Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska 11 ft brown bear down

Someone had to say it. I agree completely.

Harvest? That's gayerd n fugk.

Say's the guy in a spandex suit.

Absolutely Stunning!!!!!
I've had an obsession with those monster bears since I was a child after hearing the stories from my late father who was stationed on Kodiak in the Navy.
I would go to the biggest outdoor shows...SCI and FNAWS and the top Taxidermists shops to look at giant bears and find out which outfits were killing the biggest bears and I'd just be in awe of the giant bear mounts and photos of bears taken on Kodiak and the Peninsula.
I compiled volumes of information and photos.




ere I lived

After a couple of interior Grizzly Bear hunts that were difficult and ended in a mediocre bear....



, I buckled down and saved for a 2 week backpack hunt on Kodiak.
I trained hard for a year backpacking heavy weights up the mountains behind the ranch where I lived.
Long story short, I fulfilled my lifelong dream of taking a huge 10 foot, 1 inch (9 foot 8 x 10 foot 6) square bear measured flat as it lay the skull made all time book.
Not a day goes by that I'm not humbled, thankful and overwhelmed by that experience.
Without question, the most incredible adventure of my lifetime.











Thank you so much for posting this story.
I hope more photos of this bear surface along with a full recap of the hunt.
I've been scouring the internet, but very limited information has surfaced aside from a group of anti hunters that jumped on the story.
Please post more if you find it.

Again, Thank you Swamplord!!!👍

Wow! Big bears all through this thread.

Awesome.

Guy

What a great story ! Thanks for sharing It's great when dreams like this come true.

I had a similar client who was serious about big bears and at two different SCI conventions asked me to guess and tell him just how big , score wise , every big bear mount at the show was 🙄
He finally booked, was in great shape , with a good attitude and killed a great trophy with a 28 8/16" skull.

You big bear guys got big stones. Couldn't begin to imagine the rush. Wow! What great bears and stories! Congrats and thanks for sharing....

It is not always a rush, super sucks when you have seven brown bears in camp at the same time. Or having a large male brown bear on top of you. Or having them run over you as you fire your shot. Or when they are watching you process a moose, and you can't run them off, sometimes they will even just lay down, with head up, watching and waiting. Or when they sleep right outside your cabin door for three nights, and for three days they follow you everywhere you go, always staying about fifty yards back of you. That would have been a rush, other then the nearest other human was 40 to 60 miles away. It is a rush when you look over from reading your book and one is standing erect looking at you with their nose so close to the cabin window that it is fogging it up with each exhale.

I've never been afraid of any wild animal in North America.

EXCEPT for a huge Grizzly Bear I stalked into close quarters near Lake Louise in unit 13 in April of 1996.

The stalk failed in the heavy timber because of crunchy snow and swirling wind .

The following fall my guide took his son in and killed him.
Just a stud of an interior bear.

A 12 year old kid...dang.

This was a neat shot of that kid and his grizz.
Over 9 ft squared, beautiful black hide with gold accents on his shoulders.

That's a cool bear! And a tank.

Great pics Sal, keep them coming.

This is an amazing thread, like reading a Sports Afield article and getting to talk to the guy who was there for real.

One week after I started this thread I had a griz run into me (he shoud've run the other way)

Saw a nice black bear on Sat but spooked him, so I went back Wed night after work (June 8th) hoping to see the blackie again, instead .... a griz came at me whoofin awfully scary like ....

First shot at 14 paces directly in the chest under his chin as he came at me, the impact of the bullet knocked him down but he was back on his feet in a flash, swatting at the ground and snarling, he was broadside at that sec and I shot him in the shoulder the second time, knocking him down/spinning him facing away from me, as I approached him rifle ready, he jumped to his feet and made his way towards the impenetrable thick willow scrub, I shot him a third time directly in the back from ten feet away, breaking his back ... didn't want to go looking for him in the dense willow mess in the middle of the night ....

Suprisingly, with 3 shots in him and a broken back he still crawled away, pulling himself forward with his front paws/claws while snapping at and tearing the brush with his teeth, he made it 75 feet then I walked up on him and at point blank range put another 190 gr LRX bullet just behind the skull, ending it ...

Four shots with an original, unmodified Rem 700 LSS 300 RUM & 190 gr Barnes LRX bullets @ 3214 fps (Barnes factory ammo)

All in all, the first shot killed him but he either didn't know it or didn't accept it right at the moment, the second shot was "keep shooting till he's down" , third shot was insurance, to confirm he was done , the fourth shot was a mercy shot to prevent unnecessary suffering

All this occured in mere seconds and I didn't have time to think, just react to the situation at hand

Solo bear hunts can be scary at times, especially when they involve a bear that won't give up, lol !

Not a giant bear like those in pics posted earlier here, but still a mean azz adult grizzly looking for tasty mooselings, he ain't gonna eat any more of those ...

But stick told me you only need a 22lr ever for any bear.

One of the better threads ever posted.

Swamp----How bad was he rubbed? Can't tell in the photo. That's a good grizz---interior?

I enlarged the photo in the first post, looks like he might have lost his left ear in a fight. Enlarged it looks like he may not have had much remaining as far as teeth.

probably laffin .... & extolling the dumb story about using his 22 wares on his buddy's knee to slow him down while sticky flees

Talkeetna mtn griz, still had his heavy winter coat on due to the massive snow falls this past winter melting all the way into June, had the start of a rub on his butt, about 8x8 patch had the long hairs rubbed off but otherwise has a full fur coat on

My only close encounter with a grizzly was on my first elk hunt in Idaho. There was fresh snow on the ground. I was watching/glassing the valley below as I saw tracks going into the valley and no tracks coming out. The bear came up to maybe 20 feet behind me. I did not hear him/her. I saw the tracks though when I turned around and headed back. I was carrying a 600 Remington 308 Win. I carried either a 338 Win Mag or a 350 Remington Mag with 250 grain partitions on every elk hunt since then until the last elk hunt. I also was much more aware of what was behind me. When I saw how close that bear came up behind me I was shook! That elk hunt in Idaho was nearly 50 years ago.

I’ve often wished for a coastal bear hunt. My then wife had a propensity to spend much greater than my propensity to earn. Her sister told me (after that wife died) she was always giving money away.