30 May 2007
May 30, 2007 - Day 4 in Alaska - Time To Hunt Some Bear
Posted by Darrell under: Alaska; My Journal .
Check out our Pictures from May 30!
Caleb and I woke up early and packed everything in the hotel in preperation for being picked up by the outfitter. We then went down and had breakfast in the Hotel Restaurant, which is called Zen. It was a typical hotel buffet breakfast minus fruit, yogurt, and pastries and cost $26 for the 2 of us. I won’t be eating breakfast there again.
We are back in the room and waiting to be picked up by Keegan McCarthy of Ocean Point Adventures. We are heading to the unknown where internet and cell towers do not exist in search of giant coastal black bears. We will be sleeping on a boat and glassing bears from a smaller boat. Once spotted, we will beach the boat and attempt to stalk up close enough to harvest one with my Redhead XP-35 compound bow. We’ll also be fishing and crabbing the whole time.
We were picked up by our guide, Chad Poppe, at our hotel at about 10:30. He took us to a couple hardware stores to buy what we still needed, which was basically quality rain gear, fishing and hunting permits, and my bear tag. The fishing/hunting permit with King Salmon stamp was $330 and my bear tag was $225. Rain gear and .44 ammo was almost $400 for Caleb and I both.
There were lots of surprises today. We met Keegan, our outfitter, for lunch. He seems like a nice guy in his early 30’s. He told us that it has been a tough season so far. Only 5 of 9 of his hunters have taken bears. This is surprising because he has been at 100% for the past 3 years. Also, Alaska has just passed a law that if I wound a bear he has to take my license.
Most surprising, he had two other clients with him, plus his dad. I was told that Caleb and I would be hunting with Chad and we’d be staying on Chad’s boat. Chad’s boat doesn’t have private sleeping cabin’s or a toilet. We’d be using a bucket on the back deck. This wasn’t what I had anticipated, but added an interesting twist to our adventure. I’m here to hunt bear so better to make the best of it.
I will be archery hunting. To date, Keegan has not had a successful archery hunter. I might be the first! Keegan had assured me that he could get me to within bow distance of a bear. He also said he’d keep an extra gun on board, in case I decided to switch to hunting with a firearm.
I was nervous about all of this when I found out I wasn’t hunting with Keegan. He would be hunting in a different area with some other clients, one from Seattle, and one from Phoenix. His client from Phoenix was archery hunting, too – just like me.
Keegan’s dad was an interesting guy. He now lives in Seattle and works for a conservation group soley committed to helping the snow leopard. He travels in Mongolia, Pakistan, and other areas for months out of the year tracking and trying to collar snow leapards. Have you seen the clip on Discovery of a snow leopard chasing a goat down a mountain? Keegan’s dad, Tom, caught and collared that exact leopard!
After lunch, it was off to Chad’s boat. It was a true fishing vessel. The sleeping area was tiny. We had to just fill up the beds with our luggage as there wasn’t any room to keep it anywhere else. I decided that Caleb and I would be wearing the same clothes for most of the hunt as there wouldn’t be much room for changing and unloading stuff from the suitcases. Chad didn’t even bring a suitcase just a trash bag of clothes he stopped and picked up from the laundry mat.
We had to make another stop before even getting out of Juneau to fill the boat’s tanks with water and to buy 2 stroke oil for the skiff which we towed behind us. As we left Gastineau Channel the water really started getting rough and I was worried that Caleb (or even I) would get sea sick as the boat was all over the place.
We found out that we would primarily be hunting a bay called Boat Harbor. Chad is familiar with the area as he does a lot of commercial fishing in the area. There have been reports of a monster black bear in the area. I wonder if every green hunter is told about ‘reports’ of big bears.
There is a fish pen in Boat harbor similar to a trout farm. The state of Alaska releases Chum Salmon in different areas each Spring to encourage the Salmon to return to areas other than Juneau. This particular project is 20 years old. The Salmon fry, which weigh about 2.5 grams each and number 15 million, are scheduled to be released on June 4.
Working in this remote area would be an adventure in itself, as it means you must live out here, cut off from civilization for 3-4 months every year. I assumed that anyone that chose to do this would not be too hospitable to strangers. I was wrong.
At about dark, we arrived in Boat Harbor. Chris Crowe, his wife Pam, and Renee were all working this project. They live in a house boat and have a fishing boat and a Skiff. They all seem happy and well adjusted and welcomed our intrusion on their quiet. When we arrived in the Harbor, they invited our guide, Chad, to tie right up to their boat for the evening – which we did. They then invited us over to talk and we spent several hours chatting and touring their project. They were very hospitable and offered us food and drinks – which aren’t easy to come by out here in the remote Alaskan wilderness.
I didn’t choose to come to Alaska to be around other people. However, it was a great experience meeting all three of them and worth getting to bed at 1:00 am.
Tomorrow, we will hunt bear!
One Comment so far...
Derick Says:
1 June 2007 at 4:49 pm.
Hunting from and sleeping on a boat is a smart move! The last thing you’d want is to have the tables turned and have some bear stalking you on the land. I hear that doesn’t usually turn out well. And at least you’ll have something to do (crab/fish) while you look for bear.
Good luck! I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.
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