Alaskan predator hunt

Heading to Alaska on September 18 with a grizzly and a black bear tag in hand. I got about 2 weeks to enjoy all Alaska has to offer. With any luck I’ll have something to post when I get back.
I’m jealous 😂 good luck 🍀
bring it back home to pa
 
Travel to Alaska was horrible. Lack of air traffic controllers caused a missed flight at Minneapolis. That added a day of travel and one less day of visiting anchorage before the flight to forty seven creek.
 
Flew into Forty Seven creek today,had a long delay caused by high winds. Shot our rifles and drank a bottle of Rock House whiskey. They have a 100 proof batch that commemorates his win on season 7 of ALONE as the 100 day King. He had left a spike camp out about 10 miles and the plan was to go there in the morning.
 
Day one of hunting started out pretty sh$@y. Woke up to plummeting temperatures and 6 inches of snow. The clouds dropped so low we couldn’t see anything.Snow slowed way down during the afternoon and the clouds half ass opened up, so we decided to give it a try. On our way to the old moose kill we saw a bull on the airstrip. We went out about 3 miles on the Argo,parked it and snuck in to watch the moose carcass. All we ended up seeing was 2 more moose,one was a real hammer. We did find some bear sign in the snow, it looked to be a sow with 2 cubs. Their tracks led into a drainage going towards the Holitina rive. We motored back to camp got something to eat and made plans for the next day.
 
9/23
Second day of the hunt,we woke to temperatures in the low 20’s and a stiff North wind.

At breakfast we decided to Argo out as far as we could and pull his spike camp. We hadn’t packed enough winter gear to be able to spend any amount of time in that tent.

With everything we packed on us we started on our way. About 5 miles out Roland spot a bear up on a bald face knob. At around a mile it looked like a speck on the mountain.

The stalk is on! As we head up the mountain Tom starts to cramp up. He tells us to keep going and stops about halfway up.

Roland and I use the high winds and the contours of the mountain to move into range.

380 yds was as close as we could get. Packs are placed to shoot off of, and as I get the bear in the scope it suddenly starts to run off.

WTF? I immediately thought that somehow Tom spooked the bear,but

I was wrong.

A huge sow with two cubs come into view and start feeding on whatever the first bear eating. What’s the chances of a sow w/cubs showing up when I’m ready to shoot. It was“kinda par for the course” with the way this hunt was starting. I was definitely bummed out to miss the opportunity on the bear, but we stayed and watched her and her family for a while. Roland filmed them while I tried to get some pictures with my phone.

We finished our trip out to spike camp and broke it down and packed it up.

On our way out we came upon a grizzly track crossing the argo’s track we made going in.

We glassed this bear up about half way back to camp. It was only about 800 yds out,but with the stiff North wind we had to circle and try to come in from behind him and it just didn’t work out. Even a bear that’s not spooked can cover a lot of ground fast.

5 bears spotted today,2 legal ones. Not a bad start in my book.
 
9/24
Third day of the hunt.

Temperature this morning was bitter cold and a very strong North wind. Colder than a well diggers ankles.

We headed out to set over a moose kill that had been worked at night during the storm. That’s the only benefit of early snow,it shows you all the tracks.

We sat for several hours,no dice. Wind was terrible,so around 10:30 we decided to go back and warm up before our evening hunt.

On our way back,we would stop and glass every drainage and mountain face we could see. Roland had his camera out just getting some footage of the landscape for his YouTube channel. That’s about the time I had a brown bear walk right into my field of view.

At over a mile we had to get moving.
 
9/24 (continued)

The stalk was on.

Layers were shed and packs were shouldered for the long hike.

We started climbing in elevation and had covered about half the distance when Tom started having issues again. He told us to go on and that he would catch up.

Again we used the high winds and the mountain itself to get close to the bear.

Swung wide and low then eased up to a little saddle and relocated the bear. At a little over 400 yds I wanted to get closer for a shot,because of the stiff winds.

Crawled forward as far as I dared and got set up to attempt a shot. The range was 320 yds and it seemed as if the wind laid down a little. As I got into position to shoot,the bear turned to face me then sat down.

Now it was a matter of waiting on the bear. Turned out to be a short wait. After only about 3 minutes the bear stood and turned left giving me a broadside shot.

I shot the bear behind the shoulder and down the mountain it came. Roland was calling the shots and told me to keep shooting as long as it was still moving. 5 shots fired and 5 hits were made. I had my grizzly!

What a beautiful bear. Just under 7 ft the big sow was heavily furred.

Pictures will be added when my tech savvy son comes over today, along with the conclusion of this hunt.
 
Nice, have you tried any calling such as a distress call to see if you could pull a wolf in ? I've also had wolves come to moose calls. Cow in heat a couple of times. If there's animals around they should be moving as the fatten up.
Is there anything left of the moose carcass that could be hung up as to spread the scent. Maybe try locating as many berry patches as you can.
Hey good luck man. And for what it's worth if you haven't tried some type of call it may be worth a try
 
Nice, have you tried any calling such as a distress call to see if you could pull a wolf in ? I've also had wolves come to moose calls. Cow in heat a couple of times. If there's animals around they should be moving as the fatten up.
Is there anything left of the moose carcass that could be hung up as to spread the scent. Maybe try locating as many berry patches as you can.
Hey good luck man. And for what it's worth if you haven't tried some type of call it may be worth a try
We didn’t do any calling,did see one wolf track in the snow,we saw one Wolverine on the move at 400 plus yard. There wasn’t much left on either moose kill,some bones and some hide. The bears would work them at night then they movEd to the high country. Every bear I saw was high above treeline. I did shoot my bear in a berry patch right at the edge of the rocks.
 
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