Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Any Stories With Close Calls With Unhappy wildlife?

Was it a wild fish?

Yes. Female on a bed in shallow water..I reached down to touch her, and she glommed on to my thumb like a little pitbull fish!

pirhana complex! lol

Nice pix!

No nunchuks?

I guess I'm lucky that I've never had any real close calls. A couple of moose with attitudes but nothing I would call real close. One time while fishing the Kenai my buddy was taking a piss break and went into the woods. When he got back in there I started firing rocks into the brush. He came peeling out of there pissin all over himself screaming about a big bear he just saw crashing though the trees. I just about pissed in MY waders as I was laughing so hard. He still likes to tell the story about it and I have never told him the difference. It might not have been a nice thing to do, but it was the RIGHT thing to do at the time!

Note to self.... don't fish with Ptarmigan. Although I'd have liked to watched!

Haha, you know that guy who always forgets his wallet when you go on a trip? Ya, don't be that guy!!

we have apple orchards scattered through the woods here from the 1920 and of course the bears, deer and moose use them for a banquet in the fall.
I was bow hunting one fall and had just built myself a nice blind under a cedar tree when I noticed 3 little black balls moving under a apple tree about 40 yards away. I settled down and started watching them through my binos. every once in a while I would see apples fall from high up in the tree. I started looking and would see this black arm reach out and knock off apples for the chillins below.
just about the time I got a good view of her the wind shifted around behind me and as soon as I felt the breeze on my neck the little ones disappeared like baby quail and momma came headfirst down the tree. She charged all bristled up and on her tiptoes up to about 10 yards from me. I heard this high pitched noise and realized it was coming from me. I was at full draw and told her she might get me but I would make orphans of her cubs.
she stopped at 10 yards and bounced up and down some and I started backing out through the wild rose and apples for the road. I kept at full draw until I got to the road and she kept the distance the same until I was about 100 yards from the cubs.
she went back to her babies and I went back to the house for a stiff one. had to go back the next day for my bino's and backpack. she probably weighed 140 but looked huge that day.
have seen her many times since and she always has 3 cubs.

a moose and a couple griz... one young griz was on his moose calf kill ..me in a raft, 43 miles off the haul road by myself, the brach of the river was no more than 16' wide I was floating the 8' raft and 8 drums of fuel floating with me all daisy chained together ie: a stash of fuel.... buddy with a plane to pick me up the next day (it was 45 days before m-season) I was in the rock free, deep part (20") of the crick, a foot of so off the/a 3 foot cut bank to my back, seen a cow hurry across the river down stream 150/200yds ..hummm, cow no calf here in the end of july =that not good ..then I hear a noise behind me ...I was sitting on a tube and stood up to turn around and > SUPRISE !! face to face with the bear at spiting distance ...we scared the chit out of each other is was knee deep in moose calf eating ..hair all out.... then the jaw popping started getting his spit on my arm...me!!! ..I'm sure I was white and speechless, still floating tho, I looked at my all closed up tite-water proof bag with my .44 all safe and dry inside the next thing I did was grab my canoe paddle/s and held it over my head like a 100" moose AND I scream like a little girl !! he ran off into the brush I paddled/pushed >like the dickens to the other bank!! then i got my .44 out and lobed "2" in just over the brush ..loud in that canyon! needless to say I was about a 1/2 mile from where I was to camp ...no... no ...I went 2 more miles down/till I could locate water enough for the float plane landing zone/ lucky I had a boat to plane radio ..so I could tell him the new spot that I ended up! the other bear deal I had ...while calling moose ..the grass was rolling to me as I called ...wft???..i stood up to see a big azz "flat" bear crawling/ sneaking up on me !!! again screaming BEAR !!! To this day I will not forget what it feels like to be hunted, I was on the only bump/high spot for a few hundred yards, I looked down on/at him..it could have been bad...very bad the look on his face for being caught was as priceless as I'm sure mine was..my moose story is long but I've posted it here or over on ak outdoor forms years ago ..I fought with a twice shot moose and went into a pond after him> to chase his dying azz out so we didn't have to clean in water/ mud ....whatever u do in life DO NOT touch a 50+ moose's rack while both of you are standing belly deep in a icy pond ...at least not while he is alive !!!!#$%^&*(

Get Member bearhuntr to post his little story (again).

