Bear Bums – Bear Hunting

The head waters of the Teton River caught me following Dad, jump shooting ducks in the late fall and early winters of my youth in eastern Idaho.  Opening day had a smell.  Shot guns, powder, and that sweet smell of Hoppes.  Clean ready to shoot, shot guns!

Dad had an old Remington pump that would always jam after the 2nd shot.  We’d carry a chunk of bailing wire to fix it.  Our family also had Uncle Boyd’s 16 gauge bolt action with that huge adjustable choke on the end of the barrel.  It had a 2 shot clip that would sometimes blow loose with a shot.  A thick sliver of willow branch would hold it in place.

The year Jimmie, my older brother, turned 12, Santa brought him a Savage over and under .410/.22.  I was 10 that year and vividly remember the details of the Christmas morning hunt with Dad,  Jimmie and Jimmie’s new savage.  We parked at the end of Murdock’s lane and jump shot ducks off streams as we made our way to the Teton River.  The river was completely Read the rest of this entry »

In the mid-nineties I spent 2 weeks in the spring hunting brown bear on the coast of Alaska.  My baby son, Jed was with me.  I think he was about 13.   We were told it rained approx. 350 inches a year in this area.  By the end of our hunt we didn’t believe it rained that little! We spent approximately 18 hours a day waiting on a frequently used brown bear path and glassing the hill sides.  Jed shot a respectable black bear (an amazing shot by the way) but we saw 1 small brown bear for 45 seconds.  We were wet the whole time, slept in small tents and ate dehydrated food.  It was a hard hunt, mentally.   I believe we were in an area called Icy Bay.

That fall, still wanting a brown bear, I rebooked, at a discounted rate, with the same guy.  I took a commercial airline to Yakutat (a fishing Indian town), then shuttled to Icy Bay via canvas covered light aircraft owned by the outfitter.  That day, on his news radio, we had an Alaskan tsunami warning with a time of arrival.  We didn’t know if the wave would hit us 100ft high or what.  We started hacking a trail through the overgrown forest, up the mountain with urgency.  The Alaskan coast is a jungle with alders, devil club and other inventions intended to keep humans out.  We figured we made the 100 foot elevation we desired and packed many supplies up there.   The owner took off in the canvas airplane to save it.  The tsunami arrived–approx 4-6 inches of ocean rise.

Icy Bay is fed by multiple glaciers with floating, hanging and calving glacier chunks.  There are seals, lots of birds and I assume gobs of fish.  It’s a beautiful place in a very rugged way. After the tsunami scare the owner and guides were busy cleaning up and replacing our mountain stash.  I, meanwhile, became more a Read the rest of this entry »