I just got back from my hunt to Admiralty Island....it was a tuff one...My best buddy Shawn and I went for a two week hunt. There were virtually no fish in any of the streams for the Bears to feed on.. My outfitter commented that in over 30 years of guiding he had never seen it without fish and ultimately without many bears on the streams. They are doing an awful lot of seine fishing out there. It appears to have affected the salmon population drastically. We saw 11 bears in two weeks of hunting. My outfitter said he would usually see between 30-50 bears in a one week period. It also rained over 8" while I was there. Tuff conditions for sure.. I chose kryptec rain gear, and wore lite morino wool every day. The rain gear worked great, kept me dry. I ended up taking my BFR in 500 smith loaded with Barnes 357X bullets. Day one we saw one bear leaving the beach and head into the brush not to return.
Day 2-no bears
day3- no bears
day 4 we left the beach and headed into the opening of a flowing creek and headed up it. After a few short yards into the brushy area all heck broke loose. A very angry large sow with two cubs headed out of the brush and charged us. My buddy Shawn pulled out his 500 linebaugh, I unholstered my 500bfr. Mike the outfitter Sholdered his 350 and started yelling at her. She turned at about 20' and headed up and away from us. all in all it was an awesome experience. We moved at a much slower pace for the rest of the trip.
Day 5 We were sitting on a stream that had about 5 fish in it. We had not seen any thing all morning, About 12 we pulled out our lunch and ate while it poured rain. As we were sitting there to our amazement a Boar comes rambling down the creek, I imedialtely rested my 500 on my primos trigger sticks. The bear just happened to turn broadside to leave the creek. I placed the aim point red dot right on his sholder and squeezed. Bang and the Bear dropped in his tracks and never moved. IT happened really fast. Now we just had to find a bear for Shawn
Day 6 1 sow and two cubs
day 7 no bears
day 8 no bears
day nine.. we came across two bears.. one was a shooter... we managed to get within 60 yards of a nice boar, but he got our wind and disappeared into the thick stuff.
Days 10=12 all we could find was rain. My buddy had a business issue and had to leave back for home. We ended up cutting the trip short,
All in all we had an awesome time. This was our third attempt at getting a brown bear... alwsys in different places. Finally it happened for me.. Shawn was very disappointed, bet we are already making plans to head back, hopefully the fish come back too
I ended up finding the bullet in the off side hide. Broke both sholders and the bullet actually weighed 378 grains with the flesh that had embedded into it. The shot was 45 yards. I had practiced for months shooting close to 500 rounds in preparation.
I have booked a mountain goat for September next year in Alaska. I am going to try to do it with a revolver as well.
I will post some pics on the bragging board.

Sounds like a great hunt,WTG on the bear.

Congrats! Sounds like a very memorable hunt.

Congrats on getting your bear!

Congrats on your brown bear! Well done

Good on ya! And thanks for sharing.

Awesome! Top of my bucket list.

Congratulations!

Way to go.

Sounds like a great hunt! Congrats!

Congrats! The last picture you posted on the bragging board looks like you're dragging Bigfoot.

Great hunt!!!

Congrats. Brown Bears are totally awesome.

Congratulations! Awesome that you were able to get it done with the wheelgun!

Congrats!!!!!!

Wow, what an experience. That expanded bullet looks huge. Not sure what looks more scary. His claws or the bullet? Congrats.

Craig

I think I've check every post PH posted and can't find his pictures of this? Where's the bragging board?
Steve

http://www.handgunhunt.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=6837&limit=recent
I can't get the picture to load but this is the link.

Wow. Great hunt. Good choice on the barnes. They are devastating. How fast did ya run it???

I was getting 1650 fps from my bfr with the 375gr x.

Wow. Handload or a factory round.

Good job there all the way around.

Another notch in your handgun with another fine animal to add to your collection. I can sort of understand about the rain as I went through similar conditions on my Alaskan brown bear hunt, however, we had fish in the streams which kept them in the open.
My sincere congratulations......

I just looked through the pictures. Congrats on a successful hunt!

Excellent! I used the same bullet on my brown bear at 129 yds. He didn't move. Can't beat the rush from taking a big boy!!

Thanks for all the great comments guys
my handloads were 37gr h110 and large rifle primers in hornady brass,
I played with ceb 400 gr solids that shot just as well. I decided on the barnes after reading about some of the others on here that used it on there hunts.

Nice bear and well told story.Sorry your buddy didn't get a bear but it sounds like he got a little excitment !

Itll be all the sweeter when he does get the bear