Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Number 66- A Uganik Bay Brown Bear Story

Lost in the intense afternoon sun we approached the narrow passage between Sheep Island and Kodiak Island I pointed out where OlBlue and I had sat waiting for the seaducks to fly past us stirred up by KKAlaska looking for deer.

I pointed out where Jeff and I had watched a small bear biting at his foot to get pieces of Styrofoam loose and where Rick Bin and I had a deer swim right by the raft. I had just pointed out where bearstalker had shot his bear when suddenly hissed "Bear!" and pointed to shore, not 25 yards away.

A quick look showed no place for cubs to hide, a decent sized bear, a decent hide, and no where for the bear to hide either. A round was quickly chambered in the 375AI and the raft swung to starboard to clear the way to shoot.

Just over a year ago the spring Kodiak drawing hunt results came out and shockingly a familiar name was listed under Uganik Bay. Rick Bin came up and stood back-up when we found a bear there ten years ago (my last Kodiak drawing permit), and about seven years ago bearstalker found a Uganik Bay bear with me, while two years ago another friend shot a serious monster there and I got to help with that bear, too.

A very few folks were invited with the hope of building a party of three. First, my buddy Jeff, from two years ago insisted he was coming. Then I invited IdahoPro, Paul, whom I have hunted and fished with a couple times previously to be back-up shooter. On a flier a certain Bostonian was recruited as photographer, menu consultant, and the critical signal-man.

Paul struggled with shoe-horning a couple weeks into his schedule but finally locked-in on the first two weeks of May as his only option.

Jeff "had" to go to Thailand for a couple weeks and returned just a day before we were due to leave Kodiak. He had a face full of stitches after being convinced he needed surgery while in Thailand... Why and how could his extension surgery leave stitches in his face???

So Jeff bailed at the last minute... Even after this trip:




Then there was the Bostonian... He struggled and connived, but in the end failed to find a possible way to leave as the work conflicts were huge.

The very important third set of eyes was not to be.

In prep for Paul's arrival the van (Mystery Mobile to many) needed a carburetor replacement and my inner Master Mechanic rose to the challenge and swapped that sucker out. Consider the fact just opening the hood on the Mystery Mobile is stretching my limits... The engine started immediately after the carb job and someone was incredibly proud of himself.

Shortly thereafter Paul was due to arrive and I headed to the airport. Relying on my new-found mechanical ability I proved domination of that pesky hood latch and opened it just out side of town... while driving...

The little particles, shards, and fragments of windshield glass lend a particularly sparkling and fun atmosphere to the Mystery Mobile interior.

I am SO proud of myself!

Paul's flight was on time and we headed to the boat to unload his stuff and then to Wal-Mart for licenses and food. We stopped at Safeway and a Costco distributor to round out the menu.

Of course we had to visit Mack's to get the brown bear locking tag as that seemed to be beyond Wal-Mart's ability.

Then we headed to ADF&G to find a call-out number to beg a bio to come give me tag because I had completely forgotten to get it during regular business hours.

I am SO proud of myself!

But there was a bio there waiting for a hunter with a bear to seal. One of Scott Mileur's clients showed shortly with a smallish bear that had been handled incredibly well! He also was able to give me the tag I needed...

Sunday morning we left the harbor for the fuel dock. It, of course, was still on winter hours and they were happy enough to charge an extra $80 for an after-hours call-out. A thousand dollars later we pushed off for Uganik.

The ride was mostly smooth, but the Shelikof Strait was too rough to run the outside of Uganik Island so we took the longer run through Uganik Passage, past where Riley shot his bear last spring:


It was the bear with the bullet core in the head:


We also passed where RedRabbit had to drag way wide to get two deer past a sleeping bear.

We turned just short of where OlBlue killed his Kodiak bear some seven or eight years ago and right by the first place I killed one 17 years ago.

We also passed the spot a very big boar swam across to Uganik Island from the beach in front of Hellegeson's. That would be the same beach DennisinAZ and I saw dozens of bears feeding on spawning surf smelt on.

As we pulled into NE Arm some hours later we almost immediately saw a sow with two cubs just outside Starr Point. A huge bear was spotted at the top of the waterfall directly above where Jeff's bear had died.

Just as the anchor was falling to bottom a boat from Quartz Creek Lodge pulled up and a bunch of smiling folks handed us a couple huge tanner crabs for dinner.
http://www.quartzcreeklodge.com/uganik.htm

More tomorrow...

please no 'good even rub' story....

That would be a "nice even rub" to you, Sir!

of all the things I've lost.. I miss my mind the most. !

How do you know?

Waiting on Photobucket to upload another batch of photos from this trip... Found black cod at Costco again finally and had to get a batch smoking; sorry for the delay.



Anyway, Paul fired up the generator while I readied the crabs for a quick steaming in the electric skillet. It was too hot to leave the stove on and we were not willing to wait for it to warm up.



