Montana asked me to put up these pictures...

Unfortunately I goofed up a bit with the e-mail, and erased the message... Hope he can tell you all the story. (Or maybe you know it by now...)





That's not your average Winnie the Pooh is it?

That is one hell of a big bear, whats the story behind it. Congrats.

That is a BIG BEAR. Please provide the story.

cwilson

I want to hear how this story reads now! These same pictures were sent to me in December of 2001.
I don't want to pee on anyones parade but just interested to see if or how much the story has changed since then.

2 Airman assigned to Eielson AFB Alaska, hunting on Hichinbrook (sic) Island took this bear year before last. It was a late season deer hunt, but they did notice that there was still fresh bear sign around, so they hunted the drainages in hopes of finding a bear scavenging for salmon carcasses. Bear was shot at approx 10 yards, rifles were a .338 Win mag and a .300 Win mag. If you really want the story first hand, go to huntamerica.com, hit the Alaska hunting forum and ask old Dalliwacker, as he was the chap behind the .300 Win mag. He is a stand up guy, won't say anything about the individual in the photo, other than, "Better Lucky Than Good"

The following pictures are of a guy who works for
the forest service in Alaska. He was out deer hunting.
A large...large world record Grizzly charged him from
about 50 yards away. The guy unloaded a 7mm Mag
Semi-auto into the bear and it dropped a few feet from
him. The thing was still alive so he reloaded and capped
it in the head.
It was over one thousand six hundred pounds, 12'6" high
at the shoulder. It's a world record.
The bear had killed a couple of other people.
Of course,the game department did not let him keep it.

Think about it. This thing would be about level with the top
of a basketball backboard.

this is what I got with the pics

AKBman has the right story. The bear was shot in the nose at close range with a .338 mag and a bullet fragment penetrated the brain. A picture of the dried skull has been posted here and shows vast damage to the sinuses and a hole into the brain case.

I've recieved same pics about three times from different sources and each one stated it was shot with a different caliber rifle from 7mm to a 12gauge shot gun.
OK, here's the original text from the original E-mail sent to me dated 12/14/01 ---

You are not going to beleive the size of this bear...even after seeing
the pictures!

> > > This bear was killed on Hitchenbrook Island by an airman
> > >stationed at Elmendorf. (Alaska, I think)
> > >The bear measured 12' 6" and was estimated at over 1600lbs.
> > >The guy was walking to his hunting area and the bear stood up
> > >only 35 yards away. The bear dropped down and went straight
> > >for him. He emptied his gun and the bear fell 10 yards from him

You know! They left one picture out!
The one showing the BROWN pants they ended up wearing!

This story and these pictures have morphed into so many different versions its amazing. The correct version is that which was stated by AKBman. There was also a story about the forest service guys but that was a different bear and happened a year after these were taken. The two stories got on the internet, bread, and produced several offspring. I've had about 5 different versions e-mailed to me by friends and relatives from outside and I always get a big kick out of it. In one the bear was 14 feet tall. The Anchorage Daily news did a story on the event and published these pictures. Its taken on a life all its own since then. Every hunting site on the web has had these show up several times with a different story.

All very humerous. The bear didn't know they were there until the shot. They were both stationed at Eielson AFB, but both are now gone, but Jim the backup man will be back I guarantee.

Leo;
You don't know where I could find the pic of the skull do you?
Thanks,
MM

AKBman;
Alright! I'd love to hear the story blow-by-blow, I purt-n-near soiled myself when I saw the pics for the first time! I can't imagine what it was like to be up close and personal!

The bear's hide measured 10' 6". AKBman is correct on the true version of the story. The story (the real one) was published by the Anchorage Daily News. The "goofy" stories such as the one with the guy with the 7mm Magnum, were hoaxes that began when some folks saw the pictures in the Internet, and before the real story was published.

Here is the URL for the story. Enjoy:
http://www.adn.com/outdoors/v-akcom/story/739717p-787512c.html

Thanks Ray!
I know I still would have had stinky shorts!

How about this quote from the article . . .

"So I started getting in the zone," Winnen said. "When I am going to take an animal, I am really concentrating. We racked shells into our guns and took off our packs and left them by the tree."

HOLY CHRIST! What are they doing in bear country walking around with empty guns?

JohnTheGreek

How about this for BS

Remember the story says that this is at 10 yards.

