Alaska Black Bear Hunt

[Knifeboy]

Well it all started about a year and a half ago when one of my hunting buddies (Sean) from Wisconsin sent me an email with a long range forecast of some hunts we should go on over the next couple of years. Some of the hunts included going to New Mexico elk hunting, going to Canada to put the smack down on some Moose, going to Alaska on a black bear hunting/fishing trip and several others were listed. I decided to print the email off, and show my wife the wish list, she read through it and looked at me without hesitation and said I don’t care if you go to Alaska ! It was pretty funny; because of all the hunts listed I thought that would be the one she would object to. The next day I called my buddy in Wisconsin and told him I was good to go to Alaska, and he freaked out! The next thing I knew we had talked our two other hunting partners into going as well. Well long story short we planned all the logistics and we were ready to roll.

 

Well it was a few days before the trip and I had been trying to locate a good double rifle case that was airline approved, when out of the blue Chef called me and asked if I still needed a good case. I said “yes” and he told me he had just won a brand new one and it was available for immediate use (SWEET!!! by the way thanks again for letting me borrow the case Chef)! To my surprise when I picked up the case Chef had put a “CouesWhitetail.Com” sticker on the case, and an extra sticker for my truck inside the case. I used the case to advertise your site Amanda. I used it kind of like those people who take yard gnomes on their vacations and take random pictures everywhere with it. It was pretty fun.

 

Okay now to the important part “The Trip”. We left on Friday the thirteenth (kind of freaky to fly on that day but all went without incident) and we arrived in Juneau a little after 8PM while the sun was still fairly high in the sky. We were greeted by a good friend (Junior) who transported the group of us and all of our gear to our hotel where we were too excited to sleep (having the sun still up didn’t help either). The next day Junior came and picked us up and took us to his house where he cooked breakfast for us while we sat in his front yard glassing up billy goats, and bears on the mountain that was across the street. After breakfast he took us to the glacier that was just by his house, and then to the rifle range so we could ensure our guns were still shooting straight. After that he gave us the keys to his truck and let us go touring the town on our own. It is worth mentioning that a significant part of our hunting gear was outfitted by Junior so we didn’t have to bring it all on the plane (a huge thanks to Junior for that).

 

Sunday we met up with our Master Guide (Bud Rosenbruch) to get ready to head out on his boat. The reason we chose to hunt with Bud was fairly easy; he also is a friend of ours, he went to college with Sean and we wanted this trip to be a get together with friends (it made for a really entertaining hunt). After we loaded up the boat we were off on a trip never to be forgotten.

 

I will tell you the hunting part of the story first, and let the photos tell the rest. On Monday afternoon after we had just finished eating freshly caught Halibut for lunch we were making plans on who would go where to hunt, when Bud suggested that someone hunt alone from a small island in the middle of a tide flat. I volunteered myself, and so I got into the 14 foot skiff with Bud and we cruised over to the island so Bud could drop me off. As he dropped me off he told me to stay on the island and glass the shore line on either side of the island and if I saw a bear I should walk off the island to the bear. I thought he was kind of crazy and I was thinking to myself “how is this going to work your leaving me on an island, and telling me to hunt the shoreline that is a mile from the island?”. Then he told me that in about an hour or so the tide would go out and I would be sitting in the middle of a bay about three miles in circumference and I could walk right off the island to any point I wanted too. So I got off the boat and went and sat down under a pine tree and began to glass the far off shore in hopes of seeing a bear. Well about two hours passed and sure enough the tide had gone out and I decided I didn’t like being on the island any longer so I walked off to the east where I thought I would have my best chance of finding a bear (Bud had told me the bears would be in one of two areas before he left me). I went to the one I thought looked the best and waited downwind from that point. After I had been alone out there for about five hours I glassed all the way on the other side of the bay (over a mile away) and notice something black walking around (A BEAR). Hot dog the hunt was on, I packed up my things and started off not realizing that hiking through tide flats is really muddy and extremely tiresome. By the time I made it across the tide flat I looked at my watch; I had seen the bear at 8:05, and it was now 8:40 and I only had a little ways to go to get within shooting distance. I put a huge boulder between me and the bear, and it was wide open space on either side of the boulder so I knew if the bear moved I would see him. I closed the distance to within 150 yards knelt down and took my backpack off so I could pull my tripod out of my bag and use it for a rest. As I pulled my tripod out of my bag I looked up and saw the bear come out from behind the boulder so I just dropped on my belly and put my gun across my backpack. I was at a really odd angle and laying in the mud so I wasn’t really comfortable, however, the bear was quartering away and had just stopped to lift his head (I think he smelled me) I wasn’t going to get a better shot if I had put the bear out there myself so I decided to shoot. I put the crosshairs right behind his front sholder and squose the trigger. It was a perfect shot only problem was my face was practically touching the scope when I shot and WHAM! I got a smack in the face I was not expecting (it’s gonna be a really cool scar on my nose, I can tell my grandkids I got from fighting a bear). When I stopped seeing stars I looked at the bear and saw him drop and started rolling backwards and biting at his wound. I was so excited I told myself I just killed that bear. That’s right when the bear stood up and started running for the woods I was freaked out and put the crosshairs on him again and shot again and WHAM! I smacked myself in the nose with the scope a second time. This time after I stopped seeing stars the bear was already in the woods and so I touched my nose with my glove and sure enough I was bleeding pretty good. Well to make a long story short I took a half hour convincing myself to go into the woods to find my bear, and when I finally did I only had to go about 20 yards and there he was! I can’t properly explain all the feelings I felt but I am sure any of you who have ever had to chase a wounded bear into the Alaskan wilderness in the dark can attest it is exhilarating. Well after my personal photo shoot (nobody around to help me) I drug the bear out on to the beach and went out into the water about waist deep with my gun pointed into the ever darkening forest and waited for three really long hours (I had to wait till the tide came back in before the guide could get his boat to me).

