Shanna's Turn - Part 2

The alarm went off at 7:30AM. Not much sleep for the weary! We tried some of the northern facing bays again. We glasses for about 4 hours and didn’t see any bears. We went to pull our shrimp pots - hoping for fresh shrimp for lunch! BINGO! Our pots did really well! Between the 5 pots, we nearly filled a 5 gallon bucket. Craig & I spent the 30 minute ride back to camp popping heads. Chow time! Craig chunked the inside bear loins into bite sized pieces and I sautéed them in olive oil, onions & garlic. I also sautéed a huge batch of shrimp in oil and garlic along with some crushed red pepper. Both were delicious! 

The bonus of hunting in Prince William Sound are the shrimp!

We quietly anchored the boat. Got all our equipment and headed up the hill. I was wearing the camera bag around my waist, John carried the gun and Craig had his range finders. As soon as we crested the hill, John turned around and quietly said, “There’s a bear!” My first thought was, “Oh shit! I’m really going to have to kill it!” My second thought was, “I hope I can!” I turned to Craig and excitedly whispered, “Bear, bear! There’s a bear!” We quietly moved into the sniper spot, a small flat area on the side of the hill only big enough for me.  

I sat on the ground and began to set up my shot. I quickly realized that I didn’t have a good shot from my spot and I told John to move, that I needed to get where he was. So, we switched positions. I knew I’d have to fire from the sitting position, so I extended the bipod legs and found the bear thru the scope. I watched him for a few seconds and became extremely anxious and nervous. John told me I could take the shot, that the bear was turned perfectly. He whispered to “Make it good, Honey.” This only heightened my anxiety level. I really didn’t want to disappoint him (or myself!). I had the crosshairs on the bear’s side and began shaking uncontrollably. I whispered to John that I was shaking. He told me to, “Stop, stop, don’t shoot.” He wanted me to calm down before I fired. I don’t know what happened, but a surreal calm came over me. I once again put the crosshairs on the bear’s right side, just above & behind his armpit. I was steady as a rock as I slowly squeezed the trigger until the gun fired. Then……the bear took off running like he was riding on a rocket! I immediately reloaded (as John had drilled into my head over & over), but I could no longer see the bear. I NEVER saw him after I fired. He made about 3 leaps and was into the woods. Crap! NOT what I had hoped for! I wanted him to drop dead right where he’d been standing. Then I wanted to jump up and down for joy and be congratulated on a great shot by my very proud husband and his envious cousin. NOPE! I whispered loudly, “Where’d he go?” John reported that he’d run up the hill and into the woods. He wanted to know if I thought I’d hit the bear. “Yes,” I told him, “I thought I hit him.” He and Craig both said they did not hear the telltale “thump” of a shell smashing into an animal. I was truly disappointed. I thought to myself, “This is not for me. I’m not going to keep shooting at bears and missing!” John had been videoing me while I was preparing to make the shot, then he put the camera on the bear just before I fired. From our sniper position, we replayed the video to see if the bear looked hit. John thought he was running like he hadn’t been wounded. More depression for me! Craig used his range finders to see how far the shot was. It was 138 yards. I had been practicing from only 80 yards. Craig was a bit more optimistic and said, “Well, if she feels sure she made a good shot……let’s get in the boat and go over there to look for him. We felt sure we’d find a good blood trail from the beach we could follow.

We began the processing around midnight and finally finished around 5:00AM. Craig stayed out for an hour or so, but he was so tired from not getting a nap that afternoon, that he finally gave in to exhaustion and went inside for a “nap”. He told us to wake him when we needed help with the quarters, but we let him sleep. Since Craig went in, that left me to help with the processing. I wasn’t supposed to have to do that, but it really wasn’t too bad and I couldn’t see leaving John out there to do all that work alone! He seemed very grateful for my help and company over those long hours. It was broad daylight again by the time we finished at 5:00AM. Since all the coolers were in use, I made a little dam and we submerged the quarter in the little deep water pond. It worked great for cooling, but when we took them out of the water to put them in the game bags, they all had tiny pieces of rock & gravel attached. And, it was stuck on so well, that it didn’t come off easily or completely! We got the quarters into their bags and took them to the woodshed to hang while we slept.

The temperature was so warm that we had to get them submerged in the cold water again as soon as we woke at 10:30AM. We put the quarters into 2 large, heavy duty plastic contractor bags and again submerged them in the cold creek. We had the cabin rented until Saturday, but I really wanted to go home and process the meat. Craig wanted to go down to Homer to fish for Halibut and John wanted to stay in PWS. John gave in and we began preparations to leave. John & Craig left the cabin around 11:45 to pull the shrimp pots.

Game quarters cooling in an icy cold stream.

The guys returned with another good catch of shrimp.  I really wanted to get home before midnight! We all needed some quality sleep! We were able to get the boat into Picturesque Cove to load some of our gear, but the tide was heading out and we had to move it to the outside pretty quickly or risk it being dry until next high tide (in 6 hours). That meant that we were going to be carrying the rest of our gear at least a quarter mile. Not fun! John loaded 2 quarters at a time into his pack and hiked them to the boat. We finally had everything loaded, pulled the anchor and departed around 5:00PM. The ride back to Whittier was beautiful. The water was smooth and the temperature was warm. We had such a load that we had to run the kicker all the way back to port. Once we arrived in Whittler, I couldn’t wait to call my dad and report my bear hunting success. I ran to the payphone in the harbor office and called.  We stopped at the Sunrise Bar on our way home to have a celebration beer (since we no longer drink in the truck while driving). There was one couple and the bartender inside, and we, of course, shared our bear hunting story with them. After one beer, we headed on to Sterling. We got home around 11:00PM, we were all exhausted  After wonderful, warm showers, we finally got to bed around 2:00AM. Another late night!

Click here for Video  (Must have a high speed connection)

We took my bear skull and hide to Mike Frazier, at Fur & Feather Taxidermy, to get it ADF&G sealed and prepped for making into a rug.  He was surprised by the size of my bear's skull.  He measured it at 19 3/16.  He said of the 40 or so black bears he seals each year, he usually only gets one this large!  

I told John that I thought I might be interested in a moose hunt next.  Strange, but ever since then, I've noticed the moose hunting video, Love, Bull and Thunder has been playing on the DVD player a lot.