gary can give a good rundown on him and tj's bear. the story behind kyle's bear deserves to be told also. here's a lil' pic


we had hunted hard since getting my bear on the first day. rain was happening all the time. our inlet was really choppy and made for some hair raising and just miserable times out on the water. we didn't see another bear on tuesday and got froze, saw one at a huge distance wednesday, on thursday we were able to try and set some ambushes up for these guys and failed about 3 times. it was getting late and i asked kyle if he wanted to make one more pass, which took well over an hour and a half, he said sure so off we went. went back to the original cove where i shot my bear and nothing. just when we were about giving up about 7 30 pm as it appeared that the weather was cooling and the waves were building, kyle spotted two bears on a beach about 500 yards away. as there were two we thought they might be cubs, but decided to motor straight at them this time. we had changed strategies as these bears hadn't seen humans and really the big ones were not afraid of anything, the little ones were skittish.

so we just motored straight at these bears. kyle was glassing them and turns to me and says, "that bigger one is a large boar!" so we slowed a touch but got careful not to make any unnecessary movements and approached with the wind slightly in our favor. kyle had his 7.5" 454 casull FA 83 with nosler 300gr partitions loaded to about 1650 fps and a leupold 2-8 variable power scope on top. as we approached the bear took notice but didn't run. guess he thought we were a large red floating log. he was wrong! we hit the beach and in one smooth motion kyle slid out of the boat and up the beach, set his shooting sticks on the bear at about 40 yards. he had a hard time with the cross hairs, the bear's black color and the dark forest behind. the boar started to be agitated and i wasn't quite sure he wasn't either gonna charge or run. kyle got the cross hairs steadied and lit off the shot. this rolled the boar onto his side and he rolled down the beach towards the water, the bear collected his whits and gave a growl looking straight at us then took off for the woods, kyle fired two shots by point shooting the second taking the bear just infront of the rear legs. the bear collapsed and made one last lunge into the trees.

i knew he was hit hard by the reaction, but we had to loop around the area he ran up into the forest due to the dense vegetation. guns drawn and flashlights on we approached not quite sure what we were gonna run into. not to worry, kyle's bear was in a small pocket of branches and vegatation not 10 feet into the tree line. the bear traveled a total of 20- 25 feet, not yards.

upon skinning the bear there were two entrance holes on it's left side the size of a quarter and two exit holes on the right side the same size. the vitals were a wreck. heart, plumbing and lungs just looked like they went through a blender.
that load sure did the job and was very very decisive. all in all it was a great relief to be able to relax the next day thanks to kyle's shooting skills and i congratulate him on a great bear

The pic doesn't do the bear justice. He's 18" and while not as large as Mark's bear, still a great trophy with a perfect hide.

All of the bear hunt details are great. All of the bullet performance details were also great. This hunt sounds like a GREAT time. Congrats to everyone.

It sure looks like you guys had a great time!

What outfit did you go with?

we went with rdm pilot/guide in ketchikan. all these bears were big and it took the calipers to really know which was bigger, just eyeballing these bears it was just hard to tell which was gonna be the biggest not that any of us cared. i shot the biggest by pure accident.

Congratulations on a great hunt!!

Ryan's website is http://www.rdmpilot.com

Nice going guy"s.

Thanks for the site, looks like a great outfit.

Congrats again on a great hunt guys. Thanks for the pics and stories.

Congrats to all involved...Looks and sounds like a great time.

Great bears for all of you guys & it sounds like a great trip!

Great job, sounds like a really great time had by all.

Many have said it well before me but, great bears, great pictures, and great hunt. I was anxious to see how you guys fared, and you all did more than well... congratulations. I know who to ask questions to if I ever get to book a hunt like yours.


p.s. I, like many others here, am jealous and hope to get the chance at a true great adventure hunt like you guys had. congratulations again

Congrats!

Congratulations to Kyle! That is one fine bear!

I know everything is relative, but this wasn't an overly expensive hunt in comparison to a lot of other hunts out there. It was $4850 for 2 hunters. This doesn't include airfare or lodging before and after the hunt but when you think about a week of hunting in AK for less than $2500 per person it's a pretty good deal.

Dang right it's a good deal! I wouldn't hesitate to jump on that opportunity.

Thats not bad at all. I have looked at options like your hunt, and they are a fraction of the price of other hunts (moose for example). Its going to be a few years before I get to seriously look at a hunt like this, but I guess that gives me plenty of time to practice

I have also thought that a Sitka Blacktail hunt would be fun and reasonable. Did you see any when you were there Gary? I am pretty sure they have them on POW Island

I think a POW Sitka Blacktail hunt would be awesome and you can take 4 bucks. It's a fall hunt, obviously, in the alpine areas. I think the skeeters would be a force to deal with but it would be a damn fun hunt. That was one nice thing about our hunt - I think we saw 3 mosquitoes the whole week.

The one sad thing, is that hunts like Gary's and mine all but ended with this season. Come this fall, non-resedents must put in for a draw, or buy the services of a licenced guide. So much for an inexpensive, uncomplecated Alaskan black bear hunt.....

Oh geez, I almost forgot to congratulate the four bear slayers. And those 3 skeeters, well, they came up to Kuiu Island and used me for their boo-fay.

at least on POW you wouldn't have to be looking over your shoulder the whole time deer hunting like on Kodiak! that would be a bit eerie, but a heck of an experience.

I heard about the draw. Wasn't it done to control the hunting pressure? at least that is what I gathered

Well it depends on who you ask. The game dept. used that as an excuse if you ask some people. What they were really after is stopping DIY (Unguided hunters).

That sucks!!!!That makes that hunt a no go for me. I don't want to hire a guide.........especially if it's state mandated!

It's not state mandated and there is nothing wrong with hiring someone like we did unless you want to ship your own tents and zodiac and motor up there and then have it flown to camp or I guess you could drive up but then you wouldn't be able to hunt with a handgun and you'd still have to have someone fly your gear to someplace you could set up a camp.

They are just making it harder for the DIY guys. If they truly wanted to reduce the number of bears being taken they would reduce the bag limit for residents from two to one so their propaganda doesn't fly with me.

I would think the hunt you went on as more of a "drop camp" than a guided hunt. A guided hunt IMO is when some guide hunts your game up for you while you bring up the rear. When he spots game he tells you to shoot from that rock over there. Thats great if you enjoy that kind of hunt, and I have no problem with it what so ever. It's just that I prefer to hunt and shoot game on my terms. I may not be as successful but it's the way I prefer to hunt.

I would love to go to Alaska and hunt a grizzly/brown bear with my FA 454 or 375 JDJ. But since you have to have a guide, it's not even on my bucket list of hunts I would like to do.

Fair enough - personally I have no problem being guided on dangerous game or if I'm hunting someplace or some species that has special considerations or if a guide is required for access. You can read all the books you want on hunting, survival, etc. but things can be very different on the ground and the guide, hopefully, has experiences that you do not. I go into it with the idea and hope he/she is someone I can learn from and occasionally they might learn something from me. Who knows you might end up with a new friend for life. I have both clients I've guided and persons I've been guided by that fit into that category.

Or for me, if I am going on a "once in a lifetime hunt," I welcome the guide. I would rather spend a little more money and NOT come home empty handed...

I look at it like the guide works for you...if you want to hunt brown bear you could just hire a guide and have him do very little for you. I'm guessing the law doesn't specify how much they have to do, or even how much they have to be paid.

It just occurred to me that we're getting pretty far off topic. If anyone want's to continue the topic of guided then please start a new thread.