Brown Bear Hunt... Got Me Thinking

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Foreword

There are two types people when it comes to taking an animal’s while hunting… A hunter or a killer. A hunter is person that has the utmost respect for the animal they are hunting. A hunter abides by all restrictions, laws, and limitations set on the hunting of the animal. A hunter prides themselves on having and abiding to morals, ethics, and standards. A hunter has a Ask-questions-first, shoot-later mentality. A hunter is well prepared and plans ahead.A hunter is giver... and cares about all aspects of the hunt.

A killer is the opposite. An animal killer has little respect for the animal they are hunting. An animal killer will often twist or break restrictions, laws, or limitations surrounding the taking of an animal. An animal killer often will have low morals, ethics, and standards, or even breaks them when they do exist. An animal killer has a Shoot-first, ask-questions-later mentality. An animal killer often does not plan ahead or is ill prepared due to nearsightedness. A killer is a taker... and caring is not a priority.

Danielle and I pride ourselves on being extremely responsible hunters. I know a few people who are anchored at the other end of the spectrum. Never have I thought that I would be questioning myself on where I stand in that spectrum… but that is exactly what happened after my most recent hunt.

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Now that Danielle harvested her black bear, it was my turn to see if I could bag a brown bear. The trail cam at my station and the neighboring station has shown multiple brown bears of different sizes and colors hitting the bait. One bear is a huge bruiser, but unfortunately he is very smart and only visits the station around 2AM... and I’m not hunting brown bears in the dark! He did however make a recent mistake and was at the bait station around 5 AM, when the sun was rising. It was now my goal to see if I could be in the right place at the right time when he makes his next mistake.

Danielle and I often say that we will not shoot something if we don’t plan on eating it. That is not the case with brown bear. I do not know a single person that eats brown bear. I have asked so many people, and even the Native Alaskan friends that I have do not know anybody that eats brown bear (I say this because Alaska Native People are very resourceful and have a tradition of utilizing everything on a harvested animal).

I planned a weekend hunt without Danielle as she had to stay home to participate in a graduation ceremony for her preschool class. I left directly from work and arrived at our parking area around 6:30PM. It was an EXTREMELY hot and sunny day (That’s about 70 degrees here… but seriously, our direct sunlight is way hotter than yours). I loaded up the cart with my hunting pack, 50lbs of dog food, and yummy smelling goodies. It was so hot on the way in, that I ended up going shirtless… the second time in a month and something that never really happens in Alaska. As I was walking in, I noticed something promising… HUGE brown bear prints on the trail. I’m talking big enough to fit my size 14 boot in!

Once I got to the bait station area, I was so hot and sweaty that I feared my stink would scare off any bears. I quickly wiped myself down and got all sprayed up with bug dope. I then had to make several trips in and out to the station to carry everything in. After setting the bait and getting everything nice and sweet smelling, I checked the trail cam. The trail cam showed multiple different bears visiting at all hours of the day with the brown bears typically showing up during the evening/night. This was exciting!

I climbed up the tree stand for the night. Over the course of the next 3 hours, I saw a few black bears and a small brown bear. I sat up there until 11:30PM at which point it was getting too dark to see anymore. I didn’t see a big brown bear, so I called it a night and headed out. On my way out, I saw many piles of fresh bear scat, but I made it back to the truck without any trouble. I set my alarm for 3AM to hunt the next day.

I woke up early the next morning after a couple hours of sleep to head back to the stand. I got there at 4:30AM, with a little daylight showing. I sat there until 11AM and saw nothing the entire time. Knowing no brown bears come out during the day, I headed back to the truck to nap and waste time until later that night.

7PM rolled around and I headed back out. Again, it was so hot that I went shirtless and I was still soaked from sweat. I knew I would smell, but I could smell something else at that point that easily overpowered my body odor… the carcass from last week. That thing was baking in the sun for about a week and the last two days were extremely hot and powerful, and as a result, that carcass smelled HORRIBLE! The weird thing about that is usually brown bears scavenge dead animals like this almost instantly; but for whatever reason, the brown bears visiting the bait station wanted nothing to do with it, which I thought was odd.  

