Brown Bear, Alaska Peninsula 2008

[FullCryHounds]

Got back from a fantastic trip last night. I headed up to Anchorage on April 30 then took a commuter down to Kenai and was picked up by my buddy Ron. We went directly to the FAA building to check weather for the next few days down along the peninsula. The following day looked the best so the next morning, we loaded up the cub and took off. We stopped for fuel at Illamna, Nacnek and then at Port Heiden, we dumped in the 5 gallons of gas we were carrying.

[/URL]

Down along the north shore of the peninsula along the Bering Sea, the pack ice was still up along the coast. Cape Seminof is a major haul out for Walruses but none there that day. We continued on down the coast and at Bear river, we found two dead walruses with some wolves feeding on them so we landed on the beach and pulled the ivories. What a job that was. Used a hatchet to chop them out of some very smelly carcasses.
[/URL]
[/URL]

We landed at the Bear Lake Lodge around 3:30.
Bear Lake Lodge was started by Don Johnson back in the 60’s and today is run by his son Warren. The lodge was hit by a huge storm this past winter with over 4 feet of ran in less then a day and 140 mph winds. There was a lot of work to be done to get ready for 30 bear hunters showing up for the spring opener on the 10th. The basement had been flooded with 3 feet of water and there was tons of alders washed up all over the place that had to be cut up and hauled off to make room for planes to land and park. Had a family of minks living in the basement so I made quick work of them and got them hauled out of there before they made more of a mess.
[/URL]
Ron and I made several flights down to HooDoo lake and our cabin to find it had also been hit by the storm. The cabin had been blown off its foundation and had also been flooded. We pulled out what carpeting there was, laid down some new flooring and got the place livable for the next 3 weeks. We hauled in our supplies and food over the next few days along with an outboard, fuel and other supplies. This camp is very remote and everything has to be flown in. We land right out front on the beach and this year after the storm, the gravel bar was huge so landing wasn’t a problem like it usually is.
[/URL]
[/URL]
One day, we stopped at an old village located at some natural hot springs. This old village was dated at 8000 years old. There were hundreds of people that lived there for several hundred years. I found two arrowheads there in about 15 minutes. The weather was turning sour so we took off and headed back to the lodge. We helped set up several other tent camps the next few days but the weather was horrible so we didn’t get a chance to go steelhead fishing like we wanted to.

Spring was very late on the peninsula this year and we had only spotted a couple of bears out. Most come out of hibernation around the 7th or 8th. They den up at around 1000 feet which is usually right at the top of most of the local mountains.

[FullCryHounds]

Our two hunters, Dave and Mark, showed up, (a father and son hunting together) and we started hunting on the 10th. First day, we saw a couple of bears and found several other den sites that had been opened up. The bears will spend a few days hanging around the dens before heading off to find whatever they can for feed.
[/URL]

[/URL]

[/URL]

On the fourth day, we are about 4 miles from camp on a ridge we called south ridge. We are all four together since the wind dictated that day where we were going to hunt. I spotted a bear sleeping in the alders below us on the ridge. He’s sitting on top of a hill and there's no way to approach him. If you walked up on him, you'd be 10 feet from him before you popped up over the top so we nixed that idea. I set up with both clients on a hill about 200 yards downwind from the bear and Ron walked upwind of him to give him his wind and the planned worked perfectly. After yelling at the bear to get him up, he walked right into us and two shots from Dave and he was down. He was enormous.
[/URL]

We took about an hour to get alders cut away to work, take some pictures and get him skinned out. It was four in the afternoon when we shot him. I had seen a gravel bar about a half mile away so Ron and I headed over to take a look to see if we can get the plane in there. We paced it off at 350 feet, plenty to get in and out. So after we skinned him out, loaded him in my pack frame, I get him packed over to the gravel bar. Turns out the hide alone with no head and no feet in it weighted just over 170 lbs. It about killed me just packing it ½ mile. The bear looks to be close to 30 years old, squared 10’ 9”. Skull measured 29 5/8. He’s one of the largest bears ever shot at HooDoo and the largest bear killed at the lodge this spring. There were 17 bears taken this year, very low total due to the horrible weather they had. Most years they average about 90%. Mark is planning on coming back in two years to try again but was glad it worked out the way it did with his dad getting a bear of a lifetime. The weather really turned bad for the next week and we were only able to get out another day and a half so Mark didn’t get his bear this year.
We really enjoyed hunting with them and look forward to 2010.
I ended up spotting 27 different bears. 3-4 of them were 10 foot bears, several sows with cubs and the rest 8-9 footers. The weather was the worst the peninsula has seen in 50 years. Most days we couldn't use the boat because of rough water.

[/URL]
[/URL]
[/URL]

Here’s a few pictures coming back to Kenai through Lake Clark Pass

[/URL]
[/URL]

[Calkins]

Awesome pics. Thanks for sharing.

[Kevin D]

Wow, talk about living the dream.....good job Dean.

[onegreen]

Dean, did the back of the gun case on the wing fall off?? Cool pic's and story. sounds like a lot of work but a lot of fun as well.

[FullCryHounds]

No, we just tie the guns in with a peice of string from the strut to the stock so they won't slide back.