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Bear Hunt:

Hello,
For a long time I've wanted to go hunting for bear in the wilds of Alaska, and have imagined all kinds of scenarios for what that would be like. Most have involved beautiful summer weather, salmon running up rivers and bears lining the banks, hungrily feeding. Boy was I surprised when I finally got to go!

I got the opportunity this May to go to the tip of the Alaska Peninsula, close to where the Aleutian Islands start, to hunt brown bear - that area is reputed to have the highest concentration of brown bears in the world. Randell is our senior Sales manager, has decades of firearm knowledge and hunting experience and, more importantly, is a friend and someone I’ve wanted to go hunting with for a long time. We knew we had to be in shape and that we might face some rough weather, but little did we know what it would really be like!

Some spring bear hunts are held at the beach - the bears come out of hibernation and head straight to the beach to look for a meal of beached whales or walrus carcasses that have washed up over the winter.

But spring was late this year and very few bears had come out of hibernation, and that changed everything. Our outfitter decided we would hunt at the snow line on a dormant volcano. We would try to catch a brown bear coming out of hibernation and heading down the mountain. It was much easier said than done.

The weather was bad, very bad. It took many extra days to get into base camp because we couldn't fly in, and then it was tough slogging through the snow and sleet to climb up to the ridge line where we would hunt each day. The type of hunting we did was officially called spot and stalk, but mostly it was sitting still for hours and hours, freezing, while glassing to look for a bear we could chase. And then we didn’t see any bears. It was so windy and cold.

But we finally got lucky near the end of the hunt after a long day on the mountain; a bear suddenly stood up in what had appeared to be open country. Apparently he had been sleeping in a little fold of land the whole ten hours we had been glassing that valley. Suddenly he just appeared, and headed for the nearest green patch, right below the snow line to start feeding. The hunt was on!

Randell ranged the bear, and he was 485 yards away, across completely open land. We had to cross over and get closer to him to take a responsible shot. So we headed out, taking just a few steps at a time, and then freezing our movement and pretending we were shrubs. The bear figured out something wasn’t quite right, but he never got a good look at us moving, so we never got busted. He got visibly nervous though and slowed down his feeding and increased his surveillance. It took about 45 minutes to go a little more than 200 yards – not only because we were being careful not to get caught, but also because the "flat" tundra was anything but flat.

If you can imagine a field of millions of paint buckets turned upside down, with water and slushy snow in between them, then you can picture what a "flat" tundra valley is like. It was very difficult to cross.

But we finally got close enough, and decided to take him. I got down into a prone position to make sure the first shot was as accurate and decisive as possible. I put my backpack down on a grass hummock, and basically laid down in a big puddle. It wasn't comfortable, and I was pretty sure I would get hit by the scope trying to shoot uphill from a prone position. But that first shot on dangerous game is so important, you just have to get it right.

Randell and I had worked out our action plan before hand, and I used a .375 Ruger Alaskan bolt-action rifle, with a .300 grain Hornady bullet, and took the first shot. Randell then shot, and I followed up. A big brown bear is a hard animal to put down, but the .375 Ruger did the job! We kept him from running into the alders, and saved ourselves from the potential of having to go after a wounded brown bear in the thickets during dusk. It was a real relief to know he was down.

The hard work started then, with our guide doing an incredible job of skinning out the bear as the sun went down and the flashlights came out. Then we had to start the long trek hauling the hide and skull back to camp, but finally gave up as it was just too heavy to maneuver through tundra and mountainside in the dark.
It took us four more hours to get back to base camp, fording fast-moving rivers that had risen during day while we were up on the mountain, and fighting our way through an alder swamp before we finally could rest. That was a long, tough 21 hour day of hunting - and the excitement and satisfaction was worth every minute!

The bear measured 8' 10-1/2".

You can watch our hunt later this year on "Rugers' Adventures" on the Versus Channel.

Best regards,
Mike
 
 
 

 

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