I grabbed the 50bs of dog food and threw it over my shoulder for the first load in. On my way in, I spooked a brown bear that was in the area, but not on my bait. Bummer! I returned to the cart to grab the second load. On my way in the second time, I spooked something else that was coming in to the bait from the other direction… bummer again!

I got everything set up and ready for a night of sitting in the stand. Within 20 minutes of being up there, a small black bear came in. 20 minutes later, a different black bear appeared. 30 minutes later, a small brown bear appeared. This pattern continued to occur with black bears until about 11PM. At 11:15, a small brown bear appears to my left. He is very skittish and hesitant to approach the bait. I soon realized why. As I was watching him, a large blonde, brown bear appeared at the bait station after it crossed the creek from the back. I now had two brown bears in the area, one scared of how big the other was. The blonde bear on the bait was beautiful. It had real light, almost gold colored skin with dark brown legs. It came in like he knew he was king of the woods and didn’t care who else was in the area. The little brown bear growled and scuffed trying to make the larger one leave, but the big one just sat there without a care in the world. I knew this blonde bear was a shooter.

Unfortunately, at some point during the week, the bears got rowdy and decided to stomp and push my bait barrel around. They dented it and shoved it around the tree so it was no longer in my sight from the stand. Because of that, when bears approach the barrel, they would eat out of it in a place I could not really see. I mention this because I had to wait there for a while in order for the bear to present a shot. He actually sat down on his butt looking up, kind of like if we were to sit Indian-style on the ground. This gave me a clear shot at his chest.

It was very dark, but I could still see through the scope. I pushed the safety off my rifle, aimed squarely at his chest, and squeezed the trigger. BOOOMM. Now what happened next is important. The bear turned, grunted, and moved the other direction. He slowly dropped down into the creek, crossed it, and walked up hill on the other side of the creek. I paid close attention to where he went.

I then dropped out of the tree stand and carefully made my way back to the trail to the truck. I was not going to proceed after the bear tonight because you do not want to approach an injured/dying bear, especially in the dark. It was about midnight at this time. I got out my cell phone, called up Danielle and she didn’t answer. I had to call my neighbor who went over to our house to wake her up from the couch to get the news. I spoke with Danielle on the phone and asked her to meet me at the parking area in the morning to help me retrieve and pack out the bear. Keep in mind, it takes three hours to get to the hunting spot, and the plan was to head in at 5AM in the morning. Reluctantly, she agreed (Because she is the BEST wife ever!!!!!).

She showed up at 3AM and we got a couple hours of sleep. We then headed in (with Tundra too) at 5AM to retrieve the bear. We get there and examine the bait station. There was not a drop of blood anywhere! There wasn’t any blood where the bear was sitting, there wasn’t any blood where the bear walked, there wasn’t even any diluted blood near the creek where the bear crossed. It was the weirdest damn thing. I shoot a .338 caliber rifle, something that does more damage and hits/ kicks harder than most rifles used. This should have made a mess of the bear on impact… but apparently, the bear retained blood rather well.

We then try tracking the bear by following the path it headed. Again, no blood anywhere. After we got to a point where we were not sure where the bear went, we split up. We strategically covered a circle area of about 1 mile in diameter, walking back and forth back and forth through thick forest, alders, and creeks, scouring the woods for a dead bear. Tundra was helping as well doing his best to find whatever we were looking for. At one point, I thought that my gun may have been off site, so I recreated the shot and set up a target the same distance away. When I shot out of the tree stand, it nailed exactly where I was aiming! Well, after about 7 hours of searching, we decided that we were not going to recover the bear. Throughout those 7 hours, my heart sank lower  and throbbed harder with disbelief and disappointment that I had shot an animal that will not survive, and it won’t even be retrieved.

