Alaska Bucket List Hunt #2

[ShaneTyTrey]

I am a guy that loves to hunt predators, whether it be coyotes, bobcats, black bears or mountain lion, I have always enjoyed pursuing predators.  After months of trying to decide between grizzly or brown bear, fall or spring, SE, SW, Peninsula or Kodiak and the pluses, minuses and costs associated with each hunt, I decided to book a Spring Brown Bear hunt in SE Alaska.  I knew going in, that while bigger than Grizzly Bears, the Brown Bears in SE Alaska, just aren't genetically as large on the high end as the bears on the Peninsula or Kodiak Island, but I also knew that hunting a place with a high end bear at 9' vs 10' was also a savings of around $10,000.  Couple that with the fact that I just love the dark chocolate hides of SE Alaska Bears, I decided this was the trip for me.  Since I had already done a boat based camp on my Alaskan Goat in 2018, I wanted the true experience of a tent camp, where I would be living for a 10 day stint in bear country.

I flew into Juneau on May 10th and then took a beaver into camp on May 11th.  It was scenic and beautiful and the bears were literally in camp, as we saw them there all but 2 days of the trip.  There is something nerve racking about taking a 300 yard hike in a rain forest to use the bathroom with bears all around, or ever hopping out of your tent in the middle of the night to pee.

[Karl Blanchard]

Tagging

[ShaneTyTrey]

As many of you know, in Alaska, you can't hunt the same day that you fly in, so Wednesday the 12th was our first day in the field.  We were using 12 foot dingy's with small motors, so the weather really impacts your ability to move around and cover ground.  Not to mention, the tides really impact when you can and can't come and go.  That culminated with the weather, makes taking photos during the hunt a lot more difficult, so I opted for video more than photos on most instances.  The abundance of wildlife on this trip was amazing, as you see brown bears, orcas, humpbacks, sea lions, seals, crab, jellyfish, sitka blacktails and a ton of harlequin.

Anyway, after a sleepless night we were set to head out about 1:00 pm and hunt until dark, I am not sure I have ever been more excited for the first day of the hunt, as I had never seen a brown bear outside of captivity and just couldn't wait for that experience.  It was a tremendous first day as we saw 12 bears in all, only 2 of which were cubs, and got to start a stalk on a bear we were interested in, but backed out once the wind wasn't in our favor.  Overall as good of a first day as you could have asked for.  However, mother nature had other ideas for day 2, and we weren't ever able to get out on Thursday.

[Timberstalker]

Looks epic already! 

[ShaneTyTrey]

As you can imagine, after the great first day, not getting to go out on day 2 was a heart breaker, I mean I was itching to get back out.  Well the forecast Friday was worse than Thursday and we weren't planning on going out.  Luckily, we caught a break and were able to head out just after 4:00 why the water was high enough we could still get the boats off the sand and head out. 

I was pumped, it was go time, we quickly loaded up our gear, through on a rubber rain jacket and prepared for a cold wet night of searching for more bears.  The first few hours had gone by and we had only seen one smaller bear, it was slow but still super fun to this brown bear newbie.  It was about 8:00 and we were pulling into a little bay to take a pee, unfortunately we saw another small bear right where we were heading, so we moved our location, relieved ourselves, ate a quick apple and hopped back in the boat.  For some reason, we decided to watch the little bear for a bit instead of immediately hopping back out into the ocean and hunting our way back to camp.

As luck would have it, that few minutes we wasted turned out to be my good fortune.  After watching that smaller bear for about 15 minutes, we finally fired the motor back up and headed out, almost immediately upon leaving that cove, I spotted a bear on the shore, and he appeared to be quite a bit bigger than any other bear we had seen thus far, he was walking with a swagger and didn't seem to interested in slowing down.

It was now about 8:40 and we needed to get closer to shore so we could get some glass on him and verify he was indeed a bear we would like to stalk and try to harvest.  Once we were steady it took about 1 second to realize this bear was absolutely a shooter.

