May 2006 - Black Bear Hunting in Prince William Sound

Shanna's Turn

Click here for Shanna's Hunt Video  (Must have a high speed connection)

Shanna with her first bear ever on her first ever hunt.

After John’s first bear hunt last summer, he made the comment that next year I should shoot one. I definitely was NOT interested. I could not imagine myself killing an animal. John mentioned it several more times throughout the fall & winter. I still resisted. However, somewhere along the way, I became a bit intrigued by the idea. I was still not thrilled by the thought of killing an animal, but I thought the whole experience would be a neat life-long story. A spring bear hunt was already planned, John's cousin Craig bought his airline ticket 6 months earlier to come up and bear hunt.  Besides Craig hunting, it was going to be me or John, but not both of us.  John quit trying to convince me to be the “shooter” before the planned hunt. As soon as he quit prodding, I became more interested! I knew I needed to do lots of target practicing. I wasn’t even sure if I could hit the target, much less the little bulls eye in the middle. In early May, I started target shooting. I was surprised that not only could I hit the target, but I was actually a pretty good shot! My biggest problem was trying not to flinch and close my eyes when firing. I have always hated loud noises so that was something I really had to work on. John suggested “dry firing” to practice being steady. It was a good idea and did seem to help. We target practiced on about 4 different days. I wanted to be proficient enough that I could kill the bear and not just wound it. That would really bother me to shoot something, wound it, and cause it to suffer. Four days prior to the hunt I still wasn’t positive that I wanted to be the shooter. I told John I wanted to target practice some more before making a final decision. By Thursday, May 18, I decided I “could do it” and we went to Fred Meyer to buy my hunting license.   John was so proud as we stood at the Service Desk counter making the license purchase. He said we needed a camera -- this was worthy of a picture.

Craig & I did more target practicing today (our hunting prep day). He seemed to be impressed with my shooting -- he should’ve been, it was every bit a good as his! Of course his excuse was that he “wasn’t used to shooting that close” (80 yards). He was used to shooting 200 yards. Yeah, right! I was feeling pretty confident with my shooting skills, but still feeling nervous about the killing part. And not only that, there’s a big difference in aiming at a bulls eye and a bear’s chest which doesn’t have a bulls eye. I asked John it he thought the bear would hold still while he went out and stapled on a target on its chest. That night, we watched several bear videos and I would have John pause some of the frames so I could show him where I would shoot it. I got pretty comfortable imagining a bulls eye on the bear.

We left for PWS around 10:00AM. The weather was beautiful, as was the ride out. We had so many supplies on board (planning to stay a week, if necessary) that there wasn’t much room to move. We made it to the South Culross Cabin around 2:00PM. We spent quite a while hauling gear to the cabin. We were just finishing our unpacking, when Craig said, “Hey, somebody is walking up here.” John & I look out in amazement. Sure enough, here comes a trooper hiking in to the cabin. He was a friendly fella and we visited with him for a bit and asked lots of questions. He wanted to see our hunting licenses and fishing licenses. He jotted down our names in his book.  Craig’s license was on the boat, so we told the trooper we’d hike out with him (about ¼ mile) since we were anxious to start our evening hunt. When we got to our boat, there was a second trooper waiting at their runabout.  John asked them where they were based and they replied that they were off of the larger trooper vessel , an ex-crabbing vessel anchored at the south entrance to Culross Passage; man those guys get around.  They were based in Kodiak.

For the first evening hunt, we cruised the bays. We didn’t see any bears. We got back to the cabin around 11:45PM. We were all starved and tired. Because it was just past high tide, John was able to drive into the cove and drop us and the guns off closer to the cabin. Then he took the boat to the outside to secure it for the night.  We turned in around 1:30AM and the alarm started ringing at 5:30AM.

John & Craig glassing the shorelines for bears.

We cruised and glassed numerous bays, islands, coves and inlets. We cruised one bay where Craig was positive that the grassy area looked like a perfect place to get a bear. We got out of the boat and scouted around for “bear sign,” like scat and grass that looked “mowed.” Sure enough, there was definite bear activity in that area. Apparently, according to the surveyor’s tape hanging on a tree: someone had already harvested a bear there. Craig was still excited about the place and several times said he wanted us to drop him off so he could sit and wait for a bear.  We checked on some of the northern facing bays and they were still full of deep snow, with no grass showing yet.

