05 September 2003, 08:41
N'gagiThanks to everybody who gave me advice before my trip. Here is the report you asked for:
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After a 4:00 am check in, six and a half hours in the air, and a three hour drive from Anchorage, we arrived in Soldotna. We had a small side trip, as I bought something off the AR classified page and I met the seller in a parking lot outside town.
Transaction was smooth, and the guy was waiting when we got there. AR members are the best, are they not?
By the time we were checked in and made dinner reservations, I went out to the local hardware store to buy my hunting license. They were sold out, so I went to the Fred Meyer store, which is like a Wal-Mart, and got it there. The license was $85 and the tag was $225. Interesting note: no sales tax, no income tax and tags are free to residents.
After a dinner of seafood platter, I hit the rack at 10:30 and was ready at 5:00 am when my guide arrived. He was driving a big Ford F250 with a wooden hulled Zodiac in the back. After intros, we loaded my stuff and drove 2 hours to Homer, AK, where we were to unload our gear and the Zodiac onto a 38 foot cabin cruiser for the trip up Kachemak Bay to Bear Island, and Bear Cove.
We arrived there in a pea soup fog, but no rain, and an air temp of about 60F. After several weeks of 105F, it felt really nice. The bay we anchored in was about 60 feet deep, glassy water, and surrounded by steep hills and pine trees. Very pretty. The plan was, that we would slowly patrol the beaches nearby from the skiff, glassing the shore for bears feeding in the tidal pools. We did this for about an hour, when we arrived at Bear Island. Once there, we pulled up to shore and tied up the boat, and proceeded to make our way around the island. It was about eight miles all the way around. We carefully stalked the beaches, glassing over the rocks and into the tree line as we picked our way along. The beaches were covered in bear sign, and droppings.
After making our way about 3/4's of the way around, and checking several small side canyons full of berry bushes, we came to a rocky section where the tide had come up and cut off our progress. We proceeded to work our way back from the direction we had come, and found ourselves cut off that way too.
Climbing over the slippery rocks in rain gear and rifles, and walking in the wet off camber gravel for several hours had pretty well kicked my butt, when my guide said, "Well, looks like we'll have to go over the top."
I don't think I said anything, but he could see the look on my face, and said, "I wish I could just leave you here and go get the boat, but the water will be up past here by the time I get back. Besides, obviously, the bears are up high, so we need to go up anyway."
The going was very steep and slippery and wet. I found myself actually clawing into the soil to pull myself up some places and kicking in toe holds in others. Most of the vines and branches had fine little, hair-like thorns. In a couple places, he took my rifle and gave me a hand up, and in others I held his foot so he could reach up to a root to pull himself up. It was the hardest physical labor I have done in a decade.
Just when I thought I couldn't go any further, we'd crawl up to a wide trail, covered in grass and see tracks and a big berry laden turd, and I'd get excited again. We'd stop and have a drink of water, and then start off again. At was close to 7PM when we finally made it down the other side to the waiting skiff. I was soaked to the skin and peeled off all my jackets and rain gear and enjoyed the cold breeze as we motored away from Bear Island. I was disappointed that we didn't see anything, but felt pretty proud of myself for making it over. He kept apologizing, and saying he has never drug a client up that before, but he knew I could make it, and he was sure we'd see a bear.
About a half hour later, we pulled up to a shore line where a river spilled out into the ocean. We tied up the skiff and walked the shore, up to where the spruce trees where super thick. We saw a HUGE set of tracks and a humongous turd with lots of grass in it. He said the tracks looked like a brown, but the grass made him think it might be a BIG blackie. Just in case, he shucked a round into his shotgun and told me to stay right behind him. We crept through the trees following the tracks for about a half an hour when he froze dead still. He didn't move, and I could sense something was wrong.
I strained my eyes to see what he was looking for, but this side of the island we were on was in the shade, and the leaves were very thick. Then I spotted a huge brown mass, not fifteen feet away. For the first time I can remember, I actually felt a tinge of panic. I was honest to god shaking when I saw something move a foot or two to the left and higher. Then the mass began to take shape, and I realized we were standing next to a big cow moose. After she took a couple steps, we saw right behind her, her mother who was even bigger! We stayed stone still until they had moved off.
