Alaska's fall hunt is coming, and hunters still don't know the rules

With fall hunting seasons bearing down, Alaska's hunters are heading toward the field missing two things they usually count on: settled rules, and the tickets they need to hunt. Regulations the Board of Game adopted last winter still aren't legally in effect, and paper harvest tickets for the state's biggest game species haven't shown up at vendors. For a state where a moose or a caribou can mean a winter's worth of meat, that's a lot of uncertainty at the worst possible time.

The bigger snag is the rules. Regulations the citizen Board of Game approved at its Southeast and Southcentral meetings months ago have been stuck in legal review at the Department of Law ever since, with no estimated completion date. Until that clears, Fish and Game says, hunters and trappers have to keep operating under last year's regulations — meaning anyone counting on a rule change this fall is, for now, planning blind. The odd part: the next round of proposals is already open, so the following year's cycle is underway before this one is even finished.

The ticket delay is a separate headache. A printing failure and slow shipping have held up hard copies of 2026-2027 tickets for moose, caribou, sheep, deer, and black bear; they're on their way but haven't landed. The workaround is simple enough — hunters can get their tickets now at hunt.alaska.gov, and any Fish and Game office can help with the online process.