Finally, we made the run back to the cabin for a nap and dinner before setting out on our evening hunt. We were all a bit disappointed that we hadn’t seen any bears yet, not even a sow with cubs.

There was no shortage of ice and snow for keeping the drinks cold.

Set the alarm again and up at 4:00PM ate before heading out for the evening hunt. We started with a cruise thru some Islands. Craig spotted another green beach at the mouth of a stream that he thought looked “beary”.  Once again, we anchored the boat and went ashore looking for bear signs. We located several large scat piles and mowed grass. We moved on and cruised some more cove and inlets. We made a quick stop for snow at an avalanche to ice down our drinks. We spent about 4 hours cruising and glassing. Still -- no bears! Man, this is getting frustrating! Craig has started to harass John and wondering if he’s going to go 7 days and not see a single bear and John is starting to feel the pressure of putting us on the bear!

Craig just after firing and watching his bear go down.

CRAIG’S BEAR 

About 8:45PM, we cruised back into the first bay where we had got out of the boat and found bear sign everywhere. Craig had his binoculars to his eyes and exclaimed, “THERE’S A BEAR, PUT IT IN REVERSE!” Yea, right! Just throw the boat in reverse! We were 1/2 to 3/4 mile from the bear.  The tension level went to extreme on the boat! John motored us to the far right side of the inlet, where, luckily, we were hidden behind an outcropping of rocks. We slowly motored to the end of the bay and Craig’s bear. Craig was so freaked out, he put his bipod on backwards and had to take it off and try again. We came to the rock outcropping and went into action. John had me hold the boat off the rocks (so I wasn’t able to watch the hunt) while he took the video camera and climbed onto the rocks with Craig. He was hoping to get the hunt on video. Craig at first said he didn’t see the bear anymore. Then, all of the sudden the bear appeared, “out of nowhere’” according to him. I could tell he saw it and was getting ready to fire. I held the boat with my legs and my ears with my hands. BOOM! Craig fired. John started yelling, “Hit him again, hit him again, hit him, please hit him.” But Craig never fired a follow up shot -- he felt confident that he’d hit killed the bear in one shot. They were having difficulty seeing the bear because it ran behind a log. And I couldn’t see anything because I was well below the rocks holding the boat off. John & Craig started hooting and hollering! They were so excited! Craig got out his range finders and found that his shot was 231 yards!

Craig's bear was a boar that measured in the field at 5' 6" from nose to base of the tail 

We loaded back into the boat and continued motoring in. Almost a soon as the guys got on the land, they could see the bear lying there dead. We still approached it cautiously, just in case! When Craig verified the bear had expired, he started hollering again! He immediately checked to see if it was a boar or sow. Yeah, it was a boar. I was a bit disturbed seeing the poor dead creature. Once again, doubt crept up in my mind. How would I ever be able to pull the trigger and end a bear’s life????? We took tons of photos and then set to the huge task of skinning and quartering the beast! The ebbing tide was a concern the entire time. If we didn’t hurry, the tide would recede to the point that we wouldn’t be able to motor out of the cove and we’d be spending the night there. While John was away working at resetting the anchors on the boat, Craig asked, “Do you mind holding this leg for me?” I replied, “Are you kidding???” Not my idea of fun…..John promised all I had to do was “pull the trigger” and that I didn’t have to be involved in the skinning or quartering process. (Yea, right!) I did put on a pair of gloves and held the paw while Craig worked. I was glad when John was back to help. John & I took each of the quarters to the freshwater stream nearby and submerged them one at a time in the cold water to cool them. After a 5 minutes soak, I squeegee the excess water off, we sprayed them with a citric acid solution and then we rolled the game bag up over them. As time we on, I was able to think of the bear (quarters & hide) differently than as a soft, fuzzy creature eating his last supper. Maybe I’m starting to get de-sensitized! We got back to camp around 2:00AM. . Once back in the cabin, we replayed Craig’s bear hunting video and reveled in the success. Craig had a Jagger Bomb (Jaggermeister and Red Bull - Yuck!) to celebrate his success! He insisted that John & I also have one. Craig had brought the ingredients along to make his “celebration drink” after he killed his bear. We finally got to sleep around 3:30AM.

Click HERE to CONTINUE to PART 2 of Prince William Sound Hunt 2006