Danielle and I have talked about it pretty much at every hunting trip… what if, we shoot something and we don’t kill it or can’t find it? Danielle has always insisted that she will quit hunting because she does not ever want that to happen again… to which I reply… it happens to every hunter, it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. I used to naively say that thinking it would never happen to me. I used to think… I’m too good of a shot, and if a situation presents itself where I may not instantly kill the animal from my bullet, I won’t even shoot. I used to think, that situation doesn’t apply to me, every animal I have shot has been shot right through the heart. I used to think, if my .338 didn’t instantly kill the animal, it would injure it enough to eventually die without getting too far. I used to be right :(

During the drive the home from our failed recovery attempt, I was an emotional mess. If you truly know me, I’m a mamma’s boy and my mom has programmed me with very transparent feelings that care deeply for anything and everything. I’m not afraid to speak the truth, and the truth is I shed a few tears during thought. Again, I don’t enjoy killing, and to know that I likely killed something with no observable outcome, it hurt. The thing that hurt the most is that this type of hunt went against my typical reason and morals in hunting. It was a difficult hunt for me to do in the first place because I had no intent of using any of the meat that was on the brown bear. The sole purpose of the hunt was to kill a brown bear, get my picture with it, and have a rug created to show off the trophy. Granted, the brown bear hunt was allowed because predator control is very much needed in the area where moose populations are severely hurting, however, that was not on my mind when I was hunting. As I was reflecting on the outcome, I was getting angrier and angrier at myself. I was beginning to look at myself as a killer, and not a hunter. Why did I let the excitement of fellow hunters about this new hunt pressure me in to hunting a brown bear? Why would I personally shoot something that I had no intent of eating? What happened to that bear? How did I miss the vital organs on such a big target at such close range? Why did I give up so soon looking for the bear, when I could have spent the entire day Sunday trying to recover it? What was I going to tell the people I already notified that I had shot a bear the night prior? What was I going to tell people that asked how my hunt went? I tore myself apart. A hunter with morals to only shoot something they will eat would not have shot the brown bear = killer. A hunter who spent enough time at the range shooting their rifle would never miss an animal that bad = killer. A hunter should be able to properly track a wounded animal in order to retrieve it = killer. This is the first time I personally thought I was flirting with the animal killer label.

Danielle and I spoke later that day. We spoke about the intent of such a hunt. How it is necessary to properly manage predators and if predators weren’t controlled, moose would not be a resource for us. It was discussed that although I did not find the animal, the purpose of the hunt was served by eliminating a moose killer. We also discussed the inevitability of such a situation eventually happening and that it was probably better that it happened with a brown bear instead of a moose or sheep. I still wasn’t buying it.

I spoke with many of my friends about the situation. All of them had a similar situation where they have shot an animal and never got a chance to retrieve the animal. Knowing that eased my worries, but still I thought of myself better… thinking it’s unacceptable to allow it to happen when I have control over preventing it. Of the many friends I talked to, two of them had some good theories. One thought that because I was so close, the bullet only hit soft tissue and didn’t have time to expand, passing completely through without putting a large hole or hitting anything vital. The other friend (the close proximity bait station owner) put the result in perspective for me and actually changed my outlook on the hunt. He simply said, you didn’t hit the bear. I knew in the back of my mind that missing the bear was a small possibility, but it was something I didn’t want to believe either. Not hitting the bear means I would have pulled my shot soooo bad, that it was off by a foot. He justified his conclusion with many things: 1) There was no blood. I knew deep down that a bullet from this range would drop at least a spec of blood somewhere noticeable. 2) He didn’t roll. Bears shot in the upper torso will typically roll backward at the impact of a shot, especially a .338. 3) He didn’t bite at the entry wound. Bears that are shot don’t know what it is or where it came from and they will bite at the site when hit. 4) He didn’t run. A shot bear is a very scared bear. A bear that walks away grunting is more typical of one that is conceding the food to something else that has driven it off. For all these reasons, he swore up and down that I didn’t hit it, and that I have to admit that I missed it horribly. He also said that I have to return and actually take a brown bear, that the moose population is in such a horrible state that as many bears need to be taken out as possible. The thing that really hit home was when I was told that as a moose hunter that cares about the outlook and availability of moose not only for myself, but for future generations, this type of predator control hunt is necessary.

