FINALLY… spring hunting has begun!

My cabin fever was pretty bad this year. The very little snowfall left a lot to be desired and many regular winter activities were difficult to do. Because I didn’t get my winter fun fix as much as I had liked, it left me really looking forward to the spring. Our first hunting trip was going to be a weekend hunt in the mountains getting high above the bears. It was also going to function as an exploration trip too since we have never hiked the pathless area we wanted to go. Unfortunately, that weekend hunt got cancelled due to a sick cat at home that required twice daily medications and ongoing attention… thus delaying my anticipation for spring hunting even more.

Well that next weekend was the ticket. My buddy Johnathon and I planned a four day hunting trip looking for bears in the mountains and over the bait stand. Our plan going in to the hunt was to get to our parking area super early Thursday, hike in to the mountains behind the bait stand, stay the night for a night or two, and then come back out and hunt the bait stand for the remaining time (until we would return home Sunday). We had agreed that I would get the first crack at a brown bear and he would get first take of a black bear. Originally, we decided that no matter who shot the first bear, after harvesting it, we would pack up everything and return home. Lucky for me, I married the best lady in the world! Danielle volunteered to drive to our hunt area and pick up the first bear, if we got one, and take it home for safe hanging and storage until our four day hunt was complete. Teaser – we took her up on that service J

I picked up John at 4AM and we drove to our hunt area. We quickly unpacked and started hiking toward the mountain. I mapped out the quickest way to the peak of the mountain and our bait stand happened to be on the way. As a result, we decided to stop and check it out. To our amazement, the bait was nearly empty. This surprised me because I felt it was super early to have bears down from the mountain looking for food already. To see what was eating the bait, we took a gander at the trail cam. HOLY SMOKES was that bait a popular place. We saw everything from a massive brown bear, grouse, lynx, fighting black bears, and cubs on the camera. After seeing all the pictures of bears on the trail cam and knowing that many of the bears have already come down from the mountains, we decided to abandon our initial plan of spending the first part of the hunt in the mountains. We then made plans to hunt the bait stand for four hours until lunch. Over that four hours, we had a pair of two to three year old black bears come and leave a couple times. Seeing nothing else, we hiked back to the truck to exchange hunting gear for this type of hunting. We ate and then loaded up on dog food and scent to replace at the bait site.

We arrived at the site to hunt until dark. We climbed in to the tree stand, bundled up, put on our harnesses, fired up the honey burn pot I made, and settled down for the waiting game. It was a fairly slow night. The pair of small black bears came back and were stuffing themselves again. It’s a little frustrating having bears on the bait that you don’t want to shoot, however, it is illegal to “harass” them and you don’t want to scare off anything else in the area, so leaving them alone is what typically happens. Besides, a pair of small black bears doesn’t eat much compared to a family of brown bears (which we saw on our camera and know was the main reason for our depleted supply). Also… having small, skittish bears on your bait can be a good thing too because they will easily spook if they see or sense something bigger in the area. And that is exactly what happened.

Around 9PM, the bears got startled, looked south, and then they both took off in a hurry. We couldn’t tell what scared them at first, but about fove minutes later, a five foot black bear (measured from tail to tip of nose) appeared from our right. (Of note, six foot is considered big and an unwritten goal when hunting for them) Since it was a black bear, it was up to John whether or not he would harvest it. We waited a sufficient amount of time to determine it was alone and didn’t have cubs… good to go. John thought long and hard about shooting the bear. This was his first hunt in Alaska, his first chance at fulfilling his dream of bear hunting, his first chance at harvesting his own meat, but he decided to pass. It was only the first day of our hunt and we had seen bigger black bears on the trail cam. And that is exactly what bear baiting affords you… a chance to be selective; a way of ensuring a sow doesn’t get shot, and the opportunity to study their behavior.

