Bear Bums - Bear Hunting » Bear Hunt Preparation

Bear Attacks

Jed — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 03:43:04 +0000

Yesterday one of the blog readers asked about bear attacks. This spring I shot a bear while bear hunting on the coast of Alaska. The black bear showed no aggression but no fear, and was shot at approximately 5 yards. That’s not real common but not surprising. I’ve watched hundreds of bears, harvested dozens and been chased by a few. gout and coumadin

When I hear things like; “he’s a bear expert”, or “you’re safe, you have a gun”, or “leave them alone and you don’t have to worry”, I laugh or become concerned. Bears are very independent and very unpredictable. There are situations that increase the likelihood of creating a hostile reaction from a bear.

In 2007 in southern British Columbia 3 of us black bear and grizzly hunters rounded a steep rock outcropping in a mature timber forest and found ourselves 20 yards from a black bear sow with 3 cubs. They took off the other direction, the sow sending the cubs up a tree not far from us. She then whirled and came at us in a very serious fashion. After a short burst of bear and people speed, barking, screaming, etc, she was gone and we were safe. We had 3 guns and no time to even think of them.

Most of my bear experiences have been like that. Grizzlies are different. They require being shot, shot at or something more serious to get them off your heels. My approach to bears is that they have no set of rules to follow when it comes to aggression.

Bears require aggression to survive and harvest much of what they eat. This places the ability to hurt a frail animal, like humans, close to their surface. I do everything I can to avoid a conflict and keep things in my favor. In an honest to goodness bear attack, from my perspective, the human always loses. Pepper spray, shooting guns, never showering and making lots of obnoxious noise will scare off most bears before you see them. Being sloppy with food scraps or having an unkempt camp attracts them. I plan on having no bear attacks and I always worry about them.

Binoculars and Mattresses for the Bear Hunt

Jed — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:11:08 +0000

I mentioned many aspects of our upcoming bear hunt in my last post and thought you might want some of my insight on a few items. Really I’d like your insight on the same stuff! Two years ago five of us traveled to Petersburg, Alaska on this type of a self guided bear hunt. Looking back we really scabbed stuff together, each of us in different ways. Our least efficient packed item seemed to be the sleeping stuff and our best was perhaps optics and rifles. The forest service cabin at Salmon Lake, where we’re headed in September, claims it has room for six. We can see that realistically four will be a crowd. I think a good self guided hunt like this requires a lot of thought and a roomy, organized cabin helps.

It’s nice to have big, soft, warm sleeping stuff but I think with effort one can be very comfortable without using up your luggage or cabin space on sleeping pads and bags. The coast of Alaska has nasty weather but is not famous for being bitter cold if we can stay dry. I mentioned the Downmat 7, that I used on an elk hunt last fall and on a spring black bear hunt this year. Small, light and SOFT. Can you tell I’m impressed with this pad? Here are some of the pros and cons that I noticed:

Pros: Lightweight, easy to carry, very comfortable, warm, soft, no unnecessary deflation,

Cons: Pumping it up takes a little time (3-5 minutes), expensive, a little narrow.

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Now I can take a lighter bag and save room. If all of us do this we’ve organized our cabin and increased our comfort.

My first NWT Dall sheep hunt, with NWT Outfitters, found me with a pair of Steiner’s binoculars. I missed out on enjoying the 6 hours a day of glassing and I participated poorly in the finding of game. I swore I’d never do that again. Now the grand kids play with the Steiner’s and I hide the Swarovski’s for hunting. I’ve since found Zeiss, Leica and Swarovski to all be worth what they cost. I realize the old rule is to buy what you can afford in binoculars, but, I would make sure you can afford one of these three brands. I think it adds a whole additional dimension to hunting. Especially when you are on a hunt that requires a lot of time glassing….like bear hunting.

I spent 30 minutes packing this afternoon in preparation for the family summer trip for 2 weeks. Odd, I’ve spent more time than that on this little blog. It’s going to be a good bear hunt.

Black Bear Hunt Preparation

Jed — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 04:15:49 +0000

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!