Riley drew a tag for Uganik Island, Terror Bay for this spring but had to wait to the very end of the season to go due to college finals. The season runs April 1 to May 15 and you may choose any 15 day segment to hunt.

Usually the bears are getting rubbed by the end of the season, but the biggest bears are usually killed late as they chase sows in heat. This spring was so cold and delayed it worked out better for those that waited to the end.

We had a great weather forecast by the time we had loaded the boat with groceries, fuel, and water; and a new-to-us Achilles raft and outboard was tied on the swim step... the raft, not the motor.

We left Kodiak at noon to catch the tide right at Whale Pass. Traveling was perfect with the ocean a mirror, no wind and no clouds. Having gotten it exactly backward again we got to Whale Pass in time to fight huge rips and breakers, eddies and currents right on our bow.

When we finally cleared Outlet Cape and entered the Shelikof Strait we could see Uganik Island immediately south of us. Because we had hit it right at low tide we headed to Cape Uganik and turned in to follow the shore.

After many years of hunting the unit I have lots of favorite spots, mostly around Uganik Passage West. The unit is huge with many miles of shoreline and ADF&G says there are up to 125 bears in the unit.

Many here have been with me and seen a lot of bears in that stretch. One October DennisinAZ and I saw a huge gathering of bears digging spawning surf smelt in the gravel.

Anyway, Riley and I turned in to follow the shoreline and immediately caught movement on the beach a mile or so in front of us. As we got closer it was obvious it was a legal bear, but just a mature sow.

Riley was concerned about all the talk we had been hearing about how no one was finding bears and he had plans to get home ASAP. As we got closer it was obvious we could see the beach and there was only a single bear on it. A little closer and we could see the hide was in great shape with no hint of rub.

Riley decided he wanted to go after the bear but there was no place for anchoring the big boat without scaring the bear off the beach. For the sake of speed we turned back and dropped the raft off the swim step and Riley got in with the drag line wrapped once around a cleat.

Making another pass with Riley in tow allowed him to shake the line off the cleat and start paddling in as soon as the bear was behind some castle rock on the beach.

I turned out from the beach to so the bear could see me and headed very slowly away. Riley paddled to the beach and then passed through a small reef coming off the castle rock.

He expected to surprise the bear when he cleared the rock only to find the bear watching him at 60 yards or so.

The bear turned and started up the steep bank/mountainside behind the beach. The first shot hit high in the near-side shoulder and angled down through the chest and hit just above the elbow on the far side. The bear tumbled back onto the beach and he shot a couple more times for insurance.

He was amazed as he could see hair and blood mist spraying from the backside with every shot.

I anchored the big boat and we assembled cameras, snacks, knives, and sharpeners before paddling to shore to look at the bear.

We took a bunch of pictures.




You can see how steep the mountainside is...


Because the bear was high on the beach we were able to roll it onto a rock below and prop it up neatly for the photos. It was about all we could do to get it up onto the rock. The hide is perfect; long fluffy hair with light frost on the tips across the hump.

We skinned for a rug and left the paws and skull in for the sake of speed.

Being May the days were so long we had plenty of time, but I wanted to run well up into Terror Bay for the night.

We fired up the generator once we had the anchor set in front of a setnet site across from Naugolka Point and panfried a couple beef ribeyes in sweet hot mustard. It was very good.

The next morning we ran in toward Terror Bay to see what was happening there and to show Riley some of the area we were going to hunt. There were a couple bears on the beach at Hellgeson's camp and a couple foxes a bit farther inside.

Just before the passage there were four guys glassing from a grassy knob so we turned around at that point and left the area to them. Halfway through the passage east we stowed the raft on the swim step and headed to town.

Timing was perfect through Whale Pass and drove back to Kodiak without ever having confronted a wave the whole trip.

Riley skinned the skull and found a bullet from a much earlier event lodged in the muscles toward the back of the skull. The bullet had broken a chip from the nuchal crest at the rear of the skull, flattened out and bent a great deal before stopping within a couple inches of the bone fragment.

The chip from the nuchal crest can be seen just right of center at the extreme aft end of the skull.


Fragment and bullet

Congratulations, Riley!

Sounds like a nice little overnight trip!