It's a contender for the prize.

Does encounters with horny wildlife count?

I had just graduated from college and had a week free before summer job, with a new 12 week Lab pup. Hiked 10 or so miles up the Little Chena out of Fbks with inflatable canoe in pack. No trail/bush whacking all the way. Pup pooped out after about 4 miles, was added to pack. Did a John Wayne (camp here!) when I pooped out. Good thing I was going off-river straight(more or less) line miles rather than snakey river miles.

Spent 2 days camping, fishing (grayling), watching campfire smoke rise, etc. then inflated the canoe and started the float out. This was late May IIRC. Turned out I wasn't even on the main river, but a side channel that goes dry later in the season Iearned on a subsequent trip several years later. frequent beaver dams which I dared not shoot in a rubber ducky. Even if I did have a patch kit. I portraged them all.

Several dams down I came around a bend in the 20 foot wide stream to find rather large grizzlies on the banks maybe 50 feet ahead, one on each side. A breeding pair, second only to sow with cubs for pucker power. I'm packing a Ruger Single Six with the magnum cylinder installed, sporting solids. Not exactly good bear medicine.

Two rounds in the air got the right hand bear to notice me and bolt. I back paddled to that side, then the left hand bear splashed across (one splash!) in following. I reloaded. Pup, asleep on top of my pack, never woke up.

Little did he know I was going to throw him at the charging bear.

Not really, but he was on his own! If the bear(s) came I was going to roll out of the canoe and swim as far underwater downstream as I could

The shakes lasted longer than the whole maybe 30 second incident. Amazing how time slows down to allow one to consider options....

45 years later and some experience gained with bears I'd likely forego the shakes for a big grin. Or maybe not.

Mike,

I'm still waiting for Don's pics.

I mean, we all know brown bears can't climb trees!

I will stipulate a 14 foot jump is pretty impressive, however....

Las,

Time certainly does slow down, doesn't it. I view wildlife encounters something like child hood in that when looking back, you wonder how the hell the good lord has kept you alive!

One year we decided to do a walk in sheep hunt in the Alaskan Range, starting near Healy. The plan was to run the wheelers as far up a local river as possible and walk in from there.

We were getting pretty close to where we were going to have to ditch the wheelers, the river rocks were just getting to big to hop around. As we come around a corner, there stands a grizz in the middle of the stream, which by now is not all that large - he was blocking our way so we stopped the machines and threw a few rocks at him to get him to vacate the area which he does without incident.

But he apparently was a vindictive bastid since this is what my machine looked like when we returned after a week. Grizz = 1, Bob = 0!

What is it with all the moose?? Ornery suckers I guess.

I was pheasant hunting in South Dakota in uncut corn field. Dogs were running back and forth and a couple of them about knocked me over. As I was working my way along a corn row and not able to see more than a few feet I heard a dog running towards me. I held my ground and the DOE saw me at the last second and tried to jump over me. Her front hooves hit me square in the chest. I went flying backwards and she landed upside down next to me. Knocked the wind out of me and took me 2 minutes to find my shotgun- two rows away!

Not to meantion observational powers. I swear I can still see every hair on those two bears!

The nice thing about Alaska is we have moose, bears (brown and black), wolves as yard critters. Well, at least in the civilized areas. All of which I have as visitors in my Sterling yard. All I get here in the bush village of Kotzebue is hares and fox. On the other hand I can kill caribou and moose within 15 miles out no prob...when it is time.
,
Hard to get exicited about a hare or fox. Unless you are a Lab on a walk around the block....

These guys that guide brown bear hunts have stories. I know it!!

Bashful, they are!

Are you referring to Beerhunter?

The bear was charging
I waited for an opportunity to shoot him under the chin
signed
bearshit