Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Once in a lifetime hunt: Grizzly or Cape Buffalo?

I would pick bears...I would not take an African hunt as a gift as I have no interest at all in hunting Africa.

But should I ever win Lotto I will hunt bears until I am broke once again...I have no idea why but hunting bears pushes all the right buttons for me, possibly because we do not have any big hairy biteys here.

I'm like you JSTUART, bears have an attraction to me that the buff doesn't. But where you and I differ is that if someone offered to send me to Africa, well, we'd talk about bear while trying to run a buff down.

You have more style than I.

while reading you guys i understand more now while im still living in Grizzly country.

this is not Alaska, this is not Brown bear but we love the thrill of being around them and even sometimes hunting them.

all the best.

Phil.

I think the cost could taint opinion. Bear are around double the cost of Buffalo now. Also, for the same outlay, you can get your buff and a half dozed other choices.

Although I like hunting bovines and slamming them with big slugs, I think I would enjoy "hunting" bear more. Sneaking up on animals and enjoying them in their habitat rates very high with me.
John

That is the reason I made mention of "Lotto".

As an additional note, the usual techniques for hunting grizzly/brown bears and Cape buffalo are very different.

The bears are most often glassed from a distance, though other techniques can be used, such as sneaking along salmon streams when the fish are in, checking on the leftovers from fresh moose carcasses, and tracking in snow. I've been on salmon streams when the fish are in, and you can bump into a big bear at any moment, without much warning.

But usually you're glassing for one bear. Brown bear populations are denser, since they're concentrated near the coasts, even when there aren't any salmon running, while interior grizzlies are fewer and farther between, and travel a lot more to find food. In neither case are the bears nearly as abundant as Cape buffalo in good buffalo country, the normal situation with predators versus prey animals. Consequently there's a lot of glassing per bear, especially in interior grizzly hunting. It can even get somewhat boring after several days of looking at the same country (no matter how beautiful) with no bears in it. In fact, somebody once described interior grizzly hunting as "10 days of boredom followed by 10 seconds of terror," partly because even if you spot a bear a long ways away, they can move before you get there, and not be visible until you're really close.

Cape buffalo are usually tracked, though occasionally they can be spotted at a distance and stalked. Once in a while a lone bull is tracked, but usually it's tracking herds, anywhere from 2-3 bulls up to 1000 or more. The best odds occur in the morning, when tracks can be found in the relatively open country where they feed, then followed into the thicker cover where they bed. The bigger the herd, the more eyes and ears are looking for you, and the easier it is to spook the herd. Even when you do manage to get close, you may not be able to pick out a good bull, due to the cover. In REALLY thick cover you may be only feet from a bull, and not be able to get a shot, but the big herds can also be tricky. I've been inside the perimeter of a herd of over 1000, strung out over a mile, and at one point was surrounded on three sides by buffalo within 40-50 yards. There weren't many climbable trees, and if the herd spooked it would have gotten very interesting. As a matter of fact after one such stalk the herd DID spook, maybe 15 minutes after we backed out, due to lions trying for one of the buffalo.

You can get really tired hunting either, in bear hunting due to hiking around uneven country with a pack on your back. With buffalo the exhaustion is usually from heat and thirst, since you don't have to wear nearly as many clothes or carry a pack.

I think the choice will come down to the OP's personal preferences. Personally, I would choose neither. I have always wanted to hunt the Yukon for a giant bull moose. There is just something almost magical to me about a 5 foot wide set of antlers, especially done in a european mount hanging on MY wall.

Good luck with your choice, I sure whichever you choose will make lasting memories.

It's been a number of years now, since I hunted my Alaska Brown Bear. I can say that it was the most physically demanding, and rewarding, hunt of my life. On the ninth day of a nine day hunt, I connected with a B& C, 10'+ monster that today graces my trophy room as a magnificent full body mount.
Hunting a North American apex predator simply has no equal.

I've hunted interior BC grizzlies about 60 days total over the past 4 years with my bow. As JB says, it is tough to find them sometimes....I average seeing about one bear every two hunting days in the spring. Out of that, most are sows with multiple cubs or small bears. There is a lot of glassing and and watching-waiting on a good boar. During those 60 days I had a shear moment of terror with a nice boar called in with a predator call and a couple of darned exciting stalks. No bear rug yet (this year!) I also had grizzlies sniff the backpack tent (on my side) in the Brooks Range on two occasions. That is pure terror to say the least!

