A fellow Bear Bum sent me this article about a Florida Black Bear rescue. Pretty cool considering this guy dragged a nice bear out of the Gulf of Mexico near Alligator Point. I guess the bear was wandering around a neighborhood and when tranquilized went darting into the Gulf.
Crazy. This guy is a nut. As the bear started snoozing he jumped in and dragged it to shore.
The adult black bear can weigh from 150 to 600+ lbs. This bear is no joke weighing 375 lbs. This weight seems to be slightly above average for adult male Florida Black Bears.
This is a great five-minute video of a grizzly bear sow and her two cubs interacting with a wolf. The wolf seems to be having fun and playing with the grizzly bears. At one point the wolf appears to grab the cub’s leg lightly, but lets go.
I have no doubt that if the sow had not been there the wolf would have taken off with a cub. But, since the sow is close the cubs show a tremendous amount of courage. This is quite entertaining.
It is interesting to note the bluff charge of the grizzly.
This video was taken for the USGS Northern Divide Project for scientific and educational use. Cameras were triggered by motion sensors. Wildlife should never be approached.
Not a bear hunting tip, but fun to watch either way.
For many years I’ve tried to find the best pair of hunting boot. I can remember as a 13 year old going on a two-week elk hunt in the wilderness of Idaho and wearing my canvas gym shoes. I couldn’t do that now. While I lived in Pocatello I purchased perhaps my first pair of real hunting boots. They were a leather work boot and I have many fond memories while in those boots. Now I’ve tried, Danners, Lowa, Schnees and the list goes on. Usually into about the third hunt with a pair of boots I start to like them.
I think my feet aren’t as tough as they used to be. The canvas gym shoes were nicer for the 13 year old me Read the rest of this entry »
I recently read an article on a hunting site (Chifuti Safaris) by Craig Boddington about the choice in rifle caliber for a given animal. He mentioned the desire for owning another rifle as one of the motivating factors in rifle selection. For example, if you were hunting cape buffalo and wanted a BIG gun like say a .500 Jeffrey, Mr Boddington’s thought was to get it. You might ever only shoot one shot at an animal from the big .500 but it would work well on the buffalo and it would be your gun and souvenir of a wonderful hunt.
What about big coastal black bears like the ones we’ll be seeing in September on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska. Which gun is best? Should you get a special gun for the job or just take the old ‘06?
I have my preferences and some experience. I don’t think bears are extremely hard to kill but they can be a nightmare to nail to the ground. Since bears can get lost in the thick undergrowth fast or turn hostil quickly I like big heavy bullets. Fast is pretty good but a 7mm or .280 remington, to me, is an elk gun. Elk never chew on you. I prefer the 30 caliber magnums or bigger.
There are subtle differences between black bear tracks and grizzly bear tracks. Knowing how to distinguish between the two will definitely help if you are hunting in an area that may have both types of bears. After you’ve looked at a few examples you should have no problem identifying which is black and which is grizzly.
By far the easiest distinguisher for me are the length of the claws. I remember when I saw my first brown bear track on the coast of Alaska. It was in some wet clay on a river bed and my dad pointed out the length of the Read the rest of this entry »
Here are a couple of bear hunting tips regarding the ocean and tides. This will be helpful if you happen to be doing your black bear hunt with a boat and are subject to the Alaska tides.
A huge part of our Alaska bear hunts is the tide. Part of the reason that we chose the Salmon Lake Cabin on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska is because there is no tide on the lake….obviously. We had looked at other cabins in the Petersburg, Alaska area including, Big John Bay Cabin and the Tower’s Arm Cabin which would have been great for a fall Alaska bear hunting experience, but the low tides would not allow a float plane to land on the date we had to leave. It would actually be possible, but the pilots and biologists in the area strongly recommended against it. Read the rest of this entry »
I mentioned briefly in a previous post that two years ago a group of five of us set out on a self guided black bear hunt in Petersburg, Alaska. We chose Petersburg as our black bear hunting location for multiple reasons, one of which was because there is a high population of black bears in the area and no brown bears to worry about.
We were actually about a 40 minutes’ boat ride from the town of Petersburg in a little cabin so called Breiland Slough on Kupreanof Island. This was a spring black bear hunt and it extended from the end of April into the beginning of May. Turns out that many bears were still in hibernation because of an extended winter. Seasons are hard to judge especially when planning so far ahead of time! Read the rest of this entry »
Since we have already discussed the type of rain gear and hip waders to wear, let’s move on to the type of shoes that I’m thinking about. Cabelas’ Ultralight Wading Boot is very appealing to me for a few reasons:
-very lightweight.
-more inexpensive than others we researched.
-one of the top selling brands according to Cabelas’ experts.
As I’ve discussed, I’m not a fisherman, so I don’t want to spend a ton of money on a felt soled shoe that I won’t use very often. At the same time, I need a shoe that will last and not leave me in a bad situation on the bear hunt. The Ultralight Wading Boot seems to provide what is needed! Read the rest of this entry »
So, 3 of the 4 of us going on this hunt are hunters and 1 fishes, but even he isn’t a fanatic. We have done some research and spent some time at Cabelas talking to the fishing experts and here are some of the conclusions we have come to.
Because our primary purpose is bear hunting, we don’t want to use up unnecessary space in the cabin or on the plane with multiple poles and other fishing gear. But, Salmon Lake Cabin on Prince of Wales Island presents a dilemma because the cabin is on a lake and there is a trail that follows the Karta River back to the ocean (Karta Bay) which is about 5 miles. We will be doing a lot of hunting on the river (in the river) and also on the lake which means that we will be doing a lot of fishing in both places. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m definitely old school (carrying a pocket knife in my pocket at all times) so this topic seems odd.
Once the bear is down it has to be skinned out before the hair has a chance to slip or fall out. This is within hours if it’s hot or max over night if it’s cool. Most times bears are skinned for a bear rug mount or a life size mount which can be accomplished with the same technique. For me a bear is one of the easier animals to skin, life size.
The knife used has to be very sharp and will not stay sharp for the entire bear. This requires a resharpening or another sharp knife. I like small bladed knives and there seem to be hundreds of good brands. I’ve personally been impressed with the Canadian Grohmann knives and the good old Schrade Old Timer #152 (I’m not sure the Schrades are still made in the same place). Other good knives include knives of Alaska (cub bear), Buck, Gerber and the list goes on.Read the rest of this entry »
