An Alaskan Brown Bear Hunt – Jerry 2014

Jerry’s 2014 Bull Moose

Jerry’s pursuit for a DIY brown bear resonates with me as my pursuit of a DIY Dall Ram was a journey of memories I’ll forever cherish.  Below is Jerry’s story, I hope you enjoy the adventure.

BROWN BEAR DOWN! By Jerry

Jerry & Berke

For ten years my buddy Berke and I have hunted hard trying to get a Brown bear.  We started not knowing much and learning as we went along. We saw bears but never could get to them. Finally we got a brown bear down!

Berke and I had both been successful  shooting black bears and now we wanted to change our spring bear hunts to focus on brown bears.  We are blessed to live in Alaska and as Residents we can chase brown bears without a guide. We were excited to make this a DIY pursuit. Expensive drop offs were not in the cards for us so for transportation we utilized our legs and  4 wheelers.  We knew we would be hunting late spring because of snow levels and this already hurt our chances, but we had to keep trying. Every year we went out Memorial Day weekend on a 4 or 5 day hunt.  In the fall while Moose and caribou hunting we were always looking for an opportunity.  Our first 7 years we tried a new spot every year looking for a promising area that had a lot of bear sign.  However, we just couldn’t find a good area that combined sign, access, and opportunity.  We kept pouring over maps, researching, and searching to find that perfect spot.  As the years went by we started finding areas that showed bear sign. We returned to the same area a few times hoping to find our brown bear.  We saw a sow with cubs but still no legal brown bear.

Our annual fall moose hunt revealed an occasional brown bear, but only one of those times provided an opportunity to put a stalk on.  Alas, the wind was not favorable and the bear scented us and once again no luck.  Time flew and in this pursuit we flooded 4 wheelers crossing streams, blew out axles, and winched out of so many mud pits we lost count.  We blazed our own trails and explored as much as we could. We would get up high with good visibility and sit and glass for days hoping to find our brown bear.  We streamlined and improved our hunting gear and did everything possible to cut down on scent and use the wind in our favor.  Still no luck.

Glassing

Its been a 10 year pursuit with many adventures to share, but lets jump ahead to September 2014.  We are on our annual moose/caribou/bear hunt.  Both Berke and I have shot our moose and we are now focused on getting a brown bear.   We had seen a sow with a 2 year old cub and not even a remote chance of going after it, so we kept glassing.  7 days into our 9 day hunt and we finally spot a beautiful blonde brown bear as the morning fog is lifting.  About that time a float plane flies over us and the bear runs off into the trees.  So we wait and glass some more.  Early afternoon rolls around and to our amazement the same blonde brown bear shows up again.  He is a good 1.5 miles away and so I decide to try my fawn distress call and see if I can bring him to us.  No luck, he just goes back in the trees.  At this time Berke and I think we have messed up our chance and figure he is long gone.   We kept glassing– though.

Yamaha Rhino – Alaska Tough!

Evening rolls around on that same days and a little over a mile away we see our blonde brown bear working its way through the trees to Berke’s moose kill sight.  Wind was in our favor and we knew the window of opportunity was now.  We grabbed the rangefinder, spot messenger, GPS,  rifles, extra ammo and went as fast as we could to the moose kill sight. We were 260 yards from the kill sight and had a decent view but no bear.  We stood there for 15-20 minutes looking around but no bear.  We decided to move further up a small incline to another tree, keeping the wind in our face, and moving slow and quiet.  We got to the tree with a slightly better view and waited there another 15 minutes.  Still no bear.  We were getting worried at this point that maybe the bear had heard us and gone back in the woods.

From this vantage point we figured we would go ahead and sneak up the incline some more and get a better view, but we were concerned as there was little cover.  As we slowly sneaked up the incline Berke spotted the brown bear. It was on our left and coming through the trees about 300 yards in front of us,  working his way toward the moose kill. Berke pointed out a good area to shoot from so I set up for the shot.  The bear started walking through a grassy marsh area and we had a line of trees between us and the bear.  I picked an opening in the trees to take the shot and  Berke ranged the bear at 200 yards.  I waited patiently and soon the bear came into the opening in the trees.  After all these years I finally had a shot at a brown bear! It was a struggle, but I focused on keeping calm and keeping my heart rate down. I placed my crosshairs just at the front of his left shoulder and squeezed off my shot with Berke backing me up. My shot entered just in front of his left shoulder at the base of his neck and went out the right shoulder. It flipped over on its back and flipped a leg in the air, and was dead.  Once again my 338 RUM had performed perfectly. Berke and I were in dreamland.  We couldn’t hardly believe it, brown bear down!

We had to hike back up to camp to get our gear and return to skin it out.  I was so amped up I could have run a marathon. Berke was ready to have a heart attack part way up the mountain because I was going so fast!  We got it skinned out and headed back to camp at 1:00 am.  We crashed, then the next day we had to head out.  We had a long  run to get back to the truck. It had been raining a lot and the terrain was a nasty muddy wet mess.  It took us 26 hours to make what was normally a 10-12 hour trip. We tipped one of our Yamaha Rhinos over, had overheating issues from mud clogging up the radiator and oil cooler, and got stuck so hard my 4500 lb. winch couldn’t pull us out, and we had to use a block and tackle kit.  We were concerned that our winches were going to break from overuse!  The entire trip out whenever we would get stuck or another problem arose we would tell each other “brown bear down buddy.  It’s all worth it because we have a brown bear down.”

Jerry’s 2014 Blonde Bear

When I got the bear sealed at fish and game, they said it was one of the blondest brown bears they have ever seen.  It may not be big, but it is beautiful and even my wife was amazed.  The Lord has blessed and protected us on our adventures.  Now it is Berke’s turn to get a brown bear and I sure hope it doesn’t take another 10 years to do it.  We have been hunting together for so long now we make an awesome team.  Sure hope I can be his spotter this next time and he can get a BROWN BEAR DOWN.