Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Spring bear hunt -- 2021!

I'm going to be posting a few installments of my bear hunts this spring, so stay tuned because there's some good stuff coming (at least I think it's good).

My first bear hunt this year was April 16th -- a bit early but I was so anxious to get out especially with how frustrating work has been with all the restrictions this year.
Ended up being a "scouting trip" for bears as there really wasn't any green on the beach yet. I raced down (in my 7kt gillnetter) to one of my favorite spots after work with a buddy of mine who's never hunted bear.

We anchored and got my canoe to shore at about 7pm.
I generally like to be settled into my evening area by then, but that's the time we had.

Turns out I was right to have wanted to be on the beach sooner. We sat down, got out our binos, and immediately I saw my friend get excited. Unbeknownst to us, we had walked right in between two wolves that were trying to meet each other on the tide flat. About 200 yards on each side of us. The larger male was jet black and there was a smaller wolf (assuming female) that was a gray, brown, black brindle. They each wanted to come past us to get to the other but they both knew something was hinky. They would not sit still or stop moving. They barked at us. They howled at each other. At several points the female started to run away and I turned her around by whining and howling at her, to which she replied.

My buddy and I each tried to get closer to one of the wolves to get a shot, but they were too restless and moving around too much and too fast. They never let us get closer than 150 yards, and even then it was for a very short time. I couldn't justify taking a less than ideal shot, even on a nuisance predator.

In total we each got to watch these wolves interacting with us and with each other for a little over half an hour. Very cool experience.

No signs of bear that trip. We went back to my gillnetter and slept the night before jogging back into town the next morning.

Thankfully we had set two dungee pots on the way out, so we did come home with 12 dinner plate sized crab!

Part two coming soon.

Best,

Al

My second hunt was April 30th. Same spot but a week later, so there was actually some green on the beach.
We sat on the beach all evening, and got to watch a brown bear sow in one corner of the tide flat for about two hours. This is a cool bear, and this is the fourth year in a row that I've seen her. The first year was with three tiny cubs, the second year with just two bigger cubs, and last spring with the same two cubs that were at that point soon-to-be kicked out. This year she was all alone, and looking notably more relaxed than she did any previous year looking after the cubs. I do have a brown bear tag, but knowing her for the past few years on top of also knowing she's a sow gets her a pass.




Spent the night in the boat. Everything in the woods was soaking wet, so when the sun finally came out the next morning and started to warm up the meadow area things started to steam a lot. At one point it got so I couldn't see past thirty yards the steam was so thick, and the air was thick breathing in.




Saw the brownie again, this time 25 yards away...we surprised each other while walking on a narrower stretch of beach going around a corner. She stared me down for several seconds and then yawned and went along her business. As if to say "I just woke up and don't have kids and I'm too tired to deal with this -- move along". This encounter probably would've ended differently any other year with her cubs around. I was a bit too anxious to take a picture at that point.

Did not see any other bear that weekend, and left for home. We did see a pod of orcas on the way back; first ones of the year.

Thanks for sharing. Keep em coming!

Shoot her boyfriend when he shows up in the next week.

Cool thread. Please keep them coming.

Don't think I won't! There's a big one in the area, but I've only seen him once and only briefly. Hoping to become better acquainted real soon.

Third hunt was a short one on May 16th-- I only had one evening so I hiked through a meadow system accessible by the road system in town. It was pissing rain in town but surprisingly gorgeous on my hike. Weird micro-climates in southeast AK.
The wind was at my back the entire hike out, so I walked about three miles skirting along the side of the meadows to not put my scent straight through the middle. On the way back the breeze was in my face so I was weaving through the middle and keeping an eye on everything.

There's a big section about half a mile long that in the past few years has become flooded by beavers, so I was wearing my waders the entire hike and sinking in to my knees all through the flooded section. Pain in the asz. I did see two of the beavers and man if I had been there a day earlier (still during trapping season) they would've come home with me. I do have my trapping license as well.

There was one patch of thick timber that I walked through. It ended up being really thick with brush on the exterior but opened up nicely in the center. There was a flood-stream running through the middle (thanks again to the f*in' beavers) and that's where I saw the only bear I'd see while on my hike that day:





Unfortunately I just thought it was a bit too old to be worth shooting, but still was really cool to find and examine the skeleton. As far as I could tell, the whole bear was there, however with it being in a washout I only found the one tooth. I took it to ADFG and got a seal for the skull it just in case.

I was just about back to the trailhead and it was past dark when I saw a young black bear. I got within 20yards, which was really cool, but I knew it wasn't a bear I wanted to invite to dinner.

Next hunt, May 19. Was actually sunny where we went!
Took my dad, brother, and a visiting relative. We turned into the inlet we'd be hunting in and I went down to idle speed in the skiff. Using the binos I spotted three bears on the beach almost immediately....waaaay back at the end of the tidal flat.
I could see the pronounced hump of one of them and knew it was a brownie, and assumed the one right next to it would be either a sibling or a large cub.
But 500 yards past them on the beach was a black blob lumbering through the grass.