After they were gone, we both let out a breath, and I said, "good god, I thought that was a brown bear for a minute." He chuckled and said, "trust me. Momma could have killed us just as easily. They don't like people messing around their calves."
By the time we got back to the skiff it was close to 9PM, and I was dead on my feet. We motored back to the cabin cruiser, and climbed aboard. It felt so good to pull off the rain gear, sit down, and kick off my boots and take a breather. He fired up the stove while I cleaned and oiled our guns, and tuned in the public radio station and listened to old recordings of the Grand Ol Oprey from the 1940's out on the deck in back.
While he was frying up the caribou steaks, I dropped a line over the side and jigged up a few sculpin off the bottom.
We had a nice dinner of steak, garlic bread and banana bread and milk. I was really looking forward to an ice cold beer after all that work, but as he said, "I didn't know you from Adam, and the last thing I wanted out here was a mean 6'7" drunk with a gun...but now that I know you, I wish we had some too!"
I was too tall to sleep on a bunk under the deck, so I slept up top, and he slept down below. It was about 10:30, and was still light enough that there were no stars out yet. I took all of two seconds to fall asleep.
We got up at five, fried some eggs and hit the water before six. We went back to that river bank, but on the opposite bank, and worked our way up river. We soon found a muddy bank, covered in fresh tracks, and could see in the hip high grass that the bear has passed through here just a few minutes before, as the dew was rubbed away, and the grass matted down. We had the breeze in our favor and followed the trail through the grass for an hour or more. We actually found a still steaming pile of mushy poop, and knew we were right behind him.
The going was super slow as the ground was marshy and we were trying to be quiet. Also, the whole area was criss-crossed with fallen longs, but you couldn't see them, you had to feel for them with your boots. It would make great training for an Olympic hurdler. My legs and hips were aching from stepping over these slippery things, and a few times I just sat there straddling the thing while I caught my breath.
We followed this trail for five miles and we finally lost it when it came to a big rock slide that bordered a massive wall of bushes 20 feet tall and miles and miles deep. We tried to find where he went in, but couldn't find anything that looked fresh. Deciding that we would probably have a hard time packing everything out in time anyway, we gave up, and hoped we'd see something on the other side on the way back.
By now I had given up on keeping my boots dry so I just waded out through the water and we worked our way back, spending lots of time glassing. When we finally came to the bluff that separated the river bank from the ocean I was hammered and ready to call it a day. It was only 3:30, but we still had four hours of traveling, plus cleaning up the gear, and loading his truck, and I needed to be back in Soldotna by 9:00. When we came up over the top of the bluff, I couldn't believe my eyes....the tide had gone out, and the skiff was sitting on the rocks 400 yards from the water.
We looked at each other, and walked to the skiff, deciding that the best bet would be to take everything part and carry it to the shore, and then come back for the skiff. After moving the 10 HP motor, gas tank, tool bags, back packs, rifles and oars to the water line, we picked up the 500 pound skiff and carried it 15 steps and sat it down. We did this over and over until we got to the water and were able to load up and motor off.
We ended up packing up and pulling out as soon as we got to the big boat, and I washed the pans and stuff while he drove us back. On the way he was watching the depth finder and spotted a nice underwater bank that he thought might hold some halibut, so we stopped for just a few minutes and managed to jig up three nice halibut to fillet. We motored on to Homer, got the boat stowed away, transferred the skiff and the gear to his truck and drove back to Soldotna, me sleeping a good part of the way back.
I didn't get a bear, but I had a great time, made a new friend, and he promised to send my halibut fillets along with an Alaskan fish and game sampler of moose steaks, caribou steaks, salmon and bear steaks. I lost about 10 pounds over the weekend, and I'm sore as hell today, but what a great experience in backwoods Alaska. I'm looking forward to next year, and I'll definately allow more time!!!!
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- once you spot a bear, you can then decide on how to get within rifle range. Your choice of the 375 is a bit large for black bears but be aware that their brown cousins are present in many areas. Take good bug dope and a headnet (hopefully you will not need it) and good raingear / hat. Where will you be hunting? Good luck - KMule![[Razz]](images/icons/tongue.gif){kind=icon}
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