A stick of butter went into a bowl with a good shot of garlic and then it went in the steamer first. The cleaned crab clusters from just two crabs completely filled the electric skillet to overflowing.

It was calm enough to glass comfortably from the boat until dark, about 10:30. But no more bears were spotted.

The tides were mild but the low was in the middle of the night so we did not rush to get out the first morning, making a couple egg and cheese English muffins each for breakfast.

Then we found the first issue and it was a dandy... there was no fuel hose for the Suzuki outboard on the Achilles raft. Searching through every spot, hole, cubby, compartment, and closet did no good.

With the change over to a Suzuki all of my spare parts and pieces were not usable to build a new line... In desperation I checked the food cupboard and there was my hose...

We loaded up pads and cushions to sit on while glassing; tripods, optics, and cameras; emergency gear and float coats; snacks and water to last the day. Little did I know Paul was sneaking into the food locker and pilfering extra sardine tins for himself...

Almost immediately after pushing off in the raft from the big boat Paul spotted a very dark, long-legged, small-headed looking bear right above Starr Point. He was not sticking around for good looks or attention though.

We finally made it out to the small island we would practically live on for the duration. It is perfectly situated to allow good glass to cover a huge stretch of mountainside from Gull Cape to Starr Point and even beyond. The neighbors objected to the intrusion.



Though it was not hard to see where there issue was.



They were not at all modest though and continued to carry on as if they were alone.



The sow with two cubs from the evening before was located almost immediately.

Have to go pull the black cod out of the smoker... more later...

Bastid.

Good stuff! Waiting for more. Congrats on the bear, too!

My cousin got the Terror Bay tag for next spring. Can't wait for that hunt.

Get with me soon...

Some of us work, U know... IMO, way too much, in the wife's, not enuf...

Yeah, I know - you guys have heard it before....

I've little interest in shooting a Brown, but by damn, the ride would be worth it!

It appears from the focus the eggs did come first... Nice pics!

That's all ya got?

The bear from two years ago pictured above was just delivered, mounted life-size, today, for those interested...

Got more typed out but have been busy today... More within a few hours.

Was that the 12 shot bear?

It took more than 12 shots to steady our nerves over that bear...

So we spent the day glassing and the little wind we had was causing the raft to ride against the barnacled face of the rocks and it was obvious we needed to move the raft to reduce the damage potential.

Behind us there was a deep cut with promise of a calm place to leave the raft, so I took a walk to see what was available. On the opposite side of the cut a small beach had formed at the base of a slide chute and a pretty, well-furred bear was hunting options there.

It was a modest bear, likely a sow, just working up the beach to more open options. After a few minutes the bear moved past and around the corner at less than 150 yards.

The sow with two cubs was a regular each day and could be counted on to be found with a bit of searching. She covered very little ground on a daily basis and her cubs were very active.

Quite a few bears showed up just once and left us guessing if we had seen them before each time a "new" bear was spotted. On day three two solo bears showed up. Both were likely boars roaming with a love interest as the moon was filling and everything was right for romance... just ask those oystercatchers!

I am cheating every time I post "we spotted" or similar because frankly, I got my butt kicked on spot counts! Glassing for bears is like a lot of glassing in a lot of places and requires a lot of time glued to a glass while on your ass. I used to believe that was all it took. I also used to spot more bears than anyone else.

Paul set a Vortex 12x42 bino on a tripod adaptor and adjusted it just tight enough to allow the glass to move smoothly when nudged. He would then set it on the right spot and search the entire field without touching the eyepieces. A gentle nudge to unsearched country and another careful search... over and over again.

Leaving the eyecups in increased the usable field and made it harder to bump the bino. I am being kind to myself to suggest he only out spotted me by a 3:1 margin or so...

Paul showing how it is done:


An example of the country we were attempting to iron the wrinkles from. This was shot with a Canon 100-400 zoom at 400. There is a bear almost dead center in the photo, but good luck seeing it.



The fourth day suddenly showed us what Kodiak could be like... on a good day. It broke windy with bunch of fog rolling over the ridge to the north and hanging up across the main bay at Village Islands. We could see almost nothing across the arm and spent much time looking back at Dogear Mountain.

Dick Rohrer's client and Assistant Guide showed up and planted themselves on the last beach before Starr Point and spent the day looking back over our shoulders... Way over 50 miles of shoreline in the unit and they need to park within our sight? If I was that client I would be a little pissy about that.

It was a tough day for spotting and the mist just hung in there. Bitching about it was a tad ridiculous as Kodiak is not noted for gentle weather. This was the only day we had any precipitation and it was almost nothing. We already had serious sun and wind burn going on.


They later moved deep into the arm, back behind Sally Island and did not come out until very late. Which means they had to be watching a good bear for some time...

Later that day a lone eastbound bear showed up and dropped down to just above the beach and walked almost out to the guide and client's glassing post before disappearing. All signs point to another lonely hearts club member boar...