It was a tough sell, but everything he said made sense and really did point to me missing the bear altogether. By me admitting that I missed the bear, that would also mean that I could no longer pride myself on hitting everything exactly how I planned… and I could no longer call myself a good shot. Before I talked to him I was convinced my spring hunting season was over. I wasn’t going to go back and I was going to prepare for fishing season. After our conversation, I let his words sink in… and I eventually adopted them as my own. I now believe that I did miss the bear, for whatever reason (it was dark, I was nervous, it was the first shot of the season, etc.). I also now fully support his idea that as a moose hunter, resource management is also my responsibility, because if both bears and humans hunt moose without bears or humans hunting each other, than there would be no moose hunting for anyone.

The following weekend Danielle and I decided to try our luck one last time, and look for a brown bear. Little did we know, we would find proof that I actually did miss the brown bear I attempted to shoot the weekend prior. The beautiful, blonde brown bear has showed up on the trail cam multiple times, alive and unharmed :)  

The bears were actually nonexistent that weekend because a forest fire was burning nearby (check out stories about the Funny River Fire). We had smoke in the air and ash dropping on us while in the stand (even have it dropping on our house in Eagle River). This makes the bears nervous and feeding is not on the top of their priority list. We decided to pack up early that weekend and head home, putting our guns away for the spring season. It’s now time to get the fishing poles and hiking boots out!

 This is what our bait station looked like at the beginning of the season.Keep in mind that is a 55 gallon drum which is about 3 feet tall chained about 1 foot above the ground (for size reference later).

 The first black bear of the season. (I didn't include many pictures of black bears on here, but there were a ton of them). This area allows 3 black bears to be taken per person per season... that's how many black bears are available.

This is the bruiser brown bear that showed up just about every night. He was pretty consistent and didn't like the day light.

Same bruiser.

 Average sized (maybe a little on the small end) black bear for this area. Looks tin compared to the brown bear huh?

 This is the blonde bear that I shot at. GORGEOUS bear.

 Standing up and looking around. Next year I will trim that dang branch!

Another brown bear. You can see these brown bears all have different colored fur. They range from so dark it almost black (like the nighttime bruiser), to brown brown like this one, to blonde like the prior picture.

This is the first picture of the blonde bear after I shot at him on the night of May  17... he came back the next night. Seeing his picture helped ease my remaining worries. He was on camera a bunch during that week.

Typical result of the weekend hunts, oozing and peeling blisters. I finally found the ultimate blister prevention... a new boot lace tying technique and tape called Leukotape P. The combination of these two things prevents even the boniest of feet from rubbing. It also helps that I built up callouses too.

 Smoke rolling over us while in the tree stand from the near by fires. After 200,000 acres burnt, the skies finally opened up on day 11 and receded the spread. It's now day 13 and it's still burning, but more controlled now.

 The hazy and eerie color of the air and sky from the smoky air.

This is a curious little black bear I recorded on my phone. 

Here is a good clip of a black bear taking a couple bites from the carcass of Danielle's harvested bear, and then moving over to the bait area. This is a good sized black bear... but that wasn't the target that night. 

After out last day of hunting, I decided to switch the camera to video mode. These are a couple short clips of a big boar that came to the stand during the middle of the day. I'm not sure if it's the nighttime boar, but I doubt it because of the lighter patches on him.

I'm getting a different trail cam for next year! Turns out this trail cam missed a significant amount of bears that walked in front of it! I know of about 5 different bears I saw walk by the barrel, and then checked camera, only to find out it didn't take a picture! In fact, every single bear that I saw walk by the barrel was not pictured. I can only imagine how many bears were actually in the area that didn't get their picture taken.

