winds of Adak, Winds of Adak Film, Benelli Film, Trailer, Donnie Vincent, Super Black Eagle 3, Lupo, 828U, Adak, Adak Film, Adak Movie, Benelli Shotguns, Benelli Rifle

Id: 24imyPIUwhs

Length: 51min 41sec (3101 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 09 2020