Lost a Finger, Found a Brown Bear
Lost a Finger, but Found a Brown Bear
OI Founder and Co-owner Cory Glauner went on a brown bear hunt on the Alaska Peninsula with one of our clients a few years ago days after chopping the end of his finger off.
Brown bear hunting on the Alaska Peninsula switches from a spring to a fall hunt every other year. Even numbered years are spring brown bear hunts and take place May 10-25. Odd number years are the fall brown bear hunts which take place October 1-20. Cory and his client, Bruce Templeton would be hunting in May. It was a tough, ten day grind of glassing from the exact same spot all day, every day… but on the tenth day they got it done on a monster bear.
If you want to go on a brown bear hunt, be prepared to do a lot of glassing. It is an exercise in patience, but so worth it when you finally spot the one.
Notice the finger? I cut it off 3 days before I left for the hunt. I was kind of miserable to say the least, but I wasn’t gonna let that stop me. (Duct tape rocks!)
Keeping that sucker clean was a challenge.
The scenery wasn’t bad…I spent A LOT of time looking at this view… a lot.
Tundra intrigued me…. but it limits your mobility (as I would come to learn in spades on a later DIY caribou hunt).
I didn’t realize that tundra consisted of multiple species. And it’s beautiful if you look closely. Walking through it… well, that sucks.
The weather couldn’t make up its mind. It was cold, hot, windy, calm, rainy…. glad I had good gear. I realize that this picture makes it look like I’m cold… but I’m just trying to stay out of the sun. The next day I was sure to bring my hat…. but the sun didn’t shine that day. Figures…
I thought we would be staying in tents, but we stayed in this hunting shack along the creek. I didn’t complain, I’ve spent plenty of time in tents before.
Stories of past hunts were written everywhere. It was cool.
I try to keep a journal on every hunt I go on.
Bruce layin’ down the Thunder on a monster brown bear digging for beavers in a dam.
We found the bear evicting… and eating the beavers.
Just over TEN FEET! Awesome bear! What an adrenaline rush!
This did the job.
I wasn’t a ton of help because of my finger. That bothered me, but forced me to get good video.
The bullet held together pretty well.
Wow. That’s all I have to say about that.
Big feet!
27+” skull
