By Tony Smotherman
The famous saying that speaks of Alaska as "the last great frontier" has intrigued me since I was a little guy. Even today I find myself thinking of the western states such as Wyoming and Montana as being vast and uninhabited, but in comparison to Alaska they are thriving metropolises. Alaska covers approximately 571,951 square miles which is one-fifth the size of the continental United States. That is some serious ground to have the lowest population, per square mile, of people out of all the fifty states. In 2005 they finally broke 600,000 residents.
Obviously not known for being overrun with people, Alaska is known to have abundant wildlife and the best fisheries in the country. Outdoorsmen from all over the world flock to the far western state during the summer months with fly rods in hand to take advantage of the long, almost-24-hours-a-day summer daylight hours. I, on the other hand, was looking for a specific animal that probably could not be landed with a floating leader and barbless hook. I wanted to go Alaska black bear hunting. Many of the snow-blanketed islands, which don't have many people, have large Alaskan black bear populations that are ripe for black bear hunting.
My history does not have a background in bear hunting. Actually, I have only been hunting bear for a year and one week. But to be truthful, just thinking about getting another crack at the black balls of fur has taken up a lot of my brain space. In fact, almost a year ago I harvested my first two spring bears in Newfoundland. A few months later was able to close the deal on a giant fall black bear while bear hunting in the Canadian province of Ontario. This gave me black bear hunting experience in two of the three areas of the country that they thrive in: the Eastern and Central zones. Now all I lacked to be able to say I'd hunted black bear in three zones was the one in Alaska. That is where this story begins.
Preparation for this Alaskan trip took much longer than most trips because I stayed on a fishing boat instead of in a motel or lodge. I'm not talking about one of those large the-Deadliest-Catch fishing boats. Think much, much smaller. The boat that my crew of six stayed on was forty-two feet long from bow to stern with living quarters about a third of that length. Just think about all the things you would need if you were in the wilderness for a week with no way to get to town. You can bet that's a pile of stuff. Now cut it all in half due to room restrictions. You have to go back to the drawing board and see what is "really" important. That is why it takes longer, you have to keep downsizing your "needed" items until everything will go in one small bag.
After finally getting through that ordeal, I was off to Anchorage and from there down to Homer. This is where I met up with the crews of the Arctic Endeavor and Sundy operated by Ninilchic Charters. Justin, my captain, was a very seasoned 18 year old. By what I could tell, he had spent the better part of those years behind the wheel of a fishing vessel. To say he was well versed in seamanship was as understatement. He guided that boat out of the Homer harbor in pitch darkness, to set sail for our hunting location five hours southeast, without even the least bit of concern. I was clearly disturbed and he reassured me with a comment that he spoke often: "No worries mate."
We were going to hunt around Prince William Sound, an area widely known as the location of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. But due to bad weather and high seas our trip was cut short by an hour or so. Justin had to put us in a bay that was out of the heavy winds and twelve-foot seas. We didn’t realize it at the time, but this would be our home for the next three days. The weather would not let up enough for us to get back in the open water without fear of capsizing.
In times like this you have to adapt and make the best of a bad situation. And that's just what we did. We played cards and read books for the first two days while the rains steadily pummeled us. It didn't let up enough for us to spend even a few hours ashore. The water was fairly calm in the protection of the bay. That enabled our crew to glass the open faces of the surrounding mountains for bear. It didn't take long for everyone to get their eyes trained to see the black dots, black bears, all over the place. This country was littered with bears just freshly rolling out of their winter hibernation dens. With two days of glassing under our belts, the third day's rain was light enough for the crew to get us on shore via inflatable skiffs to try for a stalk. From the boat the country looked steep but manageable. Once we got on shore, however, it looked like a wall of switch grass that met the clouds with ravines that could hide small towns. Talk about deceiving! Needless too say, this first try at putting the move on one of the many bears that we could see from the boat schooled me.
The third day was a wash, but things were looking up. The NOAA Weather Radio said the seas would be calming to mere five-foot waves that night. That would give us a chance to slip out of the cove we had called home for the last three days, and closer to our original destination and much more huntable ground. It was not that we needed to see more bears, but we did need ground that didn’t require repelling gear to traverse.
On the morning of the fourth and final day, while most of our group was still hidden in the bunks, Captain Justin started moving us closer to Prince William Sound. But along the way we ran into more weather and he had to dock us in another cove. As daylight started to break, Justin stomped his foot in the wheel house, located above our bunks, as a sign for everyone to crawl out and get ready. To everyone's surprise, this area, though only thirty minutes from the first cove, was much more manageable and was also covered with bears. This was a welcome sign to me and my buddy Scott Rob, who was also the producer for Knight's Born to Hunt TV show. There were bears on the snow-covered mountain face in every direction we looked. After a quick breakfast, we all picked bears we wanted to go after, and to shore we went.
Scott and I rode in the skiff for three quarters of a mile up a river inlet. It led deep into the timber to a point we felt was in line with two or three different bears we had glassed from the boat. We then had to cover miles of cut-over timber before we got the where the mountain began to push to the sky. Once we got to the edge of the timber line we could see two of the bears that we has seen from down below, but there was still ground to cover as I was toting my trusty Knight KP1 .50 caliber muzzleloader and needed to get within 200 yards for a comfortable shot. Let me tell you, that next 30 minutes seemed like an eternity for Scott and me. My nerves and senses were on full alert as we had two bears at less then 250 yards away. But we couldn't get a visual on either due to the tall grass and plum thickets that covered the mountain. Between you and me, I think my boy Scott was starting to wig out a little. I’m not saying I was cool and calm either. We had one shot to level a bear or things could turn nasty in a hurry and Scott would be filming the whole deal.
After we got to where we thought the closest bear was, there was nothing. We looked in all directions and could not figure out where it went. I had made sure that the wind was in our favor and as light-footed as we were I could not see him hearing us. Scott and I both decided to sit down on a shelf to catch our breath and rethink the situation. We were there for five minutes or so before we decided to start working back toward the ocean and just as we got to our feet I saw a black dot, a big black bear, out of my right eye. I hit the dirt like I had been shot all the while hollering at Scott in a muffled tone, "BEAR! GET DOWN!"
We obviously missed our mark since we were sharing a shelf with the bear. From first visual it did not take either one of us long to get back in hunt mode. I quickly dropped my bipods to the ground and started pumping out ranges. It looked like he was going to walk through one small open spot just before he headed into the timber we just came out of. Best I could tell with my shaking hands, he was going to cross my path at 160 yards. This was a pretty good poke for a smokepole, but one I had practiced at home. When Scott gave the O.K. that he was on target with his camera, I started applying pressure to the three pound trigger of my KP1 Muzzleloader. As soon as the bear entered the opening my polymer-tipped 290-grain Knight Red Hot pushed by 150 grains of Triple Seven powder tapped him on his left shoulder and dumped him in one heap. My quest had just come to a screeching halt, three bears in three regions in just over a year.
This hunt will be seen on Knight's Born To Hunt TV airing on The Outdoor Channel.