"My partner said, Shoot! Shoot!' " Winnen said. "I aimed for his left eye, but the bullet takes an arc and I hit about two inches low in the side of his muzzle and into his brain."

I aimed for his left eye but the bullet takes an arc? What kind of manure is that?

I aimed for the left eye but forgot that the scope is 2 inches above the bore.

I aimed for the left eye but my hands were shaking so badly that I just got close.

I aimed for the left eye but the only thing I could see in the scope at 10 yards was brown fur.

But "the bullet took an arc". Hell, I can throw a baseball thirty feet with less than a 2 inch drop.

Jim B.

AAH COME ON GUYS!
It's his story, let him tell it!

I know both of these guys, like I said I would hunt with Jim anytime, Winnen, not a chance, "in a zone" his zone would be the twilight one. No respect for him, like I said, better lucky than good, I wish old Jim would tell the real story again, he kind of clammed up after the newspaper interview.

That is the first thing people do with a HUGE bear at 40 yards, is take off their back packs and "RACK" a shell. Good grief! Flinch

Ha. You think that bear was BIG



[ 03-01-2003, 20:44: Message edited by: Mauser98 ]

I'll be on Hinchinbrook Island in May. Hope everyone else isn't there. I'm just going as backup for a buddy who is an Alaska resident. His hunt. Interesting to see that the photos are still making the rounds. They were thumbtacked to bulletin boards last year in Cordova.
Cheers!

PS: Did Mauser98 take a hoary marmot with his bow, or is that a chow puppy?

[ 02-28-2003, 09:11: Message edited by: DaggaRon ]

Mauser98 is that a seal wearing a fur coat or a bear that was having a bad hair day?

That does look like a cross between a chow chow and a grizzly or a marmot - bet that rascal has got some TEETH in that mouth --- DaggaRon, you gonna rent a forest service cabin or do battle with the rain in a tent ? Which bazooka ya gonna bring ? KMule

I think it was more like Winnen did most of the talking, and maybe he didn't remember things too clearly.

DaggaRon,

Make you swing by and say hi if you get a chance.

That is Jim in the picture with the stuffed bear. That was down near King Salmon on an unsuccesful brown bear hunt. Poor Jim is suffering down in Idaho (nothing against Idaho) now, he has Alaska in his blood, and it is tough to get out.

Ah ha! It was a stuffed Teddy Bear that Mauser98 was clowning around with.

Sorry not to have replied above, just remembered this thread.

KMuleinAK,
Yep, we have reserved a Forest Service cabin for base camp to spike out of. What luxury! We will fly in from Cordova. The "bazooka" I am taking is the .510 JAB, a 500 A-Square equivalent, just for kicks. It is a stainless barreled BRNO ZKK 602 with McGowen stainless barrel, PME safety, McMillan stock, PME sights, Leupold 2.5X in Warne QD rings, all finished in the equivalent of Wilson Tuffkote, matte black metal and walnut brown fiberglass stock. My buddy is using a CZ .416 Rigby with 2x-7X Leupold in Warne rings. I have been a not-so-bad influence. He is forsaking his .375 H&H Winchester M70 Stainless Classic for the CZ .416 Rigby.

PaulH,
I will give you a yell when passing through Anchorage.

Daggaron:
Are you SURE that's enough gun???


s

Socrates,
It is more than enough, but it must be blooded. The .416 Rigby makes more sense, sure, but variety is the spice of the gunnut. You understand, I am sure.

DaggaRon,
If you haven't done so already, I would check into the legality of your plans in depth. Alaska requires a non-resident to hire a guide, or hunt with a relative for brown bear. I'm not suggesting you'll be doing anything illegal, but recommend getting some difintive answers from F&G about being in the bush as a non-resident as a back up gunner.
Ken

Alasken,
I was a resident there for 5 years. I know the laws. I will be hunting black bear on my own tag and nonresident license, in a different area, after the brown bear hunt for my friend. On the brown bear hunt, I am packer, skinner, photographer, camp cook, and observer. He is the hunter. I would not shoot at the brown bear except to protect the life of my friend or myself. He is an able rifleman with a .416 Rigby, and will keep shooting until the bear is down.

Heres the story from SnopesOrigins: The basic story here is true, although some of the details are wrong, perhaps because two different recent incidents of very large bear killings in Alaska have been conflated into one.

