May 2009: SOLO Alaskan Brown Bear

[Randy Morin]

   

[Big Ed]

I'm hooked.


 

[Apex Predator]

Alaska is a llloooooonnnnnnggggg way from here, but I'm gonna make it one day!  Thanks for taking the time to share this with us.

[paleFace]

   

[Steve H.]

I had an awesome experience in 2002 so I knew I would go back to the same area in 2003.  Having Charlie come up was expensive and took a lot of time so after much internal debate I decided I would go solo.  

To mitigate any opportunities for bad stuff to happen I would modify a few things about how I hunted.

1). I would camp in the area where I would be hunting so eliminate the long cross-channel trips twice a day.  I believe that there is more opportunity for bad-things to happen by water than by bear.

2). I would carry a .375 H&H Magnum.  I am actually more concerned with bears I don't know are there than the one I am stalking.  Also for tracking and camp.

3). I would only target solo bears (which avoids problems with sows/cubs); I have about one opportunity for a stalk per year that is a boar and sow.

4). I would try and target bears that thought they were cows and munching on grass.  Well, at least I would PRETEND they were cows that I was stalking!

5). No reading scary bear tales.  Most of them are extreme circumstances and worst case scenarios and do not represent typical bear behavior.

This year I had all my gear flown in by Beaver to a little spot that was an island at high tide but was land connected at low tide.  Since it was out of the way I suspected the bear would generally avoid this island of about 2 acres.  

Here is a picture of my 2003 camp.

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[bohuntr]

Cool story Steve! Can't wait for the rest.

[Steve H.]

I had my same bow/arrow/broadhead setup in 2003 as in 2002.

I didn't have a digital camera yet in 2003 so photos support is a little sparse but that will change!

The bears were out!  I checked out places I had seen bears in 2002 and added some little nooks were they poke out.

I should also stop and mention another difficulty of hunting by boat in Southeast Alaska -- Tides.  Our tide fluctuations are quite extraordinary and may range over 20 feet between high and low tide, twice per day!  It is very easy to anchor a boat and go on a stalk and come back and have your boat be high and dry and there you sit and wait, potentially for hours until the tide returns!

Most Alaska coast has undergone the phenomenon called "isostatic rebound" which means that when Pleistocene glacial ice melted, so much weight came off the land that the coastline lifted about 20 feet or so.  This has created a berm-like effect along the coast and has caused shallow bays to be lifted enough so they are exposed at low tide.

Imagine floating into a bay at high tide and at low tide the waterline is a half mile or more away!

I will add a few high/low tide comparative pictures a little bit later.

[bowhunterfrompast]

Great story and pics..waiting for more

     

[Steve H.]

Here is a somewhat eerie photo of the hunting area.

[Steve H.]

2003 must have been the year of the bear.

Bears everywhere!  Usually how it works is you see a bear here and there until about May 15ish and then start seeing 4-6-8 per day and I have seen as many as...drum roll please....FIFTEEN bears at ONE time!

The season ends May 20 so there is only a short period of time when the bear are out in full force and the season is still open.  Of course the later in the season the more sows/cubs and rubbed bears but more potential stalk opportunities in my experience.

And so I stalked bears.

[Steve H.]

My typical hunting day is to roll out of bed around 9 or 9:30, make coffee and usually pancakes, glass and make sure no early bears are out and tempting the fates.  Bear hunting generally is an afternoon affair and that works for me!  I like to wake up slowly as this ole' boy is a bit stiff-boned in the mornings.

I have come to observe that although these bears are afternoon animals that their appearances are also tide driven.  They like to come out earlier when the high tide has just receded to see what has washed up for their next meal.  I have more recently started watching closer just after the tide goes out.

[unclewhit]

[Steve H.]

It feels great to sit on a rock out in the sun after a long Alaskan winter and produce Vitamin D.

I have started a custom where each spring bear hunt I will re-read the important books, "Hunting with the Bow & Arrow" by Saxton Pope and "The Witchery of Archery" by Maurice Thompson.

Us toxophiliacs have been blessed to add another very important work to these two thanks to Cliff Huntington, "Toxophilus in Arcadia" by Maurice Thompson.  I have added this book to my annual bear hunt traveling library!

Thanks Cliff!

