Bear Bums – Bear Hunting

Four of us are committed to a self guided bear hunt, sitka black tail hunt and fishing trip to Alaska in September of this year. Here are some of the tricks we’ve discovered to make it possible. As with most hunting, camping, fishing, survival experiences, other people are the best source of help.

The four of us are staying in a forest service cabin named Salmon Lake Cabin on Prince of Wales Island off the coast of Alaska near Ketchikan, and Petersburg Alaska. Alaska has literally hundreds of these cabins in their forests. One can book the cabins six months in advance at www.recreation.gov. Timing and location are everything for a successful hunt and we, after months of preparation, feel good about this selection.

We looked for an area that specifically had a high black bear population and no brown bears. The forest service has a site that allows you to see the cabins, size, location and proximity to streams, clearings, ocean, lakes etc. Here

is a link to where we are staying. Alaskan Seaplane Tours, a charter service, out of Ketchikan, Alaska has been great help with this cabin. The charter pilots are extremely knowledgeable about the areas, cabins, trails, game and I think many of them have the same hunting/fishing addictions I have. I’ve spoken with multiple pilots like Darryl from Pacific Airways in Petersburg, Taquan Air, and as mentioned Alaskan Seaplane Tours. Most of these services I tracked down through the local chamber of commerce.

The local fish and game biologists have also been very helpful. Rich Lowell in Petersburg and Boyd Porter in Ketchikan are a great help as Alaska biologists. Both are knowledgeable but tend to stick to facts instead of personal opinion which I found good and bad. They are also the guys we’ll look up with harvested bears for sealing after the hunt.

We’re going light because of the commercial flight to Alaska and the local float plane restrictions. It costs more than one dollar a pound so everything weight wise is important. For example I just got off the phone with a sports store I like in SLC, Utah called Kirkhams. They sell a newly invented air mattress called a DownMat-7 for $139.00. No kidding, this makes the thermo rest pads fell like cardboard. They weigh nothing and support an old boned person like me. Those of you who are back packers will understand how to go light but the last time we did a self guided bear hunt several of us took “kitchen sinks”. This time we’re hopefully more cautious. We have a group water purifier we use for all our water needs. REI has been a great place to shop for the camping and water purification supplies. gaba hgh releaser

We still have a lot to do, but the cabin, flights and float planes are booked so we’re committed. Flying into Ketchikan from Salt Lake City, Utah was much cheaper for us than flying to Petersburg, Alaska. I also learned using a travel agent saved us money because of their ability to dig deeper into flight schedules than I seemed to be able to do. I used a place called Country Square Travel

out of SLC. They were very helpful!!

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The fishing end of this trip has me nervous. We’ll be on one of Alaska’s best salmon streams during the salmon run and have access to a great lake for Dolly Varden and lake trout. I lack fishing skills. That now needs to be the focus of much of my research as we get closer to taking off on the bear hunt.

By the way we think we can do this whole trip for about $2,000 each. A guided black bear hunt in this area is approximately $4,500-$6,000 for just the hunt part making our hunt at least 1/4 to 1/3 the price. I realize we give up many advantages by going self guided but so far it seems fun.

As we prepare for what I think will be the hunt of a lifetime, it would be great to get any insight from anyone reading the blog. Every little bit will help!