Grizzly country in the spring amongst the mountain glaciers and slides that are running makes for fabulous scenery. Black bears are abundant. Moose are frequently seen and wolves are around. It is one of my favorite things to do, even though I am hopefully switching over to fall hunt on a salmon stream my buddy told me about in 2014......most likely solo in a tree stand.

I've seen cape buffalo up close while bow hunting in South Africa (not for buffs). Also observed them in Krueger park when hundreds came to the river an before dark. They are neat and I'd like to hunt them too.

If I could only hunt one in my life I would find it very hard to choose. Since it is your money go with where your heart calls you!

How true!!

Grizzly would be my choice of the two.

Cape Buff for me. My son and I were able to hunt the Selous this year. We were there early in the season so the grass was very high and the vegetation thick. Everyday was wonderful. We would typically find tracks early in the morning and be on Buffalo all day. Getting a shot was difficult, between the dense vegetation and swirling winds. Often times we would have buff in front and on both sides of us, twenty yards away, while we tried to get in position on a good bull the wind would shift or we would be spotted and off they would go. We would then get back on the track and usually repeat the whole thing, sometimes while tracking one group we would run into another and off we would go after them. The hunting was not easy and being so close but not being able to get a shot was sometimes frustrating, but at the same time it was exciting and intense almost all day long. I cannot imagine a more enjoyable hunting experience. It was not at all what you see on TV where they track for a while and then shoot. We often saw plains game while tracking the buff, and twice came across lion and a few times had to work around elephant. Also, from what I see when pricing hunts you can hunt two buff on the same hunt for the cost of a brown bear. Not trying to take anything away from a bear hunt as that as about as good as it gets too. Just wanted to point out that a good buff hunt is quite different that most think and if you can make it happen, go for it. Just know that you will be hooked and spend a lot of time thinking about going back again.

What!!!????? Boring??? How dare you call the study and memorization of every shadow and twig in miles of alder lines boring? Is there anything better than returning time and again to the same unknown piece of detritus among the endless sea of green, hoping that it has moved itself? Man. Some people!!!

(I'm okay, yes, I am. )

I'd like to hunt both, but would choose to hunt in Alaska for grizzly first.

I have done both multiple times and if you don't already have an idea of which one you would prefer the answer is easy- Buffalo.

If that is you in the picture in your sig with that elk then you probably already have experienced spot and stalk huning- to me the experience is largely the same whether you spot and stalk a nice 6x6 or a bear.

Buffalo on the other hand is so completely different in so many ways from anything we typically do here in North America that it makes a much better once in a lifetime trip.

Lots of people here saying "I have no desire to do this or that" for whatever personal reasons or misconceptions but I went into all of those hunts with an open mind to have fun and build memmories- just as it appears you might and I'll tell you for sure the buffalo hunt built more memories with something exciting and different happening everyday, dodging elephants today, saw a spitting cobra yesterday and a black mamba today, there"s a 4 ft moniter lizard, lions roaring in the night tonight, that spider under my bed is the size of my fist, "hmmm that crocodile is stalking me while I fish for tigerfish- thats creepy", etc....All of these are buffalo hunt memories for me..

My bear hunting memories... holy [bleep] its cold, holy [bleep] its wet, holy [bleep] there's a bear, and then holy [bleep] its cold again, repeat...

And personally I'd pay more attention to the guys posting that have done both rather than one (or neither) of these hunts....

I don't think it's a comparable choice. Try comparing lion or elephant hunting with Alaska brown bear hunting.

To me, buffalo hunting is pretty simple. You walk around in the hot sun, following the PH and trackers for 5 or 6 days and then shoot a big cow. Never hunted bear--or even wanted to. I prefer good meals, sleeping on beds, and people washing my clothes every day.

Klik,

Laughin'!

On my first Alaskan bear hunt I got lucky (though not with bears). Spent most of it on a big hill in the middle of a wide valley. It was spring so the ptarmigan were mating, the males displaying and clucking around the willows surrounding the bottom of the hill, and once or twice each day a pale gyrfalcon would cruise around the hill, looking to pick one off. Since we were on top, we looked down on the falcon and the ptarmigan.

That was the most consistent action. One day we saw a small herd of caribou pass by, a long ways off, and another day we saw a traveling wolverine, also a long ways off. About 2/3 of the way through the hunt we saw a female bear and her previous year's cub come out of their den on a snowy mountainside about a mile away. And that was that.

Buff but that was a hard decision.

Simply comparing the likelyhood of seeing animals when hunting those that live in herds with those that live solitary lives in vast areas of wilderness is naturally going to different.
To paraphrase Ferris Buehler "if you have the means, I highly suggest both"