We watched that black bear for about an hour and a half and then it slowly wondered away. At almost 11PM we heard twigs snapping in the distance. After seeing a handful of black bears come and go that day, we knew the cracking wasn’t coming from a small bear. Over the next minute, the snapping continued on the other side and to the right of the bait barrel. It got louder and louder as it approached. Finally, we could see the dark blur of an object passing by brush. It was a large brown bear! It continued to approach and had one last fallen tree to hurdle before it was out in the open. The bear put its front feet on the fallen tree, presented its upper half of the body, took one big sniff, and didn’t like what it smelled! It let out a large huff, and then low growl, and then took off in a sprint the same way it came. DANG IT!!! Our chances for a bear that night were over. It was getting late and night was falling. After the brown bear high-tailed it, we decided to head back to the truck for the night. On the way back we were discussing the possibilities as to why the brown bear spooked. I concluded that the honey burn pot may have been to blame with its unnatural, burnt smell (that black bears don’t mind tho). I decided to not burn the pot from that point on.

We got about three hours of sleep and were back on the trail toward the bait stand the next morning around sunrise. It takes about an hour and a half to hike to the bait stand, so we had to get up around 4:30AM to make sure we were in there at an early enough time. We arrived at the stand around 6:30AM. Again, we climbed the tree and settled down for another long day of waiting. To our amazement, about twenty minutes after sitting down, we started to hear twigs snapping in the distance. As expected, the pops and cracks started to occur more frequently as the animal crept closer and closer. Our hearts started to pound because again, we knew this wasn’t going to be a small bear. Even better, the mornings typically produce black bears while late evenings are more common for brown bear sightings. We were prepared to see a monster black bear… when all of a sudden a moose walked in to the bait and started eating! No, just kidding (but that would have been funny). The animal wasn’t a moose, it wasn’t a monster black bear, it was a large brown bear! And this time, it wasn’t scared.

From the short glimpse of the brown bear that we got the night before, this appeared to be the same bear. It had light brownish, matted fur throughout its body with darker chocolate brown on all extremities. It had no signs of rubbing (a term for missing hair on various areas of the hide) and looked to be in great physical shape. It was roughly seven and a half feet long and very hungry. The bear settled down to the bait like he had been there a million times.

After watching the bear for a while, we decided it was alone and did not have cubs with it. That’s when I looked at John and asked, “Are you ready for some hard work?” To which he replied, “Heck yes.” I quietly picked up my .338 and put my crosshair behind his front, right shoulder. I steadied my breathing, and I took the shot. Immediately after I shot, John took a shot; I then reloaded and took a third shot. The third one anchored him. Brown bears are tough animals… all three shots were perfectly placed, yet it still took more than one to bring him down.

We waited in the tree stand for a couple minutes to make sure the bear was dead. I then told John to give me a minute with the bear. I scaled down the tree stand and I approached the bear. Like I do with every animal that I kill, I kneeled down on a knee, placed my hand on his head, and thanked the bear for giving his life. I promise the animal that it will be respected and that the meat and hide will not go to waste. As I have said in other entries, the killing part is my least favorite part of the hunt, so it is a bitter sweet moment for me.

John was standing guard behind me all this time in case any other bears decided to come in. I called him over and we inspected the bear. It was a young, mature bear, (Fish and Game later estimated it at 6 years old). He was fighting recently as he had many cuts and gashes on his legs and face.

We took a couple quick photos and then I called Danielle to tell her the news. We then positioned him to be skinned. I have skinned many bears in the past; however, I have never skinned a bear this big or muscular. It took us three hours to skin and cut up the bear. We found a couple of interesting things during this process. First, bears and humans are anatomically very similar. The crazy thing about this bear is when the skin was removed, the muscles on this guy looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger times 20! He was ridiculously ripped. Second, it appears at one point in time, somebody shot this bear with bird shot. We found multiple lead BBs in the front right foot of the bear between the fur and muscle. Third, the weight of the quarters was a lot heavier than I expected.

It took us a total of three extremely heavy and exhausting trips in and out of the site to get all the meat to our game carts. Once the meat and hide was loaded in our carts, we pushed it all to the truck in a single load. The interesting part about this was that the push out is mostly downhill, and a couple times we almost had a run-away cart due to the momentum the heavy bear meat created.

