Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Soldotna area DIY Black Bear hunt

Heading to Soldotna in Sept. Wanted to take a couple days to hunt black bear or open to other species. I plan on spot and stalk hunt. Can someone point me in the general direction for areas that would be good to hunt/hike for black bear. I am looking for trails or old logging roads with water and food sources? Any pointers or information that I should consider. Thank you.

I haven't hunted the Soldotna area, but I think what you're asking applies more to BC/SE AK bear hunting.. I would be looking at mountainsides above treeline for bears on berries, especially late September. Bears may be a lot more focused on fish down there though, I'm not sure. Hopefully someone with more area specific info can chime in.

Hate to burst your bubble, but you aren't going to find a black bear around Soldotna as a non-resident hunter.

1. Any good areas are going to be closely guarded, since there's a lot of people in the area, and not much easily accessible habitat... no one's going to give there secret area out on the internet.

2. You need a wheeler or boat to get to most prime areas.

3. There are more brown bears around than ever before, pushing blacks out.

With an hour's drive or so there are plenty of bears to hunt...

No guarantees, but I bet you'll see some bears.

Thanks CWh2 and others. I appreciate the info!

I hear 14 year olds are good bait...

Get up into alpine country and glass. Bears are fools for berries that time of year. Ressurection Trail, Palmer Creek Valley, Ptarmigan lake Trail, Carter lake. Someone here has a son who took one above Summit Lake- glassed right from the highway.

Skyline trail, Fuller Lakes trail. Summit Trail, lots of places.

No names mentioned.....

On the Kenai Peninsula I suggest my back yard or my front yard or sometimes in my outhouse or chewing on my buildings, snow machines ATV's, trucks, hand tools and a twice my body.

Thank you. I will do some researching. I was looking at Devils Pass area in there as well.

Have glassed up tons of bears from turnigain pass south, right from the road. Climbed to within range of several, and even killed a couple. Got used several times too, but it was all fun.

September is moose (and sheep and several others) season, and I doubt there are that many people chasing bears.

AGL4now, I just now "got" your handle. Damn I am slow.

Comes from decades of driving Super Cubs.

Thanks again cwh2!

With zero bear experience I glassed up 7 from one road off the 'Arm during the berry season. Finding them was easy. Getting to them? Another story

If hunting bears in the berries, I would leave my iron-sighted pucker brush rifle at home. You may have to shoot a ways.

Good to know.

If one will spend the bucks for maybe an hour of flying time (1/2 hr out and back), he can likely be dropped via float plane in a spot where few if any will ever walk in. Several years back a buddy did a sheep hunt, and as we were driving into town the next season, his GPS implied we were only 18 miles from his sheep camp. Might try the High Adventure folks. One can easily surf them up. Just prior to our caribou/moose departure, they were returning with a successful black bear hunter that had only been minutes out.

Good to know 1minute. Any idea on cost for a trip out for approximately an hour?

No need for flying, there are plenty of bears and It will take a lot more than an hour of flying time to figure out how to get to a bear after you spot one. Without references already established you will simply be lost.

https://highadventureair.com/custom-charters/

I think we paid around $2000 for both of us. They currently show a rate of $750 per flight hour. A buddy and I used High Adventure Air for a fly out drop off BB hunt. I have no complaints. The folks that used them across the inlet might be a little more critical since they were on their Beaver when it flipped. Minor injuries, no deaths thank God. We were in the boonies when the accident happened so we didn’t know about it until after we were back.

Great trip, nice grayling on almost every cast, saw bears but none that were my idea of a shooter. We had more visits from federal game wardens than I’ve had in an entire lifetime which was really wearing thin. After the third or 4th visit (everything was by the book and in order since their first visit) we had decided that anymore visits would not be tolerated. The small stack of game warden business cards were our proof. 😉. Luckily we didn’t have to go down that road. If I were doing the same trip again I’d pay them a visit first because at some point their presence is borderline harassment, especially for 2 guys that were checked and in compliance with licenses, permits, etc.

The air service out of Moose Pass literally left 2 caribou hunters stranded and kept using the weather as an excuse. The hunters knew it was bullshit since the wardens got in (almost) every day with their Cubs....plus they saw that we got in. Finally after being “stranded” for 4 days and having eaten much of their caribou they made the hike around the lake to us. They brought a backstrap as a gesture of goodwill (not necessary since we were happy to help) and we called our flight service on our sat phone. Our guys came in and picked them up. A sat phone should NOT be overlooked.

All in all it was a great trip. We could’ve bagged a nice Billy and a nice (broomed) Ram....we’d be getting out of jail about now. 😁. I was happy just watching them. We encountered all 5 seasons (including mosquito season) while we were there. Howling sustained winds, snow, sleet, rain and sun all visited us. Lots of ptarmigan.....did I mention that the grayling fishing was ridiculously fun? If I didn’t have a fish on in 3 casts I’d move 100’ and cast again. I think the record was 15 fish in 15 casts. I pinched the barbs since we only kept enough for lunch or dinner each day.

PS....There were a couple of mosquitoes around and the Thermocell acted more as an attractant than it did a deterrent. The Thermocell was like a pay by the hour motel to the skeeters and we were afraid that some of the bigger mosquitoes might carry it off. We had 100% Deet which helped but I was afraid we’d grow a third nut based on the amount of Deet that we used. Our $1.79 head nets were in the truck in Soldotna....long sleeves kept us from being completely exsanguinated. 😉

Aces,

Good information. Thank you! I'm thinking about a wolf tag as well? Figure if I get a chance it would be worth the 60.00 dollar tag. Worst case scenario, I will come back empty handed. Going mostly to fish but I never pass up a opportunity to explore and hunt!