Well we learned quite a bit from setting up a bait station for the first time this year. People think it's easy, but let me tell you... it was way harder than I imagined. People also think that hunting a bait station is easy and "cheating". Baiting allows for selective harvesting. Shooting a sow and accidentally realizing it has cubs with it will never happen at a bait station. It allows for selecting bigger boars (the ones that kill cubs and feed on moose) knowing many bears will likely find the bait. Bait stations offer a better opportunity for a well placed shot resulting in a quick harvest (although I can not claim that point due to my recent miss).  It allows for an easier introduction to hunting for friends and beginners hunting with experienced people. It also allows for more and closer observation of animal behavior... and picture taking. 

And finally, for those that still don't think baiting is right, when you use worms, a minnow, or bait while fishing, does that feel like fishing or "cheating"? When duck decoys and a call are used to lure in ducks, does that feel like hunting or "cheating"?

Black Bear Hunt

As Danielle mentioned in the last post, we decided to try our luck at baiting bears this year. Now one would think… baiting bears, that’s like fishing in a barrel! But it’s not. Bear baiting is actually a lot more work than one would expect. Probably the most difficult part about bear baiting is finding a good place to put a bait station. Well I’m a map geek and after studying multiple maps, terrain, hunting regulations, and everything else, we decided to put our faith in a spot 2.5 miles in just off an old, closed logging road (pictures in last post). We set the station up April 12^th. You are allowed to set up stations after April 10^th. We had plans to check and hunt the station every weekend. There was just one problem… no bears were finding it. Every weekend we went down (which was a 3 hour drive one way), we would see no change in our bait and show no bears on the motion camera. With the weather getting nicer, we were sure the bears were out, just not finding their way to our station.

The weekend of May 3-4 came around, and we were not able to hunt the station because we had to go to Iowa for a small get together. Actually, my sister got married and I performed the ceremony J Because of that, we were unable to hunt that weekend. Of course, I got word from a buddy that has a station about 40 miles away from ours, that his bait was hit for the first time that weekend. So my mind starts going crazy wondering what may have been visiting our station. As a result, I got bear fever and requested Thursday and Friday off so I could take a 4-day weekend to hunt. Luckily I have a very flexible and good boss, so that request was granted!

I spend the week packing my gear for a 4 day hunt. The plan was to go down Wednesday night and have Danielle come down and meet me after she got done with work on Friday. As it turns out, I was a little behind on things from the weekend prior, so I didn’t head out until Thursday morning. I get to the parking area around 8AM. By 9AM I am at the stand, disappointed to see that the bait barrel looks completely untouched. I checked the trail cam and my disappointment was confirmed… nothing (Of note, later in the season I find out that my game cam performs extremely bad as I physically have seen a couple bears walk in front of the camera and later check it only to see that it didn’t take a picture). With nothing on the camera, there is no real point of sticking around and waiting for a bear to come in if a pattern or viewing has not been established. I then decide I will spend the day exploring the surrounding area, and that is what I did. I hiked many miles that day looking around for another “better” potential spot in the future. I didn’t find one, but I did find many old bait station sites (I’m talking 1980s when a road back there was open for driving). I also found some good game trails that appeared to be heavily traveled in the past.  On that same trail, I saw my first bear sign, some fresh scat! This told me they were in the area, but they haven’t found my station yet.

The area I was hiking in appeared to be fairly easy hiking with good access to a mountain and valley above me. When I looked up at the mountain, I noticed dozens of white dots. It wasn’t snow, it was sheep and goat. That mountain is closed to hunting those animals there, but they were cool to see. When I was taking a break and looking at these white specs, I also noticed a black blob below them. Yep… it was a black bear. A BIG ONE too. This guy was easily within a 2 mile hike and sitting in an area that would have set me up for a simple shot, however, I chose to just watch him as I was not looking to pursue a black bear this year, I was looking for a different color… brown. We needed black bear meat for the freezer, but Danielle has not shot a black bear yet, so I decided to let it go being so early in the season.

