Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska A Kodiak Bear Hunt

Riley drew a tag for Uganik Island, Terror Bay for this spring but had to wait to the very end of the season to go due to college finals. The season runs April 1 to May 15 and you may choose any 15 day segment to hunt.

Usually the bears are getting rubbed by the end of the season, but the biggest bears are usually killed late as they chase sows in heat. This spring was so cold and delayed it worked out better for those that waited to the end.

We had a great weather forecast by the time we had loaded the boat with groceries, fuel, and water; and a new-to-us Achilles raft and outboard was tied on the swim step... the raft, not the motor.

We left Kodiak at noon to catch the tide right at Whale Pass. Traveling was perfect with the ocean a mirror, no wind and no clouds. Having gotten it exactly backward again we got to Whale Pass in time to fight huge rips and breakers, eddies and currents right on our bow.

When we finally cleared Outlet Cape and entered the Shelikof Strait we could see Uganik Island immediately south of us. Because we had hit it right at low tide we headed to Cape Uganik and turned in to follow the shore.

After many years of hunting the unit I have lots of favorite spots, mostly around Uganik Passage West. The unit is huge with many miles of shoreline and ADF&G says there are up to 125 bears in the unit.

Many here have been with me and seen a lot of bears in that stretch. One October DennisinAZ and I saw a huge gathering of bears digging spawning surf smelt in the gravel.

Anyway, Riley and I turned in to follow the shoreline and immediately caught movement on the beach a mile or so in front of us. As we got closer it was obvious it was a legal bear, but just a mature sow.

Riley was concerned about all the talk we had been hearing about how no one was finding bears and he had plans to get home ASAP. As we got closer it was obvious we could see the beach and there was only a single bear on it. A little closer and we could see the hide was in great shape with no hint of rub.

Riley decided he wanted to go after the bear but there was no place for anchoring the big boat without scaring the bear off the beach. For the sake of speed we turned back and dropped the raft off the swim step and Riley got in with the drag line wrapped once around a cleat.

Making another pass with Riley in tow allowed him to shake the line off the cleat and start paddling in as soon as the bear was behind some castle rock on the beach.

I turned out from the beach to so the bear could see me and headed very slowly away. Riley paddled to the beach and then passed through a small reef coming off the castle rock.

He expected to surprise the bear when he cleared the rock only to find the bear watching him at 60 yards or so.

The bear turned and started up the steep bank/mountainside behind the beach. The first shot hit high in the near-side shoulder and angled down through the chest and hit just above the elbow on the far side. The bear tumbled back onto the beach and he shot a couple more times for insurance.

He was amazed as he could see hair and blood mist spraying from the backside with every shot.

I anchored the big boat and we assembled cameras, snacks, knives, and sharpeners before paddling to shore to look at the bear.

We took a bunch of pictures.




You can see how steep the mountainside is...


Because the bear was high on the beach we were able to roll it onto a rock below and prop it up neatly for the photos. It was about all we could do to get it up onto the rock. The hide is perfect; long fluffy hair with light frost on the tips across the hump.

We skinned for a rug and left the paws and skull in for the sake of speed.

Being May the days were so long we had plenty of time, but I wanted to run well up into Terror Bay for the night.

We fired up the generator once we had the anchor set in front of a setnet site across from Naugolka Point and panfried a couple beef ribeyes in sweet hot mustard. It was very good.

The next morning we ran in toward Terror Bay to see what was happening there and to show Riley some of the area we were going to hunt. There were a couple bears on the beach at Hellgeson's camp and a couple foxes a bit farther inside.

Just before the passage there were four guys glassing from a grassy knob so we turned around at that point and left the area to them. Halfway through the passage east we stowed the raft on the swim step and headed to town.

Timing was perfect through Whale Pass and drove back to Kodiak without ever having confronted a wave the whole trip.

Riley skinned the skull and found a bullet from a much earlier event lodged in the muscles toward the back of the skull. The bullet had broken a chip from the nuchal crest at the rear of the skull, flattened out and bent a great deal before stopping within a couple inches of the bone fragment.

The chip from the nuchal crest can be seen just right of center at the extreme aft end of the skull.


Fragment and bullet