Once at the truck, we moved the meat and hide in the shade and waited for Danielle to arrive to pick up the bear. Did I mention I have the best wife ever? We napped for a couple hours and then Danielle’s car pulled beside ours. Tundra jumped out to greet us and we loaded the bear in to her car. Many people don’t know what brown bear meat smells like… well it’s not good! And Danielle REALLY doesn’t like the smell. Unfortunately for her, she no longer has a truck and she had to drive all the way home with smelly bear in close proximately. To top it off, she got home around midnight and instead of asking the neighbor for help unloading the bear, she did it all herself. (keep in mind some of those game bags had about 100lbs of meat in them). Wife of the year nominee?!?!

While Danielle was driving the bear home, we decided to head back in to the stand for the night to try and get John a black bear. Unfortunately, we did not see a single bear that night.

Again, we only got a little more than three hours of sleep, and we headed back in to the tree stand the following day. We originally had a plan to go in for the morning, come out for lunch, and then head back in for the evening after a nap. Well that plan didn’t occur. John was so determined to get a black bear that he wanted to stay on the stand for as long as possible. We ended up staying there for 16 hours!!! That’s the longest time I have ever been in the tree stand… and the longest time I have ever sat in one spot. Regrettably, the 16 hours was not very productive :( Over that entire time, we only saw a single four foot black bear. We tried to figure out why the bears weren’t showing, but there were too many variables that day. The day before, we shot the brown bear and now a carcass was lying near the bait site. The night before, it got extremely cold and was the first time it was below freezing for a while. This long day was the first day the sun came out and was shining all day… it was also the first day that the wind was blowing fairly hard. Also, it was the first time no mosquitoes were anywhere to be found (something extremely odd for that location). All of these things combined left us wondering which of them may be responsible for the absence of bears. Uncertain and disappointed, we left the stand after 16 hours and headed back to the truck.

On our way to the truck, we had a close encounter with a couple brown. There is one part of the trek where we have to maneuver between very high and dense bushes. Well low and behold, that very place is where two brown bears decided to hang out, and where we decided to walk up on them at dusk. I didn’t know they were there until we were about 10 yards away from them. At that point, I stopped in m tracks because I could hear them breaking twigs. I then shouted the standard, “Hey bear!” Both of them instantly stood on their hind legs to look over the thick bushes. They easily towered taller than me, and they didn’t seem too scared. John fired off a warning shot from his rifle and that got the bears moving out of there in a hurry… scared me half to death too :)

The next morning was the last day of our hunt. The conditions were identical to the day prior and again, there was not a mosquito in site. We only had a couple hours to hunt that day before we needed to head home. Because the conditions were not favorable, we decided to just pack up and head home. (As a consolation hunt, John picked a couple days about three weeks later that he would return and try to get a black bear)

This is when the hard work for me began. I arrived at home to see the fabulous job Danielle did at keeping the meat and hide appropriately stored and cooled. I then started on getting the hide ready to preserve for sending to my taxidermist. The process of is known as fleshing and turning. It took me about 10 hours to do and I finally put the salt on the hide at 5AM. I had to work at 7:30AM that day, so I just opted to not go to bed that night… that was an extra bad Monday at work for me.

Since brown bear is extremely lean and muscular, it is not the best meat to consume due to its toughness and odd taste. Because of this, I had an agreement with my buddy Michael that he can have the meat to feed his dog sled team of giant malamutes. I have played with these dogs multiple times and they are amazing. They are 150 to 180 pounds of sweet, puffy fur balls. I can’t imagine how much food they eat throughout the year, so it made me feel good that the meat was going to a great cause and feeding these sweet giants.

Now that the brown bear hunt was successful, it was time to turn my attention to putting our annual black bear meat in the freezer.

This is our view from tree stand... barrel in the middle of the picture

The two little black bears mentioned above.

My downed brown bear.

Crazy long front paw claws.

If you didn't know... I'm 6'8"!

And now for a few pictures and videos that we got from the game camera. The camera captured thousands, and I still haven't seen all of them yet, but here are some that I have looked at already.