TRIP TAKEN: Alaska Peninsula Brown Bear Hunt
CONSULTANT: Outdoors International
June, 2012
I’m always amazed the way the weather plays the biggest part of any hunt! This year, Alaska was inundated with a huge amount of snow and because of that, a late spring that just didn’t want to give up. Because of those conditions, we decided to select the second spring brown bear hunt on the Alaska peninsula offered by our outfitter. It turned out to be a wise decision.
Upon arriving at base camp for my spring brown bear hunt, we visited with the previous hunter. He had just experienced ten days of rain, snow, sleet and wind. He was soaking wet and discouraged that he had not even seen a brown bear because of the nasty spring weather. On his way into the plane he graciously expressed lots of luck to us as we began to unload our gear and get ready for our spring brown bear hunt.
Later that evening we got a little glassing in as the weather had began to lift a little, and we spotted the first bear of the hunt! He looked pretty nice, but not quite what we were looking for. My guide estimated that he was around 8ft. The next three days the weather settled back in again with rain, snow and wind. We still hunted hard, hiking up several streams and canyons looking for tracks and sign. With almost half of my hunt over, I was starting to get nervous when the weather cleared, we started spotting a brown bear every evening. R-E-L-I-E-F…
Finally we spotted a shooter bear! He looked to be just over 9ft with a great big head on him. We made the stalk and got within about 100 yards…. we waited awhile for him to present a shot, and when he finally turned broadside, a log jam was in the way and the old boy stepped into the willows. We were forced to back off off, hoping that he would reappear before it got to dark but it never happened.
Two days later we spotted another large bear. I got a shot and hit him a little low, so we had to track him for a good part of the day. Later that afternoon we finally jumped him for a finishing shot. After looking closely at the video, we determined that it was the same big brown bear we had almost gotten the previous day!
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Awesome bear! Congrats Kim.
Wow, a great brown bear.
Great bear! Lots of work into that boy. And you are 100% correct on our "spring," it still has not happened up north. Snow pack is slowly dwindling, but the rain and fog and almost nightly new snow is not what I was hoping for for my daily hunts with my camera.
Any word on Justin Sparks? I have not heard from him since his first night. I am half afraid that he may have gotten side-tracked in that dandy little "restaurant" I recommended to him his first night in Anchortown… The Great Alaskan Bush Company. It has a tendency to interrupt plans. I am just making sure I don't need to go down there and drag him out of there and remind him that he is here to hunt bear, not trap beaver. Over
LOL, no I haven't heard from him since then either.
Woody, I think we both know him quite well and I would suggest you go and drag him out of there. Copy?