Probably the most important thing I found that day was another active bait station. I had  hunch there was another one in the area, and that hunch became reality when I accidentally ended up walking right through it. Turns out, there are only two registered bait stations in that area, and they just so happen to be 300 yards apart! When I found that out, I was immediately upset and frustrated. We busted our butts to scout out this area last year and get everything in this far only to find out that someone came in and put up a stand that close to us after ours was already there. Great… now we will be competing for the same bears.

Instead of wasting time until Friday night waiting for Danielle, I decided to head home Thursday night, and work Friday so I could save a day vacation. Fast forward to after work…

We left immediately after work for our hunting spot. We were a little anxious when we arrived because it’s a big surprise if there is going to be anything on the trail cam or not… you hope there will be something, and there will be eventually, it’s just a matter of when. We were hoping that something showed up on the camera in the last 24 hours (but it was unlikely since nothing was on the camera from the last month).

When we arrive, we see two vehicles in the parking area before the trail to our station. We assume this is the hunters of the bait station next to ours. We then head in to our station and at the start of the trail that dives in to the thick woods toward our station, we see that someone has written on our WARNING, BEAR STATION AHEAD sign. Someone put their name and their phone number on the sign that said to call them. I could only assume it was the owners of the nearby bait station. I recorded their number in my phone to call later because service back there was horrible. Danielle and I made a plan before we went in, I would drop the pack at the ladder stand and head over to the trail cam to check if there was any action yet. She would then take what she needed up the ladder stand and wait for me to join her. As we get in to our area, I drop the pack and then begin to walk over to the trail cam. After 3 steps, I notice a black object to my left, Holy Moley it was a black bear! I have no idea how we didn’t spook it when we were arriving to the stand. I quickly back track to Danielle who hasn’t even gone up the ladder or seen it yet. I share what I saw and she is confused, but knows I wouldn’t joke about this. We then crouch right there as I tell her to find a secure rest to shoot off of. Unfortunately, the bear was in a hurry and didn’t give Danielle time to find a good shooting place. We were stuck in our spots with the bear at the bait about 20 yards away. We couldn’t move because he would see our movement and hear any steps we took. To make it worse, we hadn’t put our bug spray on, and we were getting eaten alive! Next time you’re in Alaska, try finding a swamp, squat in one spot, and don’t move for 10 minutes even when the mosquitos start to swarm and feast on you!!!

The immediate goal was to determine if the bear had cubs with it. We had to watch it for a little while to determine nothing was following it or it was not looking to protect something with it. We then decide that the size/shape of the bear paired with the solo nature of its actions meant that it was a boar. We knew then that we were going to harvest this bear. I told Danielle to get ready. At this time, there was absolutely no good place to shoot from with many bushes and brush between us and the bear. Danielle decided that she should shoot the bear by resting the rifle on the ladder of the stand, so she could shoot from a standing, rest position. We then proceeded to slowly switch spots without much noise. The little noise part didn’t work too well, but lucky for us, the bear was more interested in eating. We switched spots after the bear looked in our direction and freezing us in place multiple times. Finally, Danielle stood up to rest the gun on the ladder… CLANK! She struck the rifle barrel hard against the ladder. Metal on metal is one of nature’s most unnatural sounds and will scare anything off in a heartbeat. The bear got scared and ran 20 yards to the right and about halfway up a tree. Lucky for us, he leave. We then proceeded to wait to see if he would return. After about 10 more minutes, he decided to cautiously return. Seeing that he was thinking about coming back, Danielle picked out a spot the bear’s path would cross, and waited for him. She was now standing and had nothing to rest her gun on. As the bear walked back to the bait, he crossed Danielle’s sites…. BOOM. She drilled him exactly where she needed to. Danielle had bagged her first black bear.