The bear pictured above was killed in November 2001 by a hunter (not a Forest Service employee) who came across it while he was deer-hunting in Alaska. As he described the event on the message board at HuntingNet.com:

My partner and I ran into the unexpected . . . "BIG ARSE URSUS"! The bear was shot 10 yards away (no zeros missing in that figure my friends) in the head with a .338 Remington Winnie, using 250 grain Nosler handloads, followed up with two shots to the vitals. A very quick clean death.

We were working up a creek, headed for the mountains to hunt blacktail. He was coming down the creek, hunting for the last of the spawning Coho in the creek. We initially spotted him from 40 yds off. As a matter of fact we were glassing the bear over the high brush just behind the bear when we spotted him.
The pictures of the November 2001 shooting became confused with a later account of a killing, also in Alaska, of another very large bear. This incident, as described by the Associated Press, took place on 21 April 2002 in Anchorage:

Sigfredo Casiano, 28, was hiking to a camp site near Swanson River Road Sunday morning when he heard a noise in nearby woods. Initially, Casiano thought a moose was making the noise but he removed the safety from his rifle as a precaution, troopers said.

Soon after, a brown bear appeared about 10 feet away and began moving toward him.

Casiano fired one shot with his rifle, striking the bear behind the skull. The bear collapsed and Casiano man fired several more shots.

The bear was described as a male between eight and nine feet tall.

A moose carcass was found nearby and the bear was probably protecting the find, troopers said.
The pictures shown above (and the others displayed at HuntingNet.com) are from November 2001; none of them is a photo of the bear killed by Sigfredo Casiano in April 2002.

Last updated: 29 May 2002

The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/photos/bearhunt.asp

Mauser98

I don't know if you caught the story behind that pic of me and my bear or not. If you did, I'm probably burning off extra calories on the keyboard for no reason, but I think some of the others might get a laugh. The original story behind this pic is as follows...

It is May 02 and my long time best friend of 9 years and I are out the door for what is to be 7 days of hardcore brown bear hunting on the Alaska Peninsula. My wife, who is a big fan of dead animals on the wall (a little sarcasm here), let me tell yah, has just threatened me. I think her exact words were, "If you don't bring home a bear, DON'T bother coming home!" As I mentioned earlier, my lovely wife has always been a critic of dead animals on the wall, and when I first heard these words trickle from her mouth, I thought she was BSing me. Well, after a few minutes of talking about it with here, I realized she was dead serious. She honestly did not want me coming home empty handed. Evidently she had some built up anger and rage over past hunts I had helped people out with, and felt my generosity was the reason they were always successful and I wasn't (I tend to disagree, and I'll explain later). Only wanting to get out the door and on the road versus arguing, I agreed with my wife, gave her a peck on the cheek then jumped in the truck and drove off. I could hear her as I slowly made my way down the road, "I mean it!!! Don't come home without me a bear!"

Fast forward...My buddy; the non-selective, not too picky type, took a really nice brownie on the 2nd day out. I (kicking myself in the ass) passed on an opportunity to take a 10' class bear. I know what your saying, how can you pass on an opportunity shot. Well, at the time I didn't think of it as an opportunity shot. It was a 150 yd rear end shot (the texas bullseye couldn't of been any sweeter), and I, being raised on ethics was told never ever take a rear end shot on an animal. So, like I said, I passed on the shot and hoped to get another chance a proceeding day. Well, Mocha (thats the name we gave him...oh what a beautiful mocha colored coat it was) never made another appearance the entire time I was there. My buddy and I searched high and low, and far and wide, but never came acrossed him again. Lots of other opportunities to take smaller class bear 7 1/2' - 9' bears, but I declined and instead left the bush empty handed.

Plane landed back in Anchorage (I lived outside of Fairbanks at the time), and after resting a bit, those final words of my wife began to echoe in my head. The more I thought about it, the more I sweated, the more I sweated, the more I thought about it, until I thought...hmmmm, what if, what if I get a fuzzy wuzzy stuffed bear, get a pic with it, and pawn it off as my bear kill. Heck, my wife was niave enough to fall for it, and by the time she would figure it out, I'd be off the hook. So that is what I did, and that is what you see here. I thought it turned out pretty good. So did the wife, but she wasn't as dumb as I thought she was. I was busted, but needless to say, the wife cut me some slack for cleaverness. Didn't mean she wasn't PO'd, but the pic and bear got me out of hot water.