Way to go, Riley! Pretty bear and nice pictures. What cartridge? I love it down that way and hope to get that permit again.

Cheers on a successful hunt. You sure do look like your mom.

Sarah and Dennis are at the house now,Dennis cooking one his special meals.

Yes don't forget about those rifle/caliber details. Congrats on a beautiful bear.

He shot my 700 in 375AI, 270gr XFB bullets and a Vortex Viper PST 1-4x24 scope with the TMCQ reticle. He had never shot a critter with it and was surprised to see everything after each shot because of the cast-on in the stock. It turns the shooter slightly rather than lifting the rifle into and blocking the view.

He said he saw each bullet hit and then hair and spray come off the back side. It is a gentle shooting rifle.

Yeah he is lucky that way!

Good deal on getting to spend time with the kids. We might be down that way in a few days. If we get close we may swing in briefly.

Looks good Art. Can't wait to hunt those bears again. Congrats to Riley.

Nice all around, fine write-up as well.

That kinda looks like a handgun bullet, did you guys measure it? Great story and write up too!

No, I have not measured it in any way... Think I will go do that right now... I am guessing it was about 30 caliber and pretty short...

The retained weight is 151.7 grains. You may be right about the handgun bullet... Notice the lands are nicely engraved forward to a very hard line... like the typical step on a wadcutter. Probably what you noticed?

It is flattened to about .25" and widened to about .40" with the flat side very flat and the domed side quite low. In other words the whole bullet has been greatly reshaped and the domed side is not part of an arc, but much flatter.

I would still think 30 caliber, but it might be 32... I doubt seriously that it could have been 357. The smear marks on the back side actually look pretty cool and I should take a photo of them.

Well done all around, and handsome looking hide for sure. Congrats to the hunter and taxi driver.

What caliber is the bonus souvenir? Just curi-ass.

Greatest width, which is at the nose end is .728 and greatest length is about .712".

Great job, loved the story, Riley should be proud. Sounds like a great trip over all.

Congrats to Riley and to the old man/guide...great looking animal, feel free to put up more pictures as I never tire of seeing, AK. Thanks for the post, Art.

As far out on Uganik as we were there is a good chance it would have been visible from where you shot your bear.

Marlin, Randy,
Thanks! He is pretty happy it went so easily. First time he has been granted an "assisted suicide" shooting...
art

Well done! Thanks for sharing.

Took a couple more photos of the bullet to show the texture of the lead surface where it ran across the bone and the tail end to show why previous caliber of the lead is just a question...

Sitka deer;
Thanks for sharing the great hunt story and photos with us Art, it looks like a grand bear.

Please pass along hearty congratulations to Riley for a job well done and a dandy trophy.

All the best to you and yours this spring Art.

Dwayne

Dwayne
Thank you and may every bit of good will you have ever expressed toward anyone be multipled ten-fold on its return to you and yours!
thanks!
art

Anyone have any idea what might have caused the uniform pattern of marks on the land and groove on the near side of the second photo?

They look like they continue all around the bullet...

I saw the picture in the Vortex thread in the Campfire, and wondered when we'd get the rest of the story.

Good going on Riley's part! But man, I must be getting old, 'cause he looks about ten years older than the last time I saw him, and that wasn't all THAT long ago.

That almost looks like an inside lubed bullet, but for the fact that those look like crimp marks in the middle of the band.

Can you count the number of lands/grooves? If so, why not use calipers to measure the respective width of the best samples and then multiply to get a better estimate of the original circumference.

Scott

If it is indeed a smaller caliber handgun bullet then in my mind it would have had to have been fired from fairly close range to have retained enough velocity to deform it so much. I bet whoever pulled the trigger on that round had a fair amount if adrenaline flowing through his system! I wonder if the bear had its "bell rung"?

Great stuff man! Thanks for sharing!

Sounds like an awesome time and a great hunt, 'twas a great read.

I suspect that slug came out of a jacket, the jacket being the impressing force which transferred the land impressions to the core.

Congrats to you both Art and that was some good shootin' on Rileys part. Any idea as to the bears age?

Way to go guys nice job! Boy has he gotten big since I saw him last.

The bio that sealed the bear, John Kryer (sp???), said it was a mature bear of average skull size, at least 6 and probably a few years older. There were some indications she had cubs in previous years.