Unfortunately, he was walking in the opposite direction and not really stopping, we knew we would never catch him on foot as even just walking they cover a lot of ground quick.  Luckily we had the win in our favor staying behind him, but if he didn't stop we were in trouble.  He finally stopped in some grass to eat, this was our chance, we putted the boat to shore quickly hopped out and started moving, in the 30 seconds it took us to sneak up behind a rock, the bear had gone from about 60 yards to 220 and was still walking away at a quick pace, this wasn't the shot I was prepared to take, so back in the boat we hopped.

This darn bear just kept walking and we kept putting behind him, we knew that if we fired the boat up enough to move in front of him, he could hear us, and if we were successful in getting in front of him and trying to have him walk to us, he would certainly smell our wind blowing right into him.  It was also getting dark quicker than normal with the rainy, cold, overcast evening.  It was now 9:10 and the big bruin appeared to have no interest in ever stopping. 

We quickly decided we had to gamble and try to get in front of him, as that was going to be our only chance, we were able to coast ahead of the bear without being spotted as we moved into the ocean a bit more, while doing this, we noticed a small reef that we could access and the bear would likely end up walking perpendicular to us and thus, not likely smell us.  It worked perfect, I hopped out of the dingy, and lay prone on the jagged reef as the bear approached, a quick range of 170 yards, and I knew the walking bear was almost mine.  It was now 9:22 at very close to being too dark to make this happen.  I quickly throw a 220 grain ELDX into the chamber of the 300 PRC and let it bark, the bear instantly wobbles and then falls onto his back, he tries to get up a couple times with no luck, but I put another one in him to make sure he is anchored so that we can hop into the boat, steam over and check him out.

As we approach the downed bear I am in amazement of the size of these things, I am happy, humbled, wet, cold and just in another universe of emotions as I touch the bear for the first time.

After snapping a few pictures, it is now dark outside and we realize I shot the bruin below the high tide line.  We have no interest in skinning him in the dark with rising tide, so we have to tie him off to a huge boulder, a giant downed tree, cover him in a tarp so the birds don't tear up his perfect hide, and then cover the tarp in giant rocks to make sure he is still there and in good shape when we return the next morning.

[ShaneTyTrey]

I was confident we had done a great job, but I couldn't sleep that night, as I was chomping at the bit to get back to the bear and get the trophy back to camp.

We left camp at 6:00 and headed back to the bear, as confident as we were, I was still super relieved to see that he was in good shape and the tarp, bear and rocks were just has we had left them.

It took us about 4 hours to do a good skinning job on the bear and then we headed back to camp.  Unfortunately, a storm blew in and the weather was brutal, the boat ride that had taken 20 minutes to complete the night before took us 80 minutes, and we were soaked beyond believe as 6 foot rollers in 15 mph winds don't go well with a 12' raft and a 15hp motor.  We made it safely and it just added to the experience but it was a miserable ride.

I stayed in camp a few more days and just hung out and enjoyed the peacefulness of the beautiful place I knew I will likely never see again.  It was pure bliss.  This was truly the best hunt of my life today as it just had so many different experiences, if this is a hunt on your bucket list, make it happen, you won't forget it.

I was fortunate enough to take this bear that was just under 9' squared with perfect hair, in an area where that is a giant bear, I couldn't have been more blessed and I will cherish this hunt forever.

[carpsniperg2]

Beautiful bear and sounds like a amazing trip

[Dan-o]

WOW!!!!!!!

Utterly amazing...

[Rob]

Fantastic adventure!

[Fl0und3rz]

Another epic hunt and trip report.  Congratulations.

[teanawayslayer]

What a beauty! Congrats on a great bear!

[lewy]

 

[wadu1]

Great looking bear, and a well written adventure story to go with it. Thanks for sharing 

[Karl Blanchard]

Outstanding! Man I never had any desire to hunt the big bears but the last few years they've really gotten in my brain.

[Alex4200]

Thanks for letting us make that trip with you. Very nice write up.