Johnny Bruin
FNG
Hey guys! Been a member on here for a few years, but 99% of that time you could say I'm guilty of being nothing more than a lurker. This spring was the first in quite a long time I was unable to go out on a spring bear hunt up here in Alaska. Well, with bear on the brain and some time to kill I ended up on this site, and I decided to share a little write up/pictures of a hunt a buddy and myself did last spring. It was a good one.
Apologies if this isn't the proper place to post this. I'm a first timer...
It was the sixth day of what was planned to be a twelve-day hunt on the far end of the Alaska Peninsula. So far,
we’d lucked out with the weather. For those that don't know, that part of the world can get particularly nasty, but up to this point, we’d only
experienced light rain and mild winds under mostly overcast skies. We had already seen several bears—a couple of
sows with cubs and a few lone bears. One big boar caught our eye high up on the mountain across the valley. But
between the late hour and an unfavorable wind, we couldn’t make a play.
That morning, we woke to heavy rain and sustained winds around 30mph, with gusts over 60. Fortunately, we’d
dug our camp into an alder thicket, giving us about as good a shelter as you can hope for out there. As expected,
visibility was next to nothing when we peeked outside. Looked like we were in for a tent day. For the better part of
13 hours, we cycled through reading, telling stories, and napping. A little after 9 p.m., the rain had all but stopped,
and the wind dropped to about 10 mph. My buddy stepped out to stretch his legs and quickly popped his head
back in: “Get your stuff on! It's nice out here.” Within minutes, we were headed to our glassing knob, only about a
three-minute walk away.
We reached the top and got comfortable. Within 20 minutes, we spotted our first bear of the evening—across the
valley, 700 to 800 yards out. He came out of an alder patch, likely where he'd been riding out the storm all day. He
was a nice bear, maybe pushing 9 feet, but not quite what we were looking for. We watched him off and on for
about an hour. As the sun dropped lower, we began discussing plans for the next day. I got up to stretch my legs
and looked down toward the beach behind us—and there he was. An absolute toad of a brown bear was climbing
the short bluff off the beach, headed straight onto the tundra almost directly behind us. I immediately dropped
and crawled over to my buddy, about 15 feet away, whispering, “Get your stuff.”
We climbed back to the top of the knob and slowly peeked over. The bear was now less than 200 yards away,
slightly uphill and to our right. The wind was perfect—right in our faces. We took a few
seconds to take in the sheer size of this animal, then snapped into action. At about 150 yards, I had a clean
broadside shot. I squeezed the trigger on the .375 H&H and heard that satisfying "THWAP" as the 270-grain Barnes
TSX hit him square in the boiler room. He let out a single loud huff but didn’t take a step—just started swaying like
a guy whos had too many cocktails. I knew the hit was solid. I told my buddy to shoot, and his .338 punched through
the front shoulder. The bear dropped.
He lay still for a moment, then tried to push himself back up. I followed with what turned out to be the final
shot—another round behind the shoulder—and he went down for good. After catching our breath and processing
what had just happened, the laughs and high-fives started. I even got scope bit in the excitement—a classic
moment, and yes, I’ve got the scar to prove it.
Walking up to that bear, he was even more impressive than we’d thought. With only about 40 minutes
of daylight left, we snapped some pictures and used every ounce of strength to get him rolled onto his back in a
skinning position for the next morning. We stayed up late, celebrating and replaying the hunt. Needless to say we slept in the next morning. We spent the day skinning the bear and hauling everything back to camp. Luckily, the weather held, and the pilot was able to
get us out the following day.
Growing up here, I've been fortunate to go on quite a few hunts in some of Alaska’s best brown bear country, but this is one of those ones you know you'll always remember vividly.
Apologies if this isn't the proper place to post this. I'm a first timer...
It was the sixth day of what was planned to be a twelve-day hunt on the far end of the Alaska Peninsula. So far,
we’d lucked out with the weather. For those that don't know, that part of the world can get particularly nasty, but up to this point, we’d only
experienced light rain and mild winds under mostly overcast skies. We had already seen several bears—a couple of
sows with cubs and a few lone bears. One big boar caught our eye high up on the mountain across the valley. But
between the late hour and an unfavorable wind, we couldn’t make a play.
That morning, we woke to heavy rain and sustained winds around 30mph, with gusts over 60. Fortunately, we’d
dug our camp into an alder thicket, giving us about as good a shelter as you can hope for out there. As expected,
visibility was next to nothing when we peeked outside. Looked like we were in for a tent day. For the better part of
13 hours, we cycled through reading, telling stories, and napping. A little after 9 p.m., the rain had all but stopped,
and the wind dropped to about 10 mph. My buddy stepped out to stretch his legs and quickly popped his head
back in: “Get your stuff on! It's nice out here.” Within minutes, we were headed to our glassing knob, only about a
three-minute walk away.
We reached the top and got comfortable. Within 20 minutes, we spotted our first bear of the evening—across the
valley, 700 to 800 yards out. He came out of an alder patch, likely where he'd been riding out the storm all day. He
was a nice bear, maybe pushing 9 feet, but not quite what we were looking for. We watched him off and on for
about an hour. As the sun dropped lower, we began discussing plans for the next day. I got up to stretch my legs
and looked down toward the beach behind us—and there he was. An absolute toad of a brown bear was climbing
the short bluff off the beach, headed straight onto the tundra almost directly behind us. I immediately dropped
and crawled over to my buddy, about 15 feet away, whispering, “Get your stuff.”
We climbed back to the top of the knob and slowly peeked over. The bear was now less than 200 yards away,
slightly uphill and to our right. The wind was perfect—right in our faces. We took a few
seconds to take in the sheer size of this animal, then snapped into action. At about 150 yards, I had a clean
broadside shot. I squeezed the trigger on the .375 H&H and heard that satisfying "THWAP" as the 270-grain Barnes
TSX hit him square in the boiler room. He let out a single loud huff but didn’t take a step—just started swaying like
a guy whos had too many cocktails. I knew the hit was solid. I told my buddy to shoot, and his .338 punched through
the front shoulder. The bear dropped.
He lay still for a moment, then tried to push himself back up. I followed with what turned out to be the final
shot—another round behind the shoulder—and he went down for good. After catching our breath and processing
what had just happened, the laughs and high-fives started. I even got scope bit in the excitement—a classic
moment, and yes, I’ve got the scar to prove it.
Walking up to that bear, he was even more impressive than we’d thought. With only about 40 minutes
of daylight left, we snapped some pictures and used every ounce of strength to get him rolled onto his back in a
skinning position for the next morning. We stayed up late, celebrating and replaying the hunt. Needless to say we slept in the next morning. We spent the day skinning the bear and hauling everything back to camp. Luckily, the weather held, and the pilot was able to
get us out the following day.
Growing up here, I've been fortunate to go on quite a few hunts in some of Alaska’s best brown bear country, but this is one of those ones you know you'll always remember vividly.
