SaltySailor
WKR
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2018
- Location
- Palmer, Alaska
So this is the second time a bear has come to my cow moose calls up here in Alaska. The first time was a picture perfect scenario, I was cow calling across a large open meadow with hundreds of yards of visibility all around and the bear came out into the middle of the open from 500 yards out. Plenty of time to get set up and the wind was from him to us. It was making a beeline directly for us sniffing the air looking inquisitive. My buddy took him as his first bear. I was surprised at the time and told myself that maybe it was all coincidence that I was moose calling and he came right to us.
This year I was up early at camp one morning and ran up the spotting hill to get a purview of the surrounding area. I have run up that hill a few hundred times and have never taken my gun, but for some reason I just carried it up with me this time. I did my 360 sweep with binos and noticed a brown spot behind camp, so I put the spotter on it and a cow moose came into view. A few seconds of quality glass revealed four cows total feeding close together, a good sign and my excitement grew at the prospect of an unseen bull near them. I let out a long cow call in their direction and all four cows stopped feeding and looked towards me from the better part of a mile away. I waited for that flash of white palm or any other signs of a bull but nothing seemed to show. After about 10 minutes I let out another ‘sexier’ cow call in a sequence in their direction, waited a few minutes, and then used an action packer lid to thrash some brush around. I had just threw the lid down and was returning my eye to the spotting scope when I heard brush crash from some distance behind me!
I turned around pumped up thinking a bull was close and coming in from behind and about 400 yards away, now splashing across a bend in the creek, was a brown animal moving fast. I quickly realized that it was not a moose, but a bear, and it was moving up the opposite creek bank at a quick walk looking right at me. At one point he stood on his hind legs looking/sniffing right in my direction before dropping back to all fours and trucking up the creek towards me. From the creek/bear’s view I was perfectly sky lined, but the slight wind was again completely in my favor. This whole event caught me off guard, and I scrambled to grab my gun, guess range, try to find a good rest, etc. During that time the bear was now directly across from me almost broadside at 300 yards looking in my direction.
This year I was up early at camp one morning and ran up the spotting hill to get a purview of the surrounding area. I have run up that hill a few hundred times and have never taken my gun, but for some reason I just carried it up with me this time. I did my 360 sweep with binos and noticed a brown spot behind camp, so I put the spotter on it and a cow moose came into view. A few seconds of quality glass revealed four cows total feeding close together, a good sign and my excitement grew at the prospect of an unseen bull near them. I let out a long cow call in their direction and all four cows stopped feeding and looked towards me from the better part of a mile away. I waited for that flash of white palm or any other signs of a bull but nothing seemed to show. After about 10 minutes I let out another ‘sexier’ cow call in a sequence in their direction, waited a few minutes, and then used an action packer lid to thrash some brush around. I had just threw the lid down and was returning my eye to the spotting scope when I heard brush crash from some distance behind me!
I turned around pumped up thinking a bull was close and coming in from behind and about 400 yards away, now splashing across a bend in the creek, was a brown animal moving fast. I quickly realized that it was not a moose, but a bear, and it was moving up the opposite creek bank at a quick walk looking right at me. At one point he stood on his hind legs looking/sniffing right in my direction before dropping back to all fours and trucking up the creek towards me. From the creek/bear’s view I was perfectly sky lined, but the slight wind was again completely in my favor. This whole event caught me off guard, and I scrambled to grab my gun, guess range, try to find a good rest, etc. During that time the bear was now directly across from me almost broadside at 300 yards looking in my direction.
