Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska JUST BOOKED MY ALASKAN BEAR HUNT.

Yes. If a bow hunter can take a bear without bait, a rifle hunter can also have great success for a nice bear without bait. Bear hunting is a great opportunity on the beach.
George

I'd say that is correct.

Dennis are you a bruin hunter?

Dober

Beaches, clearcuts, and alpine is about the only places you see them. They tend to disappear in the rainforest. I've seen a few in muskegs, but not many.

That is why they call it hunting not baiting. I have friends that pass up bears with a gun or bow without bait. Some have harvested Coastal Browns without bait within 20 yds with a bow or rifle. They return knowing they could have harvested a bear with bait but they could have stayed south to do that.

Nope. Don't mind others hunting them, given good efforts, but I don't eat them therefore I don't hunt them. Among other reasons.

Know some who do, and some who guide bear hunters. Always like to talk with them and see how things are going.

Dennis

Anybody want to guess what I'm going to do tomorrow? Head lamping in!

Starts tomorrow. doesn't it? Going up high, I assume?

Think I'll remember my boots when I come over in a few weeks...

Dennis

Good Luck and safe hunt!

Yeah, taking the boys up to some sub alpine/alpine for the 1st day of subsistence season.. I'm thinking I have about a 30 percent chance of it not being fogged in. I've got a little honey hole, and if the fog breaks at a reasonable hour, we'll have a real good chance at a buck. We'll see!

Just to be clear, I never hunted bears on POW and didn't mean to imply that I had. My comments about baiting being a common practice came from discussions with Skip, the guy that owned Log Cabin campground where I stayed. In his discussions with other outfitters, they seemed to think they got the largest bears by baiting.
On usual day, just by cruising the roads, you could see a couple of bears, and often I'd see one while driving the 5 or 6 miles from Klawock to Craig.
POW has seen a tremendous ( at least according to the locals)increase in bear hunting pressure since about 2005, and I think the larger bears are getting wised up and stay away from roads. I think there has been sime significant chamge in the bear huntings regs since I was there in 2007 to cope with the pressure and resultant increase in bear kill.

It's incredible, at least to me, how many bears there are in that coastal British Colmbia, Alaska rain forest. One afternoon, in about three hours driving from the Cassiar Highway over to the Stewart/Hyder area, I saw 14 bears along side the road.
If I were going to hunt bears on POW just for the fun of it, I'd do it by cruising the roads until I found lots of BIG bear poop in a section of road. Then I'd walk the nearest logging roads early morning and late day. I'd also take my canoe and use it to access some areas that were not so easily accessible.
If I was dead set on getting a huge bear, I think I'd try baiting, based on what I heard while I was up there.
Another really fun way would be to have a skiff so you could fish and set crab pots, but taking a skiff over on the ferry is pretty pricey.
POW is a great place. Love it there.

fred

Calvin-what's the rifle barrel length, it's morning and I haven't had my diet dew/oj yet but the tube looks short and or the stock looks long and or I just can't see well yet...grin

Anyway, wish to heck I was there and packing to go along for a walk about.

Dober

It's a 22" M7 7mm Saum. McM Edge Stock in Classic. 162Amax at 2920. The boys shoot it really well at 400 yards, so that's what I'm toting.

Well, we left at 2am. Did the 2.5 mile hike up the hill.. Sat in the fog and rain for a good spell, and decided that today wasn't our day, as the fog was getting thicker and the rain heavier. Back to the vehicle by 8am. Had one small buck walk up to us in the fog. Easy pass.

Try again in the morning!

The issue on POW is sow kill. In the fall, the visiting hunters kill the crap out of sows, as they are the majority of the bears still in the rivers eating salmon. That is why they went to a roadless rule in Sept on POW. Personally, I wouldn't mind if they'd just close the fall bear hunt on POW.

The spring is the direct opposite. I spoke with the sealer and he said that out of 77 bears he sealed this spring, only 3 of them were sows.

As for road hunting bears.. I've never seen a bear while driving that I could have killed. Maybe I'm just unlucky, but they are gone the instant they detect anything. I know some guys can kill em on the side of the road, but all I ever see is their ass as they are bailing into the jungle. Then again, I don't exactly drive slow, so that might be part of the problem too...(grin)

Still plenty of big bears on POW. I agree with you that the bigger ones aren't as stupid as they used to be. Even on the beaches, they'll bail into the woods with you a long distance away.

As far as Skip goes.. We have a ton of B&B's and Self Guided operations that brought up people by the ferry load. I hate to speculate, but I'd be willing to guess they did a little bit more than provide a place for guys to sleep, if ya know what I'm saying..

They don't stand around.

Ironically, if that Steelhead Creek sign in Steelhead's avatar is the Steelhead Creek on POW, I saw one bear about 50 yaeds from down the creek from where he is standing.

It is

Bigger shock waves are better and important for bears.

I missed that, pretty funny. Always loved the DSMF's that would show up at the range before a hunt, blasting away with RUMS up through 375 and other such [bleep], just to shoot a '6' foot black bear.