I have just completed a Caribou and Brown Bear hunt with Dave Leonard of Mountain Monarchs of Alaska out of his David River Brown Bear camp, Guide Peter Mayall

Due to an abundant salmon season brown bear hunting was very difficult this fall however persistence pays off and Friday the 13th was a lucky day for me!

My guide spotted my bear shortly after day light at approx 2 miles away and planned a brilliant stalk. Peter had told me earlier that when we find the bear that we want that we would have to go hard to cut him off and this was just the case. On the way to my bear we punched out another slightly smaller bear which we were unaware of. This small bear bear didn't catch our scent but moved across the valley towards the bigger bear we were after. The two bears then confronted each other in the middle of the valley and a Mexican standoff ensued. Even with the wind blowing 30 knots in our face and at over 300 yards the growling from these two bears had to be heard to be believed ( I was a little nervous and taken aback but also in awe of these two amazing animals). The two bears finally lost interest in one another and decided to go their separate ways. The bigger bear started heading to the alders on the mountain side and the other bear sat on his backside panting like a dog. Peter whispered we now needed to go hard to catch the big bear before he disappeared. As we drew level with the smaller bear he started to eye ball us, I could see that Peter was totally focused on catching up with the bigger bear but I could see that this smaller bear was not happy about us being in his territory. I was worried that maybe he was thinking if he couldn't beat the bigger bear he could whoop our arses instead. The bear started to posture and shaped up to us. This had my heart thumping out of my chest, my mouth went dry and I was shitting my pants! Peter was still focused on the big bear, this is when I tried to quietly gain Peter's attention to what was going on with the smaller bear. I whispered "Peter watch that bear", Peter didn't respond. I said it again a little louder " Peter!" "PETER!!!" Finally Peter turned and said " don't worry he will get our wind shortly, but if we have to shoot him we will, he's a good bear but we want the big one". We continued to move quickly through the boggy marsh up onto some firmer higher ground that smaller bear had obviously caught our wind and took off but that didn't stop me from continually looking over my shoulder. Luckily Peter had kept us moving because we only just spotted the big bear in the alders for a few seconds, arse on at 150 yards. He pawed the ground and laid down in his bed. We crept along the foot of the boggy hill to within 60 yards and Peter peaked around the corner, glassing the alder patching trying to locate the bear. Peter whispered "it's no good from here I can only see the his ears, we need to back up and try to get above him". We snuck up onto the ridge but the alders were too thick. We couldn't see the bear at all. We weighed up our options. Looking down the ridge there was an island of high grass approximately 120 yards below the bear, we were hoping this would change the angle enough to get a look at him. We got to the island and peered through the grass, we could not locate the bear. It's these moment in hunting when you think it could go either way. We didn't even know if he was still bedded in there. Finally after about half an hour we heard two very loud noises of some description either a snort or a sneeze coming from the alder patch. Yes! At least we knew he was in there somewhere. We continued to glassing, when to my relief Peter said he could see part of the bear. To cut a long story short this is where we sat for the next 6 hours waiting for a shot opportunity. Twice he moved slightly but no shot offered. Even a low flying plane didn't get his attention, all he offered was an ear twitch. With day light dwindling and the cold setting in we moved in closer to try to gain an opportunity. Now at approximately 80 yards we were a little more exposed and this got the bear's attention, he stood up to check out the intruders. I said to Peter " I can see his chest" Peter asked "do you have a shot?" I replied "yes" Peter said "drill him!!". After 6 hours of sitting and waiting all nervous tense had left my body. I calmly lined him up whilst resting on my knees and squeezed the trigger of my 375 H&H. I heard the bullet hit home and the bear spun quickly away to take off. I quickly reloaded, picked up his brown shape and let drive again and the sound of another solid hit came back to me. The alder patch exploded and bear gave out a huge roar and then all was deathly quiet. Peter said it looked and sounded good but we could not celebrate yet as we could not see the bear. We sat for 20 minutes or more watching and listening for any sign the bear was still alive. We went back to the original high spot above the bear. Peter dropped his pack and had the unenviable job of belly crawling through a maze of alders to be slightly above the bear to where we thought he lay. This was very unnerving for me. Peter had told me to be ready for anything and to watch his back. I stood with my gun loaded and my eyes intently watching the alders for any movement. I saw Peter peering into the alders below him, he stood completely still, fixated on the alder patch in front of him. He cautiously moved forward, extending his rifle out then yelling out to me " we have a dead bear!" I was so relieved! Peter told me to grab his pack and to go down the ridge and come up from the bottom, it would be easier going. I finally made it up to the bear, I couldn't believe how big it was, I was completely astonished at whole sequence of events that had just occurred. Sometimes all the stars do line up. As I write this post some 2 weeks later I am still on a high. What an amazing and exhilarating experience Brown Bear hunting is!
P.S the reason we couldn't see the bear properly was because his bedding hole was nearly 3 feet deep!
A big thanks to Dave Leonard and Peter Mayall for a hunt of a lifetime!

Bear-

Bear Bed


Caribou

Congratulations, very nice bear and Caribou. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your report.

Regards
Aziz

Very nice. Were you on the Peninsula?

Your caribou has it all: shovel, bez, nice kickers and beautiful tops.

My heart was racing just reading the report. I can only imagine what yours was doing during the actual hunt. Conglads on 2 great trophies.

Nice report Emma...... Don't you know you don't use real names as usernames on forums??

Cheers,
Mark

Great report and a memorable hunt, well done to you and your guide . jc

Well done!

Congrats on your success!

Beautiful animals and one of the most riveting reports I’ve read.

quote:

Originally posted by AnotherAZWriter:
Very nice. Were you on the Peninsula?

Your caribou has it all: shovel, bez, nice kickers and beautiful tops.

Thanks AnotherAZWriter.
I hunted between Nelson Lagoon and Cold Bay.

No pictures I can see?
How long did you hunt? The 13th is a ways into bear season, did you get the caribou before the bear? Any hits on the gut pile?
great report congrats!

quote:

Originally posted by Fourtyonesix:
No pictures I can see?
How long did you hunt? The 13th is a ways into bear season, did you get the caribou before the bear? Any hits on the gut pile?
great report congrats!

I"m not sure why you can't see the pics.
Caribou season finishes before Brown bear season opens in this unit. The gut piles were cleaned up by foxes, the bears were too full of fish to be interested.
I was 6 days in the field for my Brown Bear hunt.

Congrats on the great bear Emma!! Sounds like you and Pete had quite the exciting stalk.

I was happy to be able to help out a bit on the Caribou, that was a fun stalk as well and you and Michael made some fantastic shots in tough conditions. Hope to see you and Pete a little further down the road...

Josh

Congratulations on your hunt.

I don't see any pictures either. Also while your reporting was good it could use a few paragraph breaks to make it more readable. None the less thanks for posting it.