 

Well here are some photos of the trip. It was by far the best hunting trip I have ever been on. And we had as much fresh seafood as we could eat everyday (I didn’t think I could ever fill myself up on crab but it did in fact happen).

 

Alaska from the Airplane

 

Guns made it safely to Juneau (Amanda, how do you like that sticker)?

 

Making sure the guns are shooting straight.

 

Trying my hand at driving the boat.

 

Digging for fresh clams.

 

Starfish were everywhere.

 

Nice flounder!

 

Seven feet nine and a half inches skull was 18 and 4/16ths.

 

Glad I didnt have to shake his hand when I found him!

 

Chompers.

 

The hunting pack and my .300 Ultra Mag.

 

Wow! What a melon!

 

Fresh crab. My favorite.

 

Purdy.

 

The wolf Sean shot. Man those things have really long legs.

 

Sitka Blaktailed Buck.

 

Nice sunset.

 

I have a ton more photos I will add tomorrow.

[Chef]

Man Neil!

Looks like a great adventure.

I am jealous of the seafood, the views, everything!

 

I'm happy you all had a fantastic time and even better that you tagged a sweet bear.

You took some great photos. Looking forward to the rest of them.

[billrquimby]

Knifeboy:

 

I know Bud Rosenbruch also. A nicer young man and a more competent Alaskan hunting/fishing guide would be tough to find. I recently helped his father, Weatherby Award recipient Jimmie C. Rosenbruch, write his memoirs and in the process spent more than week with Jimmie and his family, including Bud, at their ranch outside St. George, Utah.

 

Bill Quimby

[Santana Outdoors]

Awesome, looking forward to hunt there myself, thanks for the photos and the story.

[lucky2hunt]

Incredible! Congrats on a spectacular hunt/trip!

[Couzer]

Nice Hunt! That is a nice bear!

[bonecollector]

Thats an awesome trip! Congrats

[Knifeboy]

Here are some more photos.

 

Its kind of hard to see but these are dolphins that look like Killer Wales

 

Here was a group of sea lions basking in the sun (wow they really stink).

 

This photo shows where my first shot went all the way through. Entrance hole is on the left, exit hole on the right. We were able to recover my second bullet from the bears hide it weighed 180 when I shot it, and weighed 126 after we pulled it from the bear.

 

Here is Bud salting my bear's hide.

 

Crab lunch. Yum!

 

Here is another bear I tried to digi-scope.

 

Here are some tracks of a boar and a sow that were hanging out together along with my boot track next to them.

 

Here is a photo of the boat we lived on "The Alaskan Hunter" in the middle of a bunch of ice burgs.

 

Here is a bright red Mother-in-law fish that I caught. They are called Mother-in-law fish due to their extream beauty. LOL.

 

Here is another Mother-in-law fish I just had to kiss (gotta keep good relations with the in-laws)!

 

Here is a fantastic specimen of a Halibut that my brother-in-law caught it weighed 70lbs!!!!!

[cramerhunts]

Congratulations on a great bear and an even better trip! Awesome memories for sure. Super job on the pictures.

[CouesWhitetail]

Wow, great adventure!! I really enjoyed the story and photos! And of course, the sticker looks great! Thanks for advertising the site to a bunch of hunters along the way! Glad you enjoyed your trip...the food must have been great!

[Chef]

That's an awesome boat!

 

Man, it looks like you guys always had something to do and see while floating out there.

That mother in law looks crazy! Almost like a lion fish from the tropics.

[AZbowhntr]

Neil, that is awesome. This is one of the best stories I have read on here. And some cool pictures. It is cool that Cam, Sean and you were all able to go up together. Kind of like the old days when we Javelina hunted down in the Catalina's. Usually it is more who we hunt with than what we hunt. Well congrats and I am looking forward to July so we can whack some prairie dogs. I'll get Hector to come up with us.

[stanley]

That looks like an AWESOME time!!!! Thanks for the cool pics!

 

Congrats on a great time, and thanks for sharing!

 

S.

 

[hunter4life]

Congratulations, it looks like a great time was had by all.

[Arizonahunter]

Great story. Cool bear!