I had the opportunity to take the family to Alaska for a few weeks and we had to do some hunting of corse.
The bear was taken by my son 16 yr old (his first) it is a small younger bear but this thing is insanely gorgeous, and it taste very good too. I have had fall bear once and it was a ton of work just to prepare one peice of eddible meat, this one was actually very little fat and tasted much like deer with no gamy taste. The bear was taken near sea level with snow still on the ground in many places, the bear has perfect winter coat with no bald spots and very little flanking. It has the longest thickest fur I have ever seen and it is an extremely dark chocolate brown color. We watched him for quite a long time on our first day of hunting and my son convinced me to let him take it, this proved to be a wise decision as we never had any more legal/ethical opportunities at a bear this good. I have a ton of pics of it before the decision was made but very few after as the weather had stopped cooperating. I did not capture any pics after the shot until it had been skinned out. My son took his bear at about 25 yards with 325WSM Browning BearLeverRifle one shot and it dropped like someone had unplugged it from the wall.
We were able to do some calling, some spot and stalk and some glassing from an old logging road in a jeep we had rented for a few days. We spoted a bear on a hill while waiting for a road to reopen and we got off the road and called the bear into shooting range but did not want to pursue it and draw any unwanted attention to ourselves as we were still close to town. We called in another that came in close and positioned himself where he could wind us without being seen, he groled twice and left, on the way back out of the trail a few hundred yards away we heard a third faint growl but were not 100% sure it was not another noise, the area off the trail was very thick and we could not see more than a few feet into the forrest in most places. The next evening we hunted the same trail and took up above the tree line where we called and hiked hard but only saw about 50 Dahl sheep on the Mountain adjacent to us. Going back to the road we spotted a small black bear about 150 yards up the trail and tried to get close enough for my little one (10yr old hunted with us 3-4 times) to get a shot but at about 75 yards he winded us then spotted us and took off. We returned to the same are two days later and the wind was now blowing up the mountain instead of down, we were in a the same area as the growler had been two nights before and heard some rustling in the trees and then the growling started again, we waited about 20 minutes trying to get a glimpse but it never happened, a few hundred yards further up we investigated a small stream and returned to the trail to get another growl and the bear was down wind of us again. We never did see this bear but thought this behavior was very strange and I had never seen anything like it before. It was obviously a wise bear but I am 100% convinced he stocked us the last night we were in that area, it may have just been for curriosity but I don't know.
The last area we hunted turned up no black bear but did put us in the path of a large upset brownie. We had driven the jeep up a logging trail above the tree line where we could do some calling and glassing. We parked the jeep at an avalanche area that still covered the road and walked in a little further and began calling our way back to the jeep for the next few hours. After not seeing anything we loaded up and headed for camp after about 1/4 mile i heard something next to me up the hill about 30' away, as soon as I heard the noise I turned to see about a 700lb Grizz coming right toward me and in one or two leaps and about 1 second he was at my door, I yelled Oh $#%^& and just as quickly as it started it was over he had turned and ran behind us and down the other side of the hill. We returned the next day at about noon to try and figure out what had happened, the tracks show the bear had been walking the road toward us, then he had climbed up the bank behing some bushes, here he had scratched the ground with each front paw clearing two small areas about 6" wide and 3-4' long each with a pile of grass and roots about the size of a basketball. After that he crashed through the bushes toward us. I think we had just crossed his path not seeing him as we were looking up and down the mountain and had not heard his warnings over the sound of the engine. I have pics af the area and a fresh grizzly tree scratch in the area with marks about 8' up the tree I assume they were his.
The bear was taken by my son 16 yr old (his first) it is a small younger bear but this thing is insanely gorgeous, and it taste very good too. I have had fall bear once and it was a ton of work just to prepare one peice of eddible meat, this one was actually very little fat and tasted much like deer with no gamy taste. The bear was taken near sea level with snow still on the ground in many places, the bear has perfect winter coat with no bald spots and very little flanking. It has the longest thickest fur I have ever seen and it is an extremely dark chocolate brown color. We watched him for quite a long time on our first day of hunting and my son convinced me to let him take it, this proved to be a wise decision as we never had any more legal/ethical opportunities at a bear this good. I have a ton of pics of it before the decision was made but very few after as the weather had stopped cooperating. I did not capture any pics after the shot until it had been skinned out. My son took his bear at about 25 yards with 325WSM Browning BearLeverRifle one shot and it dropped like someone had unplugged it from the wall.
We were able to do some calling, some spot and stalk and some glassing from an old logging road in a jeep we had rented for a few days. We spoted a bear on a hill while waiting for a road to reopen and we got off the road and called the bear into shooting range but did not want to pursue it and draw any unwanted attention to ourselves as we were still close to town. We called in another that came in close and positioned himself where he could wind us without being seen, he groled twice and left, on the way back out of the trail a few hundred yards away we heard a third faint growl but were not 100% sure it was not another noise, the area off the trail was very thick and we could not see more than a few feet into the forrest in most places. The next evening we hunted the same trail and took up above the tree line where we called and hiked hard but only saw about 50 Dahl sheep on the Mountain adjacent to us. Going back to the road we spotted a small black bear about 150 yards up the trail and tried to get close enough for my little one (10yr old hunted with us 3-4 times) to get a shot but at about 75 yards he winded us then spotted us and took off. We returned to the same are two days later and the wind was now blowing up the mountain instead of down, we were in a the same area as the growler had been two nights before and heard some rustling in the trees and then the growling started again, we waited about 20 minutes trying to get a glimpse but it never happened, a few hundred yards further up we investigated a small stream and returned to the trail to get another growl and the bear was down wind of us again. We never did see this bear but thought this behavior was very strange and I had never seen anything like it before. It was obviously a wise bear but I am 100% convinced he stocked us the last night we were in that area, it may have just been for curriosity but I don't know.
The last area we hunted turned up no black bear but did put us in the path of a large upset brownie. We had driven the jeep up a logging trail above the tree line where we could do some calling and glassing. We parked the jeep at an avalanche area that still covered the road and walked in a little further and began calling our way back to the jeep for the next few hours. After not seeing anything we loaded up and headed for camp after about 1/4 mile i heard something next to me up the hill about 30' away, as soon as I heard the noise I turned to see about a 700lb Grizz coming right toward me and in one or two leaps and about 1 second he was at my door, I yelled Oh $#%^& and just as quickly as it started it was over he had turned and ran behind us and down the other side of the hill. We returned the next day at about noon to try and figure out what had happened, the tracks show the bear had been walking the road toward us, then he had climbed up the bank behing some bushes, here he had scratched the ground with each front paw clearing two small areas about 6" wide and 3-4' long each with a pile of grass and roots about the size of a basketball. After that he crashed through the bushes toward us. I think we had just crossed his path not seeing him as we were looking up and down the mountain and had not heard his warnings over the sound of the engine. I have pics af the area and a fresh grizzly tree scratch in the area with marks about 8' up the tree I assume they were his.
