Black Bear, Halibut, And Shrimp

My first trip to Alaska was 22 years ago. Like you it was for black bears. I went to POW island with my wife's uncle. We formed a lasting friendship that is still strong. That trip started a love for Alaska that I live now. I now guide in Alaska and get to have 2 trips a year to that great state.
I just got done with brown bears on the peninsula and looking forward to the fall season starting in August.
Thanks for sharing your story. It brings back fond memories.
Congratulations on your adventure
 
To be honest they had tags but weren't super interested in killing a bear. As AK residents they get like 6 harvest tickets a year for black bear so in their minds if they wanted to kill a bear they were just gonna go shoot one behind the house. If we had seen anymore real big bears they would have shot one. My buddy did pass on one smaller maybe 200lb bear one morning after debating whether or not to kill him for like 10 minutes. Both the other guys were really interested in stocking up on fish and shrimp for the freezer since they both had tons of moose left and didn't really need the bear meat. So while they were really excited for me and taking my first bear they didn't put a ton of effort into shooting anymore of them.
Thanks for the follow up info, and once again, congratulations sir.
 
I'm beyond impressed. I'm jealous. But even though I bitterly hate you now, I want to thank you for posting all the pics. (I could use more, although it will only make me hate you more). Thank you most of all for the details of your rifle and load and your story. It is all so wonderful. Like an adventure movie, really. Did I mention that I hate you? Thank you so much. I'm going to go into a dark room and cry now and dream of big shrimp, fish and bear and that beautiful, wonderful place in your photos. I wish I had a friend in Alaska, or Arizona...I wish I had friends.
Jon,

Thanks for writing what ALL of us are thinking! As a Tennesee man I didn't even know shrimp could get that big. What a great story and I too and going into a dark room to only dream about this fantastic trip. FYI if anyone lives in Alaska and needs a friend I'm your guy!
 
This story starts about 15 years ago when I went off to college. I met a dude that turned out to be one of the best friends I've ever had. We've kept in touch over the years and have always tried to hang out once in awhile even though he headed to Alaska right after college and I've bounced around all over the western US. Well now that we both have careers and some money we finally made a big trip happen.

I've been wanting a Bear for awhile and just haven't had great luck with actually killing one so we decided on a combo spring black bear and fishing trip on Prince William Sound with my buddies neighbor. I booked my flight back in January and finally left Phoenix on Friday May 13th. I was able to travel really light on the way up with only my small Kuiu 220 pack as a carry on and my daily use backpack as my personal item. Of course I had to check my rifle case which along with having my rifle in it also had my spotting scope, knives, ammo, and bipod. The thinking was to be able to check two 50lb boxes of meat and fish on the way home if our trip went according to the plan.

I got to anchorage a little after 4 and collected my rifle which went smoothly before my buddy picked me up at the curb. We made a quick stop at the sporting goods store in anchorage and grabbed some shrimp bait and frozen herring for bait along with my hunting and fishing license and lock tag for bear. It's kind cool that AK still does those lock tags. From there it was a quick hour drive to the house. We didn't get to bed until around midnight that night because it turns out when it never really gets dark outside that your body has trouble telling you to go to bed.

The next couple days we had chores around the house and getting gear together for the trip.

Monday morning we were up early and loading the boat at the neighbors and we made the trip down to Whittier. We had the boat in the water by 12. View attachment 367244

The first afternoon we made the run to area we wanted to go to and dropped in a couple of shrimp pots to soak for a few hours and then ran out and picked up a couple of halibut.
View attachment 367247

View attachment 367246

After fishing until dinner time we ran back toward home bay, pulled shrimp pots and reset them collecting maybe a gallon of shrimp. Once we got anchored up in home bay for the night we made a dinner of fresh fried halibut and shrimp. The whole time we were hanging out and cooking and eating we were glassing for bears off and on.

Of course this time of year it never really gets dark so around 10pm my buddy spots a bear on the beach. We take quick look and it looks like a nice bear. So we pulled anchor and motored across the bay. We jumped in the raft and quietly paddled to the beach a couple hundred yards around the corner from Where the bear was stuffing his face on fresh green grass at low tide. Once we beached the raft we quickly scrambled along the rocks on the beach towards the last place we saw the bear. Peeking around the corner we found the bear exactly where we left him. A quick look confirmed that it was indeed a nice looking bear with plenty of space between his ears. I hit him with the rangefinder at about 180 yards but I didn't have a great rest and could only really see the bears head and back so we moved up to a big rock about 50 yards in front of us which ended up putting us 129 yards from the bear who was still shoving grass in as fast as he could.
View attachment 367252

I got setup and we waited for the bear to stand up. After a couple minutes the bear stood up and presented a perfect shot. I put the crosshairs about 3" behind his shoulder and tripped the trigger. The hit was perfect and the audible report of the bullet hitting the bear was undeniably loud. The bear spun a couple times and flopped onto his back dead 15' from the point of impact. I stayed on him for about 5 minutes just to be sure he was down. Walking up to the bear we immediately saw he was better than we originally thought.