Yeah, that super-polite little guy has turned into a World-class wise-ass!

And I have NO idea where he got that! He is shorter than me, still, though!

I think the land engravings on the bullet are too sharp to have been transferred through a jacket. Under magnification there are numerous full-length straitions that I do not think would show the same way if they had been in a jacket. I stick with the notion the bullet was a semi-wadcutter design with a hard shoulder and a solid crimp.

Scott
I was not wild about your idea as I thought the shape of the bullet was pretty obvious and the raw numbers showed the size. After doing as you suggested it suddenly shows a bullet diameter of .34+...

A 357 suddenly looks far more likely than I had thought...
art

As I just posted to Scott Thornley, it looks more like it might have been a 357 diameter bullet and in that case the 357M would seem most likely... Thinking that would lead to a serious bell-ringing...

I have had far worse times, far worse company, and far more miserable conditions... and enjoyed them... Thanks!

Great post - love the recovery of the handgun bullet. Riley will have something to wonder about for the rest of his life about that prior encounter with the handgun. No wonder the bear was making a run for it when he saw Riley!

Congrats!

It definitely looks like a swaged slug of some sort. I have seen some surprisingly sharp rifling impressions on the slugs of bullets which have been shed. A relatively thin-jacketed handgun bullet is sometimes so inclined. I would think that the gun's lands would have scraped their typical striations into the lead had the slug been exposed to the bore. There are too many manufacture marks on that slugs still visible to think that rifling striations would have been smoothed by time or chemical interactions. But, as with so many things so related to these brief impacts, there is often mystery that isn't readily obvious immediately.

Klik
Thinking you just pierced the void...




Those regular marks I was asking about which still show plainly on the lead were likely part of the inside
surface of the jacket to keep them together???
art

Perhaps a hollow point of some sort as well....cause they look so lethally mean, and we all know how important appearance, nomenclature and other details are to bears and other critters.

(Is that myrtle beneath the ejecta?)

While an extremely good guess it is actually a washed-out photo of a piece of cherry crotch wood table top.

Cool! Nice bear. How about that bullet. Makes you wonder just what happened.Congrats and thanks for the story. Enjoyed it and the pics.

Thanks for the great story and pictures. And congrats all the way around.

Well done, Riley! I think we saw forty some-odd bears in our few days in there! We only saw one big one and that was way up high on top the first day! Some day I will have to go back with a bear tag in hand!

Dennis
Didn't we have a really big bear swim right in front of the boat from Hellgeson's to Uganik Island?
art

I don't remember that. Maybe, but we saw a really big one up on the top that first day that we went out. Obvious big boar. We saw tons on the beach I remember.

My vote is for a 357 Mag fired 180 JSP or JHP. More of a JSP thought being I've seen hollow points slammed into fairly hard object and they splatter and almost mushroom right through themselves. JSP's will deform more but not peel back as violently. A lot separate from the jackets though when hitting hard things like bear skulls.

Great story and pics... congrats and the extra bullet adds some fun and character to the story.

Must have been a different group... We usually see a LOT of bears through there.

Terror Bay is not a bad choice for a Kodiak bear hunt... and being a nonresident you do not even have to wait to draw like we do...

Thanks for the comments.

We did not find extra metal in the vicinity of the lead so I assumed there was none. That was almost surely a mistake on my part.

You kinda looked like you peed on the electric fence...

Had to register just to say thank you for sharing the story. I enjoy living vicariously though the memory you've laid out so nicely. I can smell the salt air, feel a bit of the chill in the air, and the warmth of skinning that bear out. Well done, and congratulations to you and your son!

Thanks!

There's a good chance I did......

Got the hide back from the tannery yesterday and mentioned the bullet to the tannery guy... The scar from the event is quite visible on the leather side... But Riley then matched it to the outside and found a blonde streak around the bare patch where the scar is.

The tannery did a great job and the leather is very stretchy and the hair is combed out as well as can be expected. Late in the season bears have hair that is starting to matt. Combing it out is too brutal and will pull out most of the hair. All they can do is gently tease it apart and it looks fine.

You mean they didn't shave all the hair off this time?

What is a cast-on in the stock? By the way awesome bear and great story.