I’m not a guy to hide details, as I like to share experiences. I say this because this paragraph may be disturbing for some people… Black bears when they are shot exhibit a behavior that is called the Death Call. They only Death Call after they have stopped running post impact. They have a growl/cry that the let out at a constant rate indicating their known demise. It isn’t as frightening as a dying rabbet, but similar. It is a sad thing to hear for sure. When this cry is over (which only lasted for about 15 seconds with this bear), you know that they have most likely passed on.

The bear only ran 15 yards or so away after being shot. He stopped in a good area that allowed for quick and easy cleaning. As we do with all harvested animals, Danielle took some time to thank the bear for the purpose it has served….I did the skinning and cutting while Danielle held limbs and pulled hide, as well as keeping a look out for other bears. In the middle of cleaning the bear, another large black bear appeared in the distance. He ran off after seeing us, and we were glad it wasn’t a curious brown bear. We also had another visitor check on us while we were cleaning the bear, a hunter from the other bait station. I thought the encounter was going to be awkward, but it turned out to be just the opposite. This guy was a class A gentlemen. He was almost as excited as me for Danielle dropping her first black bear. We chatted for quite some time and determined that both bait stations were facing in opposite directions, so there was no chance of shooting at each other. We also discussed each other’s plans for the season and determine that we pretty much had opposite goals and opposite hunting schedules. (This friendly exchange with the hunter turned out to be extremely beneficial for both of us, we now text and share information nonstop about bears on each other’s cameras and amount of action… seeing that we are there at different times and the status of one station is reflective of the other).

Unfortunately for us, we weren’t convinced that we were going to see a bear that night. This assumption led us to leave our means of transporting the bear hide and meat at the truck. Because of this, I got a chance to test out the capabilities of my new hunting pack by putting the entire bear in my backpack and Danielle carrying a bag of the original contents in her hands. THAT THING WAS HEAVY!!!! It took me a long time to hike the 2.5 miles back to the truck. At about a ½ mile in Danielle decided to leave me and run back to the truck to get the cart. She was fast and ended up meeting me halfway. We then pushed the bear back the rest of the way.

We got back to the truck at 11ish. Danielle joked that her hunts keep getting shorter and shorter (when she shoots something). She shot her caribou on opening day within 3 hours after sitting on a ridge, she shot her moose at 7:30AM on opening day, and she dropped her black bear after 15 minutes of arriving to the bear stand. I will put money on her “quicker streak” ending next time.

We headed home and arrived in our drive at 3AM. We quickly unpacked and went to bed. The next day we were busy with meat preparation and hide care. We ended up putting about 50 pounds of bear meat in the freezer. It took us the next couple days to get the hide completely ready to salt. Danielle fleshed the entire bear herself and learned a lot in the process. I did the face and feet… which she will eventually learn to do as well. Due to past experiences with hides at taxidermists in Alaska, we ship all of our rugs out to Ohio. The rugs are done quicker, done better, and done cheaper… can’t beat that. Her bear is in the mail to Ohio right now :)

Spring is here!

 Spring is herrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!  YIPPEE!!  We have had beautiful weather lately and unusually warm temperatures

 Last weekend we went down to check our bear stand and it hadn't been hit yet, so we took Tundy to play and headed home.  On our way through the mountains, we drove through a snow storm which confirmed 

Adam's concern that the bears might not be moving far from the den yet.

 The trip wasn't a complete waste-- we saw this Minke whale in T'urnagain on the way home! 

A video of the whale is below

 Adam cleaning 15 burbot for the fish fry we held for the culdesac!

