The first two parts were from our first trip to Kodiak. I was trying to remember which trip was which. We went in 2000 and 2001 so they kinda blend together plus I sometimes suffer from Anheusers disease. This part was from the second trip we went on was right before Christmas in 2001.
It was cold, snowy, sleetting, rainy, sunny - a little bit of everything. The skipper wanted to go later in the season for several reasons: bears were more likely to be less active, the snow would push the deer to the lower elavations and less hunting pressure. There wasn't many boats that ventured out, but we always saw a few of the locals that would hunt the area we went to.
On one of the last days of our hunt my buddy and I had decided to walk through a promising looking low drainage we had found. There was a lot of snow up higher so we were stuck hunting from the big boat or staying down low.
We were hunting around a lagoon that would dry up at low tide. It was about a 1/4 mile wide by 3/4 of a mile long. At the end of the lagoon was an area of open cottonwoods and meadows that was easily huntable. We got dropped off in the morning by the skiff, our other friend, the skipper and his buddy decided to stay onboard the big boat and hunt the shoreline that day.
As we walked up the trail at the edge of the lagoon we spotted a nice buck at the end and another seperate group of deer out in a meadow. We tried to close the distance on them but there was no way to keep from being out in the open as we approached. We stopped walking about 200 yards from the nice buck to set up for a shot. As soon as we quit walking he got nervous and made for the thick stuff. Bummer. The other deer that were further away also scattered so we just continued up the trail to see if we could find them and hunt the wooded area at the end of the lagoon.
We seperated and went our own way through the cottonwoods. Shortly after I heard one shot and knew that my buddy connected. I meandered on through the cottonwoods on a trail that soon had very fresh pie plate sized brown bear tracks on it. This time I was carrying locked and loaded and ready for bear. Still makes you wonder about only having a 30-06 though. After a while of following the bear I decided to go back to where my buddy was and see what he'd got. Seemed more prudent than what I was doing.
He had shot the nice buck we had seen earlier and already had him gutted so we drug him back towards the lagoon and the trail out. About halfways back we decide to leave the deer where we were and come back with the skiff when the lagoon flooded. Seemed better that dragging him the extra 1/2 mile. About 400 yards further up the trail my buddy spotted a deer out in the flats at the opening of the lagoon out on the tidal flats. I looked through my binoculars and realized it was too dark, short and husky to be a deer. It was a freakin' Kodiak brown bear.
He started moving up the flats towards us so we just stopped where we were and decided to watch him. He made his way up to where we were and got a scent of blood from the deer or just us and turned and walked straight at us. At about 75 yards my buddy had seen enough of the bear that was coming straight at us so he fired a round into the mud about three feet in front of him. The bear hardly flinched but he did turn and decided to head on up to the end of the lagoon.
As he came up and out of the lagoon he crossed the trail that we were on and had dragged the deer on. One sniff and he was now once again heading towards us and straight for the deer we had left behind. We sat and watched as he followed the scent trail and we then noticed that a red fox had found the deer. When the bear got to the deer the fox was standing on top of the carcass and barked at him and actually made the bear step back til he remembered that he was a bear and a little fox ain't schit. It was funny as hell !!!
After all the fun we headed out and left the deer to the bear and fox and returned to our floating motel for dinner and libations with a good story to tell.
There is still more if anybody wants to hear it or we can go back to just sillyness and boobs.