It was really hard to keep the boat going slow and quiet knowing that black bear was feeding back towards the woods and away from us. We finally did get to the beach, and my dad and I hopped out to make the long (about a mile) stalk. My brother and our relative stayed with the skiff to make sure the tide didn't mess with it too much, and they had a nice vantage point to watch us with the spotter.

After getting up and around a little hill that for a few minutes obscured our view of the bears, we saw the brownies still there but no more black blob.
I hoped that all that had happened was that the black bear had turned the far end corner of the flats and was still in the grass.

Once we got better eyes on the brownies we realized it was indeed a sow with a soon-to-be-evicted cub. With the wind in our faces we had to make enough noise and be visually obvious enough to scare off the sow and cub, while being silent and stealthy enough to not frighten the black bear we hoped was still around the far corner.

From my brother's perspective:




From my perspective, about 60 yards away from the sow/cub:

We eventually did get the brownies to run into the woods, and we passed by them unimpeded.

After 500 more yards of careful walking, we reached a small bluff that was hiding the 'around the corner' view of the flats.
I crept up to the top and peered over. At only about 50 yards away was the black bear! I looked as quickly but thoroughly as I could, and from what I could tell it was a decent boar.

It was my dad's turn to shoot. We crawled to the edge of the bluff where we could set up a sitting shot against my trekking pole. The wind was right, and all we had to do was wait for the bear to feed back into view. More easily said than done, but it finally happened. My dad lined up and shot. The bear dropped down for a couple seconds but then reeled up and was biting at the bullet. I told him "reload, shoot again!" but his rifle had jammed. Just as the bear ran back into the woods I shot another round into the boar. I couldn't tell you which shot was which, but one was liver and the other was lung.
The bear did not go far.

My dad's bear (he did not want his photo shared online):


I gutted the bear while my dad made the trek back to our skiff and grabbed the inflatable canoe. He walked it up the river while I dragged the bear down the river. We met up and floated out the rest of the way.





but the day was not done...

Looks like Limestone Inlet to me. Good job on getting one. I've got a bear cam set up at our cabin which is a bit south of there. Have not got a chance to check it since late April.

Always interesting when blacks and browns are in the same area at the same time.

Good job! I decided not to bear hunt this year, I didn’t want to be called a racist for shooting a brown or black bear! 😅 Just kidding on that part. My son is deployed and he usually helps me bait. I’ve got so many projects to do and with my upcoming surgery and the wife’s I figured I’d sit this year out. The good news, once these projects are done, including the remodel I’m paying someone to do, I’m wide open for caribou hunting.

I wish we could bait in the winter. So many things going on and to do in the spring. Tough to make the time.

Sorry for all the installments here. I've been at work and I've been butchering.

So 2.5 hours after stepping onto the beach we had my dad's bear in the inflatable canoe and we paddled down the river towards our skiff anchored in the salt water. I absolutely love canoeing on rivers but I don't get much of a chance to do that in this part of the state. After the tension of the stalk, the shooting and tracking of the bear, dragging, gutting, etc. the raft riding silently down a calm river is the perfect experience. The brown bear sow and cub had come back out onto the grass -- they didn't mind at all when we floated by.

We were almost back to the boat when I noticed, in the opposite corner of the inlet from my dad's bear, there was a barrel shaped tree stump moving around the tree-line. As tired as I was I couldn't help but get a closer look. We turned the canoe around and paddled back into the inlet. We glided as close as we could get while still being hidden to the bear, and I stepped out of the canoe into the marshy bed of seaweed. Sneaking up the beach as quietly as I could, I turned the corner that would let me get a good look at this new bear. A nice boar, and a cinnamon color phase to boot. Okay -- time for this guy to come to dinner:



The nice thing is that at this point we had the canoe really close, so while I gutted the cinnamon boar my dad paddled the canoe to essentially right up to me. I couldn't help but notice, 700 yards farther away, a third black bear had just emerged...lucky for them we were all pretty spent at that point. We rolled it into the boat on top of the other bear and finished paddling back to our boat. Really impressed with the SOAR inflatable canyon canoe by the way, it had close to 800 pounds on board with us and the bears, and it still had good floatation and handled well. Rated to 875lbs I believe.

A fast skiff ride home on an abnormally calm night, and a couple hours of skinning and quartering!

Nicely done and well told. Thanks for taking us along.

Well done, congratulations!

That cinnamon one is very nice. Outstanding field photo. Quite a few of them on the mainland down that way.

Great looking bear.yeah thanks for taking us along mb

But wait, there's MORE!