View attachment 367255

We took some pics admired him for a few minutes but we now had a race against a quickly rising tide. And in our rush from the boat we didn't have the gear to deal with the bear. So we quickly paddled back to the boat grabbed knives and paddled back to the shoreline. By this time the bear was in a foot of seawater that was rising at a rapid rate. So we quickly dragged the bear over to a rapidly disappearing dry spot and gutted him. Since it was already after midnight at this point we elected to simply stuff the bear under a log above the high tide line and deal with breaking him down in the morning. We finally got to bed around 1 am.

The next morning I got up and headed back to the beach to finish up the bear. I skinned and quartered him and got him hung up in the trees surrounded by snow while the other two guys went and pulled shrimp pots.
View attachment 367304View attachment 367302

The rest of the trip consisted of more halibut, rockfish, cod and shrimp. It was a blur of activity with the daily boat chores, long runs to fishing holes, cleaning fish, shucking shrimp. We saw a couple more bears, watched porpoise, seals, sea otters, humpbacks and killer whales.

It was without a doubt one of most epic trips I have ever been on. I got a huge dose of Alaska in a very short time. Hung out with a great friend and made some new ones. Headed back home this morning with a big cooler of halibut and a big cooler of bear. The head and hide got dropped off and the taxidermist. His skull taped out at 18 8/16" and his hide squared at 6'6".

Note: For all you gear guys and since this is LRH I used my trusty Browning x bolt hells canyon long range in .300 win mag topped with a Zeiss conquest V4 4-16x44 and loaded with 199 gr. Hammer hunters over H1000 in ADG brass and touched off with a Fed215m primer. Muzzle velocity 3090 fps meaning at 129 yards the impact velocity was 2944 fps with 3829 ftlbs of energy. The bullet performed as usual with a hammer meaning a .30 cal entrance hole a 1 1/2" exit and lungs that looked like raspberry jam.
Amazing trip. You've been blessed with an embarrassment of riches.
Thank you for sharing.
 
I have always had a dream. Texas/Louisiana we do shrimp and crab stuffed flounder Cajun style. I want to scale that up to a huge halibut with those big shrimp and cold water crabs. It might take some creativity to get it cooked whole but where there is a will, there is a way.

'Course a lost Cajun up there be tryin to do a Turdukhen on a beach campfire with bear, halibut, shrimp, and crab.
 
For you older guys, like me, you might want to think about a fishing lodge. I booked a trip for my dad in 2006, but his health didn't allow him to go. I talked my wife into going. She liked it so much we've gone back twice more. We used Doc Warner's. It is about 40 miles north of Juneau. The first trip, we did the whole tourist thing. Flew to Ketchikan, took the Marine Highway (ferry) to Sitka, then a big catamaran to Juneau. Then went to the lodge. Saw an eagle grab a salmon too big to fly with and it had to swim to shore with it. Saw a moose out on an island eating seaweed. Saw whales and sea lions. They give you a boat, with no guide, and send you out to fish. They have patrol boats to make sure you're o.k. They will tell you an area to fish, and our experience was that as soon as the bait hit the bottom there were fish on it. We caught salmon and halibut and took back boxes of frozen fish. They filet, vacuum back, flash freeze, and pack them in foam ice chests in carboard boxes. After the first trip, we pretty much decided that the lodge was the best part, so the next trip we flew straigt to Juneau. We did take a bus to the glacier outside of Juneau and saw a grizzly bear there.
 
For you older guys, like me, you might want to think about a fishing lodge. I booked a trip for my dad in 2006, but his health didn't allow him to go. I talked my wife into going. She liked it so much we've gone back twice more. We used Doc Warner's. It is about 40 miles north of Juneau. The first trip, we did the whole tourist thing. Flew to Ketchikan, took the Marine Highway (ferry) to Sitka, then a big catamaran to Juneau. Then went to the lodge. Saw an eagle grab a salmon too big to fly with and it had to swim to shore with it. Saw a moose out on an island eating seaweed. Saw whales and sea lions. They give you a boat, with no guide, and send you out to fish. They have patrol boats to make sure you're o.k. They will tell you an area to fish, and our experience was that as soon as the bait hit the bottom there were fish on it. We caught salmon and halibut and took back boxes of frozen fish. They filet, vacuum back, flash freeze, and pack them in foam ice chests in carboard boxes. After the first trip, we pretty much decided that the lodge was the best part, so the next trip we flew straigt to Juneau. We did take a bus to the glacier outside of Juneau and saw a grizzly bear there.
Have to book a trip for sure, how did you find this place?
 

Recent Posts

Top