[BowHuntingFool]

Good stuff!    

[Steve H.]

And I stalked bears.

Small bears, medium bears, large bears.

To me method was more important than bear size and I didn't spend my time searching out a certain sized bear but prime stalking opportunities.

I had oh so many close calls.  I had one bear at ~15 yards walk thru two shooting lanes.  I had another equally close bear quarter toward me as he came into my lone shooting lane.  Another day I had just stalked into position in the woods adjacent to a beach grazing bear and was closing that last few yards when a close cruising boat spooked the bear back into the woods.  That bear was a doubly scalded cat when he saw me in the woods!

I have had dozens of close-range brown bear encounters.  Only two or three bears have not run away from me as quickly as they could scurry (like a scalded cat) when they knew I was in the vicinity.  The bears that didn't run did so as soon as they figured out I was human and where I was so they could run in an opposite direction.

Wind continued to often time be a revealing culprit when I was in tight but I maintained my composure to await the perfect shot and not get too rambunctious with shot selection.

[Steve H.]

Crap.  I just typed a HUGE page worth of stuff and hit some wrong button and it went away.

[Steve H.]

May 20, 2003.  The last day of my hunt, the last day of the season.  I picked out a small protected bay for the last evening and slowly motored into the tight walled bay.  (Hey Walt, you paying attention?  You know the place!)

Charlie and I had spotted a MONSTER bear in the back of this bay in 2002 but we had only a quick glance as it entered the woods.

I spotted what looked to be a good sized bear in the back of the tidal flat and made a long circle around back to get a favorable wind.  Two large twin "cubs" moved off ahead of me and I went on full alert.

I made my way to the edge of some scrub trees and brush and watched the original bear from about 60, maybe 75 yards away.  I waited for the bear to make a move but it continually munched away on sedges in the tidal flat.

I glanced over to my left as what may have been the largest bear on the island (this island is probably larger than some eastern states) waddled (thundered) into the open.  Now when I say this bear was big I mean he was HUGE!!!  Most bears in Southeast Alaska just don't get this big, don't obtain the sizes as bears on Kodiak, Unimak, and the Alaskan Peninsula.

The big boar was on a path that would take him to the other bear which I realized was a large sow, and right in front of me, HOLY-MOLEY!!!

[Steve H.]

Awkward as it was, I had my .375 laying next to me and a Damascus tipped cedar on the string of my little osage selfbow, David and Goliath poised for battle.

The bear slowly moved immediately in front of me as I knelt next to a small Sitka Spruce with nothing as much as a blade of sedge between me and the bear.

(Darn outta coffee)

Geez, I'm loosing it man!  I forgot a whole important chunk while I was away looking for coffee!!  Thank goodness for edit mode!

The bear was just too far out into the tidal flat, 35, maybe 40 yards out, not too far for Art Young but just too far for me.  I kept thinking about those extra long pokes and how many were going in on my front yard practice range but no, can't do it!

The big boar went over and mounted and bred the sow in front of my very eyes!

The wind swirled and the boar stood on his hind legs FRANTICALLY tasting the air for more of my scent.  he pinpointed my location and same as the tiny bears, he was a scalded cat and was out of there in a hurry!  He didn't get to be that size and age (likely over 20) by interacting with humans.

Funnily, when he was on his hind legs and took off running, he looked like a cartoon with his hind legs revolving in a fan-like circular motion.

But that didn't end the season, I had another encounter with a blondish bear (rare on the island) at the end of the day.

What a fabulous last day of the season!

[Steve H.]

Once again sorry about the lack of photos for this segment.  The few I have are unscanned paper.  I will make up for it later with so many you will probably get bored and your eyes fatigued.

[Steve H.]

Oops, I had one more photo ready from 2003.  The amount of wildlife in this area is incredible.  Brown bears, Sitka blacktailed deer, river otters, humpback whales (and orcas), porpoise, seals, sea lions, mink, and birds, lots of birds.  I have fallen in love with one sea duck out there, the Surf Scooter.  They raft in groups of a few to several thousand and the music they make brings a smile to my face.  Maurice Thompson would have loved this place.  Usually the Surf Scooters feed out further in the channel but here is a rare close in picture with a few bluebills for good measure.