2016 SLDMTN Alaska Hunting Season

realunlucky

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Works now. Pretty amazing footage. Love it when it finally all comes together. He shows busts you and you must have thought it was over. Sow comes to eat and bam he is back in your lap again.

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SLDMTN

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The Man upstairs has continued to bless my life more than I deserve.

After the weekly grind, Friday night had finally arrived. The work whistle blew and it was time to head into the woods. Luckily traffic was minimal and the trip went fast. A quick unload and reload onto the wheeler had my gear strapped down and ready for the trail. After chatting with Grandma for a few minutes and stuffing my face with cookies, I was off. The trail had thawed out completely and the mud that had held a good bottom was now bottomless. It took longer than I wanted it to but I made it without using the winch.

As I pulled into the stand to offload my gear and fresh bait, there were obvious signs that a bear had been visiting. After the work was done, I motored back out to the main trail, left the wheeler and hiked back in. A short trip up the ladder and I was situated at the crack of 10:15 PM, sheesh…..

Things just felt different this time, the normal activity from birds and squirrels was gone. The woods were completely silent. I had grabbed the new game camera off of the tree and began scanning through the pictures when I hear noise behind me. After a long period of silence, I decided it had been either my imagination or an overly active squirrel. I picked the camera back up to continue looking through the pictures……..SNAP! Game on! That was definitely NOT a squirrel.

I had hardly been on the stand for 20 minutes and with the GoPro rolling a bear came walking in from my left.

https://youtu.be/MqJc0FOP2UY

BUSTED!!!! He trotted only about 100 yards into the brush and began huffing trying to smell what was wrong. As soon as his huffing started, something else started huffing directly ahead of me. TWO BEARS?!?!?

https://youtu.be/DcjKcF208jY

After the shot I heard him crash through brush and let out another bellowing roar followed by silence. Well except for that cold hearted sow that resumed chomping away at the bait. I wondered if that had been his death moan or simply the bear equivalent for $%#*#! When I realized the sow had no intention of leaving, I pulled out my phone and called the importants. The sow became agitated with my conversations and wandered off into the brush about 100 yards away and began huffing again in disapproval. Apparently even in the bear world, they hate phone calls at dinner. With darkness closing in and rather than sit the stand through the night, I stowed my gear and grabbed my rifle. I was hunting solo and was not in the mood to look for a wounded bear by headlamp.

The trip back to Grandma’s went fast but sleep was out of the question. My adrenaline was still coursing thick but I eventually dozed off. Early the next day my reinforcements arrived and we made the trip back into the stand. The sow had been eating through the night but was gone when we arrived. A quick scout found the arrow and a good blood trail. After 150-200 yards of tracking, there he was! My first grizzly and done with one arrow coming in through his left side and exiting his right shoulder. We took great care skinning him out, his hide was perfect with zero rub marks. Loading the hide and meat up, we motored back to the house.

This hunt was particularly special for me for a number of reasons; it was my first griz and with a bow no less, having my Dad with me for recovery, following this bear for over a year on my game camera, all the hard work of running the stand, but most importantly it was my brother’s birthday. He has been active duty for 19 years and has always wanted to kill a grizzly. We have hunted them together but have never been able to pull it off. My favorite moment of the night was calling him to tell the story. We are as close as brothers can be and share in each other’s success and failure as if it were our own.

I am blessed.

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Nice back drop for the bear hide. I like it.

I've seen lots of bear tracks on that trail, but in all my trips I've never actually seen a bear. They hide pretty good in that spruce and brush out there.
 
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SLDMTN

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Nice back drop for the bear hide. I like it.

I've seen lots of bear tracks on that trail, but in all my trips I've never actually seen a bear. They hide pretty good in that spruce and brush out there.

They're pretty shy out there for sure. It seems like they've all been hunted before. That sow though.....she needs to be dropped. She could be a serious problem this fall. Hopefully my backup plan works while I'm gone. In WA state for a week presently.
 
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SLDMTN

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No big story behind the trip but I was in Dutch Harbor / Unalaska again for work. I had a free afternoon on Saturday and with the good Lord watching over us, we hit the water.

Had a moose in the backyard just before I left.

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Good shot of Priest Rock.

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SLDMTN

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We were surrounded by 25-30 whales. They were coming up everywhere, it was pretty cool to see. Had to be careful though, don't want to hit one and ruin a prop.

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Oh, and we caught a few fish too. 60 lb halibut, perfect eating size.

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SLDMTN

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More bear madness from AK.

Older video but this was shot about two miles from my stand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mDPKuDjwSg&sns=sms

A good buddy of mine shot this pretty little black only a mile or so away in a different direction. Needless to say, we have bears......

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Another buddy and I are headed out this weekend. Hopefully we can get him a bear, it'd be his first.
 
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SLDMTN

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Those are some awesome pictures bud. Great looking halibut!!

Thanks man!

We had an awesome weekend. I got a nice black with my bow and a buddy took a beautiful little black last night with his 45-70. I'll add some pictures and the rest of the story later. There's a bear that will haunt me until next year for sure. He's bigger than the one I shot a month ago.
 
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SLDMTN

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What an amazing Father’s Day weekend. Great weather, great friends and a couple of bears hit the dirt. Life is good and the blessings keep rolling in.

My summer has been busy again and baiting season is almost over. A buddy and I headed out for the weekend and I had a really nice grizzly on my camera that we were trying to get. We got into the stand on Friday night pretty late but we made it. The bugs didn’t mind our arrival at all. In their eyes we were right on time.

After 14 coats of bug dope, we were all settled in for the night. We had agreed that if it was a black bear, I’d shoot since he wanted to hold out for the griz. Well around 8:45 AM, one of the black bears we had seen on the camera decided he was hungry. GoPro time!

SLDMTN 2016 Black Bear - YouTube

A quick 20 yard recovery and some knife work made short work of the bear.

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We hauled the cache back to the house, took a nap, and played with the kids.

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We ate some chow and headed back into the woods for round two. As the time ticked by I was starting to get worried that we weren’t going to get another bear. I was praying that I wouldn’t be that guy….I had shot two bears and my buddy, who has never gotten a bear, wouldn’t get one.

A short while later and a beautiful sow came sneaking in. We watched her for quite awhile to see if the griz in the area would turn up and scare her off. Feeling confident the griz wouldn’t be making an appearance, we decided to drop her. One round from the 45-70 and bear #2 was down.

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We made short work of the hide and meat, hauled it home and got it on ice, literally, the creek by the house still has 4-5 ft of ice dammed up. After another great day hanging out with family, we packed up and headed back to civilization.

Remember the Father and thank your fathers for the life they've given you.
 

jwb300

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Great thread and thanks for sharing all your pics. Congrats on the bear - what a ripper. The pics of those prawns are brilliant.
 
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