In July 2016, I planned a brown bear hunt on Kodiak for May 1 - 15. But, on April 19, an email popped up on my phone from Lance Kronberger's wife, Nikki. "I just wanted to let you know that our first set of hunters are already done on Kodiak. If you are able to fly up here sooner than your hunt date we will be ready for you anytime," Nikki said.
The next day I emailed my new itinerary. Depart April 24 at 7:00 a.m. and arrive in Kodiak at 4:10 p.m. Lance emailed back, "I'll meet you at the airport then we will head right to Fish & Game for your permit. Then to the floatplane."
Mechanical troubles in New Orleans caused me to miss connecting flights in Seattle then Anchorage. My arrival in Kodiak had to wait until April 25th, where I arrived to a snowsquall and was greeted by Lance at 7:10 a.m.
He rescheduled DeHavilland Beaver flight with Seahawk Air to 5:30 p.m. With time to spare, we had breakfast, took care of my permit and hurried up to wait on Lance’s other hunter from Texas, who was flying in mid-afternoon.
The first stop was to drop off Lance and the Texan. The floatplane then shuttled my guides, John Rydeen and Brandon Hamilton, from their first hunt area to where I would be hunting. After we landed, camp was offloaded onto the beach and set up, and the Zodiac inflatable was readied for the next morning.
I was in camp with John for my 2015 Kodiak bear hunt at Frazer Lake. I had booked with long-time Kodiak outfitter Dennis Harms. After 15 days of hunting with guide, author and producer of The Modern Day Mountain Man DVD series, Billy Molls, it never came together. When Dennis recently retired, Lance took over his areas.
Two weeks before this hunt, Billy messaged me to wish me good look. “Your hunt, that first bear still haunts me!” he added. On Day 3 of the 2015 hunt, we spotted a shooter. The wind changed and we had to back out. We caught of glimpse of the perfect hide 9'+ boar but couldn’t get the shot even after dogging him for an hour.
The morning of April 26th was as nice a day as you will see on Kodiak. We loaded the Zodiac and putted about four miles to the back of a bay. After beaching the boat and tying it long in anticipation of the tide, we made a short hike to a glassing knob.
The day was slow. “The bears really start moving about 6:00 p.m.,” John said. We glassed until 9:30 p.m. All told, we saw eight to ten bears on Day 1. No shooters.
The weather changed on the following morning. The ceiling was low and it was misty. We boated and hiked back to the same glassing knob. That’s when weather started getting worse. A tarp went up for us to hide from the rain. It was another day like too many during my 2015 Frazer hunt.
6:00 p.m. Sure enough. The bears started moving. There was a nine-foot class bear a few miles away at the head of the bay. “That’s not your bear,” John told me. With the weather deteriorating even more, we started back to camp at about 8:30 p.m. Day 2 – six bears.
We woke up to steady 30 m.p.h. winds on Day 3. It was too rough for the Zodiac, so we hiked a half-mile from camp to a glassing spot. The weather began to sock in. It was just as Lance advertises: “Specializing in cold, wet and miserable.” The better part of the day was spent trying to locate a good bear with our naked eye because our binos stayed wet. We only spotted one bear on Day 3.
On the morning of Day 4, April 29th, heavy rain greeted us. The prediction was more of the same until May 2nd. However, there was a break before 3:00 p.m. and John said let’s go for a stroll.
Not long into the two-plus mile trek, as we crossed through a small basin, a bear. It was a boar better than the nine-footer from Day 2 that was working the ridge line. It wasn’t a bear we wanted, but we kept an eye on him as we worked our way the area John wanted to hunt.
We arrived and dropped our packs. The routine of glassing started. Within five minutes, Brandon had his spotting scope out and called me over to take a look. “I think this one has potential,” he said.
The bear was three-quarters of the way up the mountain laying down on a ledge. He had a pumpkin head. Brandon called John over to look and they studied the bear with their spotting scopes. The bear was sniffing and looking up. It reminded me of Day 7 during my 2015 hunt when we hiked three miles to within 750 yards only to have a sow come out of the alders. That shooter boar we were stalking was sniffing up the mountain and he followed her up and over.
It was less than ten minutes but felt like thirty before he stood. His hind end was wide. He was facing away and looked like he would walk up the mountain, but the boar turned and started waddling down. John and Brandon remarked about his ivory white claws. It was a good bear. I looked at my watch and couldn’t help but laugh. It was just as John said about bears moving. 6:05 p.m.
We shouldered our packs and dropped down through a small canyon choked with alders and salmonberry then crossed a creek. We came up the other side and relocated him. He was 800 yards away. We now had a sow at 380 yards too. She saw us and slowly walked out of sight into a small drainage on our right.
We continued forward until he was 260-270 yards away. We dropped our packs and Brandon placed my pack on top of his for me to rest and take a steady shot. I squeezed the trigger of the .375H&H and sent the 270 grain Barnes TSX bullet with undetermined effect.
As I tried to jack another one in the chamber the bear charged on a beeline right at us. I could see alders shaking and breaking like twigs through my scope. He was in full sprint toward us. The hair around his head was pounding up and down.
At 155 yards he checked up and turned broadside briefly enough for the bullet to report and belt him in the boiler room. He buckled but started downhill towards us. The boar stopped at 40 yards in an alder patch and we shot again for insurance even though the boar was mortally wounded by a double lung shot.
When we walked up, Brandon looked at me with a smile and said, “That’s a big bear.” It was Day 19 of Kodiak bear hunting for me.
He had a perfect hide and all of his guard hair, except for a gnarly scar under his front right armpit. We measured the back pad. “11 inches,” Brandon said.
It took everything for all three of us to roll him over for pictures. The caping finished at 10:30 p.m. With headlamps on, and with Brandon packing the hid , we started the 2 ½ hour hike back through the misty darkness reaching camp at 1:00 a.m.
When we woke up later that day, it was as the weatherman promised. Heavy rain.
The floatplane picked us up the next day, May 1st. After unloading, we went to AF&G for the hide and skull to be sealed. Unofficially, the biologist measured a 9’10” squared hide and a 28 2/16” skull.
Last edited by Romo; 07/23/19.
"The days a man spends fishing or spends hunting should not be deducted from the time he's on earth. " Theodore Roosevelt
Way cool, and Lance usually sends hides to Wildlife Gallery where my buddy works from time to time. I dinked around there helping this spring but that was before fishing season started.
NICE bear! Congrats!!! Thats one of those once in a lifetime kind of things
We can keep Larry Root and all his idiotic blabber and user names on here, but we can't get Ralph back..... Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over....
l told my pap and mam I was going to be a mountain man; acted like they was gut-shot. Make your life go here. Here's where the peoples is. Mother Gue, I says, the Rocky Mountains is the marrow of the world, and by God, I was right. - Del Gue
I'm pretty certain when we sing our anthem and mention the land of the free, the original intent didn't mean cell phones, food stamps and birth control.
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