 Everyone brought a side dish to share so we had TONS of delicious food!  Everyone went home with plates of leftovers!  We had an egg hunt for the kiddos and hunt for the adults! (liqueur shooters hid out of reach from the kids)  We played outdoor games and had a great time in the beautiful weather

The day before Easter and our culdesac fish fry--- these are pictures of us setting up our bear bait stand. 1st load of 2. Hiked 2.5 miles (uphill- gained 400 feet elevation) with some bushwhacking! Total of at least 10 miles that day! My first load was the 30lb barrel on my back, 60lb dog food and chainsaw in wheel barrow. Adam had 60lbs on his back and ladder stand on the meat wagon.  The 2nd load was suppose to be easier/lighter.... but wasn't!  We ended up dropping a bag of dog food and taking it back to the truck on our way out

 Getting everything ready at the truck- planning the trips

 bushwhacking with a ladder stand!

 took a couple tries, a few ropes, and a wench to get the ladder stand up. We parked at 8:30 a.m. and hiked/worked until leaving at 7:00 p.m. with a 10 minute lunch break

 Adam's souvenir from the day setting up the bear stand

 An idea from Mama Harris-- frozen water balloons with food coloring.  The balloons just peel right off!  I made them for my preschoolers and they LOVED them!  They were pretending they were jewels and dinosaur eggs

 My last ski of the year--- handsome pup!

 Even when weather is warm and snow is melting a the house--- we can hike up the mountain to the fresh snow! 

 I always wonder what he is thinking!  Deep in thought! 

This weekend is Adam's sister's wedding!  We head back to Iowa Thursday night, get back with a few hours to spare before rehearsal.  Wedding on Saturday! WAHOO!!  And back to Alaska Sunday night.....work Monday morning! :)  Super excited to be back for such a special/fun event, even if only for the weekend.  The following weekend will be back to the bear stand! 

A video of the whale--- not sure what was going on, it was just hanging out at the surface.

I took my preschool class to the zoo!!!  For those of you who know me well..... you know that I had to do controlled breathing and try to block out this whole fiasco since my kiddos were so amazed and wanted to watch the whole event!  I had to video it for ya'll, but I won't watch/listen to it again!  EEEKKKK!

Winter is slowing down... preparing for summer!

Well winter is wrapping up here. We ended up with an average year for snow... although it seemed very poor since there were very few times the snow was good enough for snow machining or boarding. Anyway, as we watch the snow melt away, we have time to prepare and get ready for another exciting Alaska summer. This year we don't have a single guest scheduled to come visit! It's bittersweet but it will allow for a good amount of exploring and adventure.

Not much has happened in the past month. We are just rotating out the winter toys and catching up on things we put off this winter. My time has been dominated lately from starting my own Mobile Application Developing business called LTH Life. We have a BIG app scheduled to release this summer targeting Alaska residents and visitors. I'll let you know when that hits the app market.

Every other year I head down to Missourri to snag for spoonbill. The opener is March 15. The cold winter in the Midwest didn't provide for very good fishing, but we found a few here or there. Of course, I caught the most and biggest :)

 This is how we do it... Dad and I pulling our gear while Mom drives us around trying to find a group of them. This picture was taken immediately before I had to go to the bathroom... to which dad said, "I can hold your rod." Awkward! 

 Jessi landed  her first ever spoonbill. Her pole was in the water less than 15 minutes before she hooked in to it. It was the only fish she caught the entire trip... but a good one around 45 pounds.

 Grant holding Jessi's fish. 

 Here's our day 1 catch. Jessi with 1, me with two, and everyone else (Dad, Mom, Grant, Doug, and Don) with none. This was the best day of fishing too out of the 4 days we snagged. 

This is a picture of my biggest fish of the trip. It was the last day of snagging. She weighed 66 pounds and had a deformed bill. I also caught and released a smaller one that day as well. 

All and all it was a good trip back to the Midwest. I got to spend lots of family time with my parents, cousins, grandma, sister, aunt, uncle, sister, and brother in law. Plenty of cards were played and beers drank! We also worked our butts of around the cabin too. 

On to what's around the corner here. This weekend we are hosting a block fish fry. We are cooking up the 14 burbot we caught last month to share with everyone on Easter... should be a good time. Also, every free day available we will be hunting for bears (both bear and black). And, my sister is getting married at the begginging of May. Lucky me, I'm officiating that wedding, hope you got tickets to that show!!

Until the next update. Peace and Love!