Went out in my skiff one more time for black bear, again south of Juneau. We left Douglas harbor at about 6:30pm and after we got out of Gastineau channel it was not nice weather to be on a skiff. It wasn't raining but there was a good build up of waves in Taku inlet, down past Grand Island, and the backside of Douglas. Typical, plus swirling currents didn't help anything.
It wasn't unsafe, but it was uncomfortable. Glassing was a difficult task from the boat. Our hunt ended up following as many leeward paths as possible to keep in a bit calmer seas. We made it into two inlets I wanted to get out and hike through, but the wind/waves were not conducive to being able to safely get to shore and securely leave the boat anchored.

So we soldiered on, looking for just about any stretch of beach that could watch that would be safely accessible if a bear came out.
We finally did see what we were looking for, a big black blob moving down the beach about 3/4 mile away. We were already going slow due to the waves so we turned toward the beach so we could plan a stalk. It looked like a medium bear. Not super exciting but we still wanted a closer look to make sure.
Unfortunately as we got closer we were able to make out a small skiff against the rocks a couple hundred yards away from the bear -- very well camouflaged against the grey cliffy beaches in the fading light. We were still probably 500 yards off the beach, but turned off the engine so we would have the least chance of messing up a stalk for whatever hunter was on the beach. I did finally spot the hunter and he was probably 50 yards away from the bear. I thought I'd hear a shot, but they either decided not to take it and made themselves known, or maybe he shot it with a bow. Never heard a shot and it was too hard to see exactly what happened from that distance, but the bear suddenly bolted into the woods. We had been watching that bear for several minutes, we were downwind and drifting with the engine, so I'm pretty confident it was not us that startled the bear.
Always cool to see a bear, and I hope whoever that hunter was had success either with that bear or another very soon.

We continued and finally found a promising corner that we could walk into. It was now 8:40pm. Short on time we didn't want to anchor, and it was almost exactly high tide so we didn't want to beach the skiff unattended -- too heavy to move if high and dry. My dad decided to stay with the boat, allowing me to walk up the narrow creek with grass on either side.

This creek pretty turns a sharp corner after only about 50 yards and continues out of sight of my dad and the skiff. Wind was perfectly right in my face. This is a gnarly ice field valley and it was not warm. The farther I walked the shorter the grass got, and eventually it was replaced by snow. I did surprise a porcupine by getting 6 feet away from him. He was munching the grass too loudly and too close to the flowing creek so he didn't hear me. I kept my 'social distance' haha but when he finally noticed me he had a hilarious "I've f*ed up" face. Probably the fastest waddle I've ever seen from a porcupine.

Eventually the banks of the creek got too brushy to see and the snow was getting pretty deep. I had walked about half a mile up this creek bank. I turned around and started back to the boat. Unexpectedly, I had not taken 10 steps when I looked far down the creek and noticed a grey shadow walking along in the grass. I ranged it at 520 yards away. It took a few seconds to register what I was seeing, but then it clicked -- that's a bear -- that's a GLACIER bear -- that's a NICE glacier bear.

I now had the wind right at my back and I knew that it would only be a matter of time before I would be winded and lose the opportunity on this nice boar.
So I did the only thing I could think to do to lesson my scent signature, I hitched up my chest waders and jumped into the creek!

I was up to my waist, but now the only thing above the bank was my head. The bear would put his head down to grab some grass and I would walk down through the water. He'd lift his head to sniff the air and I'd duck down close to the water. I saw a spot that I could easily get out of the creek that would be about 100 yards from this bear and have a nice rock to rest my rifle on. I kept playing 'red light green light' with this bear until amazingly I was 100 yards away without it knowing something was wrong.

However moments after as I rolled up and out of the creek I could see that the bear was a little bit more wary. I wasn't going to make it to the rock. I crouched low to the ground and stuck my trekking pole into the ground to act as a mono-pod. As I got the bear in my scope he was already looking right at me sniffing the air. I though to myself, "as soon as he turns he's bolting". So as he turned to the woods I took my quartering toward me shot. He turned around once to bite at the bullet and then continued into the fringe. As my ears rang I listened as well as I could, and I could hear the bear raking through the brush. Then it stopped! He had made it about 50 yards into the alders.




I gutted it where it lay, and dragged it back to the beach to get a picture. My dad had heard the shot, anchored the skiff, and was walking the inflatable canoe up the creek. As simple as rolling the bear into the canoe and floating it down the creek, we were back at the boat.

Only thing left was an uncomfortable ride back to Juneau in mostly dark and high winds. But I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. Totally worth it, and I am so blessed.

I will post pictures of the rinsed and clean hides of the cinnamon and glacier before I drop them off with the taxidermist.

I'm tagged out on the black bears, so unless I see a super nice brownie boar, I think I'm done for the spring. Thank you for reading and I hope you all enjoyed the stories.

Best,

Al

WELL DONE!!! Congrats to both you and your dad. It's awesome that you get to make those memories together.

I really like those Pro Pioneer inflatable canoes. Fun and very capable boats.