First of all, thanks to some of the people on this forum with assistance on gear and other suggestions. I was very happy with my gear, and rifle choice for this hunt.

Some details

- outfitter - AAA Alaskan outfitter
-rifle - 375 H&H Browning, 270 tsx
- rain gear- Riverswest and Helly Hansen
- Binoculars- Leice 10x42 BRF's
- Cabelas Hip boots

This hunt is part of my quest for the NA 29, this was my 13th animal I have taken so far.

I left vancouver, to seattle then anchorage on may 7th, and having never been to anchorage, I spent a sunny afternoon getting to know the town. Nice place, and good people. The next morning it was a camo rodeo at the Penn air check in- just like you said it would be!!!! What was cool is that I met people like Mark Sullivan, Cody Robbins, Lance Kroneberg and a few other while waiting in anchorage, and as well chatted with them in King salmon- it was cool. Sullivan for the record was awesome with everyone, joking and funny for all, and answered lots of questions,

King Salmon turned into a bit of a luggage rodeo, because lots of peoples luggage did not arrive- what a mess. My rifle did, but my bag did not!! They flew in 3 extra planes, just to drop off luggage, and thank god mine arrived before my next flight on the caravan. After getting dropped off at pilot point, we were dropped off at the AAA base camp by 185.

I met brent jones for the 1st time, but was only in base camp long enough to check my rifle, and do some paperwork. It was a glorious sunny day, so they wanted to get all the hunters into camp asap.....I got dropped off on the pacific side by supercub on a muskeg strip about a mile from the ocean, where my guide was waiting in the sunshine for me. The strip was damn short, and damn wet!

We were fortunate in that we had a 6x12ft trappers cabin to stay in, which was awesome for the storms that were to come. What is also cool, is that Chuck adams name is on the wall there, he took his bear from this location with Brent 20+ years ago.....

So, I had to wait for 1 1/2 days for the opening day, and in that time a storm blew in.....Long story short, we were only able to hunt/glass from a knob near camp for about 4 hours that 1st hunting day. It was great having a good cabin, I slept like a baby. My guide was a great guy in his 40's from indiana, and he has guided in alaska for 20 years. We got along great, he appreciated the fact that I was really into the hunt. He told some horror stories of past clients, kinda funny to me..

day 2 and 3 were spent with lots of glassing, 10-12 hours each day. Not a lot of bears being spotted, we saw 4-5 each day, most were deeper into this big valley we were in. We always glassed from this same knob, due to the wind blowing into the valley and us not wanting to spook bears. On day 2, we had a small fox approach us on the glassing knob, and for more than 1 hour, he stayed within 20ft of us. Very cool I thought!

As you know, its a mental challenge spring bear hunting, and glassing is key. But I am a lucky guy, as on the morning of the 4th hunting day, the perfect south facing slope near camp that we kept talking about being prime habitat, was going to hold a 10ftr. I literally was getting my gear ready outside the cabin, and spotted with my naked eye a bear 1200 yards away on that south slope. I could see he was big, and the spotting scope verified it. The guide thought 8.5-9ft, but he started to feed deep into the thick alders, he may have been there for days but he made a mistake to step out in the open. We watched him bed at 9am, and we agreed to wait him out....so we slept, we ate, we slept and at 4pm we were in position on a knob, looking into the little draw that he was bed in.....1 hour later, he rose through the thick alders, and even though we could not see him, we could see all the trees shaking. Man was I pumped. I readied myself in a sitting postition with my 375, and my Snipepod waiting and watching as he fed closer through the alders. 1 hour later, he was within 50 yards, and closing but his whole body was not really that visible. Thinking this was gonna be easy changed FAST, and the wind that had been blowing in the same direction for 6 days, took that moment to switch....without a hesitation, he woofed, and took off at a full run through the alders towards the next ridge in the slide. The guide was yellinng at me "get on him"....I followed him , the big black blob he was, through my scope knowing that I was steady as can be with the snipepod....the mistake he made was he crossed a small opening that was also a rise to the next ravine.....and on a dead run as soon as he stepped out, I let fly with the 375, and smoked him from directly behind him through the back. This stopped him, and as I reloaded the guide shot, and then I shot 2 more times. He crawled into the next ravine, and dissapeared behind the alders once again...What a RUSH...

After waiting 1 hour, we went down to track him. After we had climbed down off our shooting position, I looked back to see where we had shot from, and was shocked to see the Fox, following our trail like a bloodhound! He followed our track down off the knob, and came to within 10 yards of us, arriving to the bloodtrail before we did! The little Fox proceeded to follow the bloodtrail, and we waited for a few minutes before he returned to our position. With guns a ready, we covered the 75 yards to the dead bear!What a feeling, and respect I have for these awesome animals. After 1 hour of pictures, the work began- we made it back to camp about midnight.


The whole hunt was an amazing experience, AAA runs a top notch outfit for sure!

We measured the front pad at 9 inches, the bear squares over 10ft. I don't know the skull size yet, but will post it after the drying period.

Wow, a awesome trophy. Congrats!

Great great Bear!!

Awesome job Thomas. Not many guys have not one, but two true trophies on the hunting reports section. Congrats on a great year, and its only 1/2 over. What is next on the schedule?

A wonderful trophy-congratulations !

Super bear- CONGRATS! and thanks for the report...

Great Bear,thanks for sharing your hunt.

Pure awesomeness! Big congrats!

WOW what a Trophy !

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
W.

Great Bear, fine Job!

Awesome bear....Congrats!
The final picture is absolutely stunning. Great job!

Fantastic bear , good yarn too,something on my Lotto win list

Great Hunt Report & pictures, Thanks for Posting.

That Bear is a HOSS! CONGRATS...

Well done, great report and a wonderful trophy!

Very nice bear!

Brett

I know this post is a year old, but I just found it. Wanted to say NICE REPORT and pictures, thanks for sharing with us.

Beautiful bear. Congrats.

Awesome report & pics.....brought back memories of my hunt

a really wonderful trophy. Congratulations

incredible hunt, great trophies congratulations.

Man that is what "brown bear dreams" are made of! Superb bruin, well done.

Learned how to use the find button Very nice bear!

Great bear and story - congratulations.

Years ago in our yearly elk camp a fox would sometimes hang out with us. I always believed this brought great karma. Maybe I'm a little superstitious but I can't bring myself to ever shoot one legal or not.

fantastic bear! Huge congrats...

Nice!

Wow great adventure and bear!

That is one big animal. Well done.