Interestingly enough they did not... Same place the taxidermist claimed the first one went, but I am not thinking it was. Tannery wants to see the shaved bear just out of curiosity...

I still send hides to Alpha because they do a reasonable job quickly and reasonably.

Thanks!

When viewed from above the stock is bent toward a right-handed shooter's face. It does not take a lot. This stock is bent about 5/16" at the heel and 1/4" at the toe. It is surprisingly gentle...

Riley having that one rugged? Glad it came back from the tannery alright.

He is looking at a rug... Not sure where it can go, but we will find somewhere to shoehorn it in.

Good deal. A nice looking bear. The hide looks similar to mine that came from down there.

It is very much like yours, for sure.

I have the same tag you had for this coming spring. So I will probably be giving away another hide!

I'll pack it down for ya.

That's the one we're both going on, right?!

There will be room on the boat if you want to come along... I have several folks looking at coming so far, but I doubt there will be enough to fill the boat.

More eyes is always a good thing...

Art,

Not sure how I overlooked this post, but great story, pictures, and thread. Thanks for sharing.

Bob

Not sure how I missed this... There might even be room for you if you want to go on a boat ride...

I'm small.

Yeah, but I bet your beer tote isn't!

What is this cast-on in the stock? I think it is cool you could see everything when you shot. Interested in what kind of stock it is?

The stock is a custom wood stock (Turkish walnut) and cast means it is bent at the wrist just a little bit... In this case I used 1/4" at the toe and 5/16" at the heel. Recoil turns it, and you, slightly which reduces felt recoil quite a bit. That minor turn clears your view.

Thanks Sitka deer.

Is this only possible via a custom wood stock? Do you mind posting pictures of this? Not sure why, but it sounds intriguing as heck...

Great story Art. What a memory for the kiddo.

What are the trade offs to this cast on arrangement?

Sorry I missed this until this morning... Not sure how well this will work to show what is meant.

This is from the butt end looking up the stock. The rod has centralizers on each end to help show how the stock is "bent" toward a right hand shooter.



From above you can see how the stock is essentially "thicker" toward the shooter... Actually the centerline of the comb is moving into the shoulder and it is as thick as normal throughout.


I do not know of any synthetics stocks being made with cast...

Recoil is not reduced, just redirected... If the cast is seriously wrong for the shooter it might be moving a bit more than desired. From the bench the rifles with a lot of cast will try to move to the side quite a bit and so trying to control them might be an issue if you are not prepared.

I doubt they would actually get away or anything, but the side movement is obvious.

None of that is any issue to me, but it is there.

The biggest drawback might be the fact you cannot get it in a synthetic stock as far as I know.

I have fired thousands of lead bullets at targets with a dirt backstop. This bullet looks identical to hundreds of them I recovered from the dirt.

I think it is a 158 grain 38/357. The bullets I have found were all .38's, 44's and 45's and each of them was was mushroomed in the same manner. They would also have those small pits in both the sides and nose, from striking the dirt.

Some might ask why I dug up so many. I did it so that I could cast them again. I don't remember many jacked bullets but there were a few. I didn't shoot many jacked bullets because they were too expensive. The jackets were mostly intact on the ones I found.

Crooked ass stock.

At what cartridge level does it become worthwhile?

It isn't the cartridge that determines cast, but the stockist making measurements of the purchasers body to assure a proper fit. You need length-of-pull, cast-on or cast-off (same at heel and toe or different), drop at the nose and heel, and pitch will be critical measurements.

A certain 30-06 at 6 1/2# comes to mind... It will still remind you when it goes off. I am kind of a sissy with recoil. I really do not like it very much.

Riley restocked a Remington 31 in 20ga for his first stock and it made a big difference to the little guy back then.

I have made a dozen or so stocks with cast but they were mostly very light rifles rather than heavier recoilers. I would not be likely to use it on anything much under 30 caliber. The whole range of 300 magnums are a lot more user friendly with it.

Yeah, you are right... Klikitarik straightened my head out on that already.

Sort of a cartridge power:rifle weight ratio.

Yeah, and I think speed of recoil has more to do with weight of rifle and therefore rifle weight is more important to my shoulder when I am calculating whether to add a little...