Bear Bums – Bear Hunting

One month and two weeks from now will find the four of us in Ketchikan, Alaska on our way to our one week black bear, deer hunt and fishing trip. The intense anxiety I’ve had in securing the material and ensuring we have the knowledge to pull this off is now much reduced and I’m finding myself excited for this next hunt.

I can picture one of us on the bank of the Karta River surrounded by the noise of the river. It will be thick with vegetation with fir trees, willow, grass and alders. A huge black bear, perhaps over 7 feet, will suddenly and quietly appear. That would be enough for the hunt to be successful, but for us there will be much more. Getting wet, drying off, cooking, eating, skinning, fishing, story telling, snoring. It’s going to be a good hunt.

Here are a few new specifics I may not have mentioned and may be helpful to your future hunting plans.

1. The airlines in general are allowing only one checked on luggage bag. This cuts your weight in half and makes a gun case extra luggage.
2. A single float plane cannot get four of us in without us giving more than we feel we can allow. We’ll take 2 float planes and will have 2,100 lbs (that includes us, motor, food, pots and pans, guns, salt, fuel—the works) Alaska Sea Plane Tours—Ketchikan Alaska.
3. A bear tag in Alaska will work for a deer harvest but not for both.
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4. It was easy to borrow fishing stuff except the lures which must get lost easily.
5. We rented, instead of purchased, a box of cooking items, lantern, stove, small boat motor and life jackets. zyprexa attorneys california plavix cabbage
6. The price for doing this bear hunting trip has almost doubled from two years ago and is still way less than ½ the price of a guided hunt.
7. We can get bulk salt from the local taxidermist and leave our trophies with him if we’re impressed with his work.

We’ll work hard, freeze, sweat and get wet, and it’s going to be a riot.

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I just read this review of the Bear Skinner Suregrip Cleaver by Knives of Alaska. I repeat myself in saying, I love knives! When I pack for a hunting trip I have a dilemma as to which knife, knives I pack. It does matter to me what I’m hunting.

Bear Skinner Suregrip Cleaver by Knives of Alaska lopressor

For example, on a moose hunt I know I’ll need a lot of blade and I don’t have to worry about cutting up the hide very much as the hide is so thick. Different for an antelope hunt…frail, fragile skin, hide, with hair that slips easily. This requires a tiny blade and no putting off the skinning or rushing through the job. Bear hides, which I also love, are probably in between moose and antelope somewhere.

If I’m flying or backpacking each day, or go on a hunt from a remote tent camp or hotel room, I choose my one knife to take. With few exceptions, I now, after trial and error, make the knife decision when I pack at home. My advice, take one knife with you on a hunt, and it will never be the Skinner Cleaver

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knife.

I own a Knives of Alaska knife, the Cub Bear

. I love it and it ends up on most of my hunts. It is small, handy Read the rest of this entry »

The four of us that are headed to Prince of Wales Island to hunt black bear and to fish in September just received a packet of information from Alaska Fish and Wild Life . I’m impressed by the help they sent. Alaska has a large variety of game and fish species so sorting through the paperwork can be a pain. The department put together a leaflet just for bear hunters.

Picture from Alaska’s Fish & Game site

The leaflet has a general information section then a good description of the units in Southeast Alaska. We’ll be in unit 2 at the Salmon Lake Cabin

on the Karta River System.

I like the info they have about judging

bears. There are about ten pointers in judging but the new one that make sense is a triangle method. On a big bear they point out the ear to ear distance is the same as the ear to nose distance. (an equilateral triangle) This of course is not true for a young bear who’s features show a greater ear to nose distance than its ear to ear distance.

Also described are shot placement, care of skull, hide and meat.

Included in the packet but separate from the booklet are large diagrams showing skinning techniques and vitals on large black bears. They even have a how to clean a skull handout colchicine and marijuana smoking .

With the added info I think a first time hunter could be greatly helped. The four of us have killed perhaps dozens of bears combines and we still find the booklets helpful and comforting.

On our first Petersburg, Alaska bear hunting experience we lived with our water purifier. It was an essential part of life.

We have some experience on the water purifiers and came up with what we like and recommend. It’s possible to have each person take a little personal purifier but we did well having a camp, bigger volume, unit and used the filtered water for everything.

Fuel up there is just too valuable to be boiling water. Plus, if it’s raining all the time it makes fires a nightmare at base camp. This Katadyn Base Camp Water Filter

(large for a group) is great and kept us ahead on water.

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This is a simple water filter that can be used at base camp.

It’s a one-gallon rubberized container with a filter at the bottom. You fill it with stream water and the water slowly (over 15 minutes) filters through the filter, down a plastic tube and into a cooking pot or your canteen. Read the rest of this entry »