I mentioned earlier I turned down the rear end opportunity, so I wanted to further explain myself. You already know I was brought up on values and hunter ethics. The Texas bullseye is (was) a big no-no in my family. That foundation was made when I lived in Oklahoma though, where about the meanest most deadliest thing in all the state was my step-mother. There were no bears there, and everything we intended to kill, we ate. Not so with big brown bears. I later learned from (retired) Master Guide Joe Want (who perhaps is probably the most successful BIG brown bear guide ever to walk this earth) the texas bullseye is the absolute best shot you can take on a brown bear. Points are...you want the bear to absorb every last bit of energy expended by that bullet, and your not keeping the meat. It was then I stopped patting myself on the back for being mature (and ethical) enough to pass on such a shot, and when I started kicking myself in the ass.

I later decided to email the picture out and also post it to another forum just to provide a few good laughs. Little did I know I would get the response I did. I received a number emails and posts from individuals congradutlating me on a fantastic bear.

As far as the Hinchinbrook story goes, I'm gonna hold off from giving the details for now. I will say if any of you subscribe to or get Big Game Adventures magazine on your local rag shelf, the story (in my words) will be available in the next issue. Of course by now, you should all know the emails and stories you have heard are probably untrue.

Given what many here have mentioned about Ted, I won't add too much more about him. Ted is a friend and he means well, and I won't talk bad about him. I will say when people are young, and go from a nobody on one day to a somebody the next, you can get caught up in the attention. I believe that is what Ted did, he had (is having) his minute of fame. Shortly after, the fame was gone by many of the people around him (I think it went on for quite awhile longer on the Net.), and nasty rumors started to fly. I took offense to many of these rumors, because it involved me and my ethics.

I said I disagreed with my wife earlier regarding my generosity. As much as I like being successful (and let me tell yah, I'll be the first to say I like coming home with a kill) I really do enjoy just getting out an hunting...especially Alaska. We all have our day as hunters. It might be your lucky hunt on one trip, again on the next trip, and maybe next season I might be lucky myself on an outting. I'm one of those guys who goes with the flow. Ted and I had an agreement before he shot this bear, thus the reason he takes it home. I took a dall ram with a friend who spotted the critter from afar, and I never once noticed it. Why did I get the sheep, because it was my "day" to shoot first. He went home empty handed. Unfair..maybe, is there a better way, maybe, but the bottom line is as long as I have a good time I feel the success is in the memories. My absolute best hunt ever was an unsuccessful hunt. It was that bear hunt I spoke of earlier. Never have I experienced extreme wildlife, beautiful scenery, the BEST comradery, and an entire hunt w/o rain I took home many memories, all of which were good, even the kicking myself in the ass part, because I get to dream about going back for Mocha in May 04.

Lastly (whew!!! If fingers had mouths, I'd say all of mine were winded!) MR. BEEMAN, thanks for the kind words. I sure miss you guys. (Awwww!) And your right, I will be back soon for a vacation, and eventually forever. I am looking for a partner in May 04 for that brownie hunt. I gotta date with Mocha. Interested??? I know you might be across the pond then, but give it a thought.

One more thing and I am through (promise), if any of you guys are in the Fairbanks area. Be sure to check out the lifesize of this bear. A really good friend is doing the mount. He is an award winning taxidermist. In fact, he recently brought home two first place finishes and a second during a show in Anchorage a few weeks ago. If any of you have heard of Knights and Woodland and know their reputation, he beat these guys out!!! I promise his work is unlike any others and it should be a highlight of this year's show.

Jim Urban

Thanks Jim,
Just for the record, my opinion of Ted predates your hunt by quite a while. Planning on going back into the Alaska Range next month to see if I can't get one of the guys at work a good looking bear, as you know, the bears in that neck of the woods aren't big, but they sure look good. Hope all is well with you.

Dave

I didn't say I disagreed with you, only I wasn't gonna bash Ted. I think all of your observations are correct. All is well here, except this friggin wind...it sux!

Ah don't worry my friend, in a couple of months or so it will change to a hot dry wind. Gotta figure there ain't crap to stop it until you hit the Tetons. Take it easy, I am almost gone, one more hunting trip, then nada for 12 months.

Dave

I am teetor-tottering right now. I might be gone for an extended camping trip the way things are looking right now. Should know more on Monday...so much for hunting this year (maybe). You guys take it easy, good luck in 13 this year! You gonna hunt Africa during your tour?