That would be the first 20 bear spottings...

In the last photo in the last post Rohrer's Whaler can be seen to the left anchored near the beach. The tender raft is on the beach just right of center and the guide and client are the obvious sleepers on the small grassy knob to the right.

The tide depth and timing were getting better and better, but the moon was getting bigger every night. The low tide drives bears even when they are not going down onto the beach every day. I love a sunrise low tide with some depth...

We were putting in 12-14 hour days on the beach and spending early mornings and evenings glassing from the big boat. The pattern was set early with me making breakfast while Paul packed a lunch for us (and pocketed yet another tin of sardines) before climbing into the Achilles raft and running over to the island.

Exhausted we would come back to the big boat late, make a quick dinner and head to our bunks. A pound of bacon fried and made into BLTs was probably our favorite, but split-pea soup, baked ham, spaghetti, roasted chickens, and did I mention crab? rounded out the menu. Our food photog bailed on us...

Late morning the next day Paul spotted some crazy stuff on a tilted plateau well up the mountainside. He had the details picked apart while I was still trying to find the bears. A large boar had cornered a sow with two first-year cubs on the rim. The cubs were in castle-rock and the boar kept moving back and forth cutting off the sow's escape repeatedly.

Somehow the sow and cubs got past the boar and headed up the mountain. She would run and run and run, then stop to look back. The boar never slowed, never changed pace, just dropped his snout to the ground and followed. Some heavy fright-night movie track was needed to spell out the sow's dilemma.

Eventually she made it over the crest of the mountain with the boar still plodding along.

The next morning we found the boar again, still chasing a sow, but the cubs were not there. The following day we did not see them, but the next we saw them and for the two days after. The boar was constantly following everywhere the sow went.

Tides and moon were improving and the rutty boars were suddenly being seen constantly but we kept looking for the big boar chasing the former mother bear.

Then Paul spotted "them" just as they went into an alder tangle fairly well down the mountain. I had to take Paul's word for it because they were only visible for a couple minutes and he was the only one to spot them. Based on the last several days of spotting I took his spotting as gospel and we quickly decided we needed to be on the other edge of the crest to see where they went.

The wind had picked up quite a bit, or remained so, outside the arm and as we rounded the corner the whitecaps got big fast. I was trying to make as much time as possible and Paul was getting bounced pretty hard in the bow.

A sea otter did not see us and when coming out of a roll at the surface he opened his eyes to see us literally ramming him from the side. His eyes got big and he rolled and dove immediately. To make sure he dove fast and deep enough he used all of his monster rear flipper feet to toss a bucket of water right into my face at about 5'...

The outside was out of the question as we could not be stable enough to glass and it was too far to the other side.

So we went to the beach figuring we could climb to the outside knob and find a good vantage point. By working in increments with that same logic we soon found ourselves in a bad spot without a clue where the bears might be, no good vantage point, and worrying about a swirling wind giving us away.

We finally backed out but considered the hill suspect from that time forward.

From the mountainside as we tucked tail and retreated to the beach, Paul stopped to look out across the bay from the first real high vantage point.


The count was 52 bears spotted the next morning when we spotted what was likely the boar and sow leaving the hole we had looked for them in the afternoon before. Feel free to substitute "Paul" every time I say "we" spotted...

The bears went over the mountain, yet again.

Late that evening after watching a series of other bears Paul spotted the pair coming back over a saddle right toward us, but much too high to get to at the late hour.

As we watched they kept coming down the mountain, exactly in our direction. Light came down the mountain faster than the bears though and we had to admit defeat and head back to the big boat.

The bears were headed toward a beach directly below where Rick Bin and I found a bear ten years ago. We sneaked on it from above and I managed to kill it with Rick running back-up. I think it was a Coors Light and BLT evening...

I sure hope something happens soon!

The count was 63...

We arrived early the next morning and started setting up for another day of glassing. The weather was crystal clear, the seas as flat as they can possibly be, and it was already too hot. Paul sat down behind his binos and tripod while I finished setting up spotting scopes and looking for the missing sardines.

Almost immediately Paul said "Bears on the beach!"

We left almost everything on the island and headed to the bears, almost certainly the boar and sow we had been watching for days. They could easily have been shot from where Rick and I had shot 10 years previously.

We aimed just outside them and headed at a steady, but modest speed behind their route. Like these bears often do they laid down right at the water's edge and watched our approach until it was almost too late.

At the last possible minute I killed the motor and waited for the raft steady a bit in the swell we had created. The bears went behind some rock and headed right toward the alders.

A 270gr package was mailed but apparently an adult signature was required for delivery and none could be found. Or the boar simply refused delivery...

We spent the next couple of hours making sure there was no blood showing. A couple landmarks were easy to find it is pretty certain the bear went untouched.

Sitting out offshore for quite a while failed to show where the bears went.


The count was now 65.