OUT!
T G
A G
ED
and bear fence setups,
we are home sweet
home and ready to
begin searching the area for bear signs.
We woke up early the first morning to clear skies and after a
quick cup of Starbucks and a bowl of oatmeal we are headed up
the bay to scout the area. About two miles up the bay, we find a
ridge which offers a good viewing site and after a short climb we
are setup and glassing.
I use three well known methods for hunting brown bears:
glassing, glassing and more glassing! My theory is pretty simple:
if you’re not glassing, you’re not hunting. We hike and cover
a lot of ground, but mostly just to go from one glassing area to
another.
Andy is the first to find a bear - a sow with two cubs; they are just
above us on the same ridge. She appeared to be just out of the
den and in no hurry to walk down to the beach, where defending
her cubs against aggressive boars looking to mate will become a
frequent event. They provide us with a bit of entertainment for
the next several days and we had a grand ole time watching the
22
antics of her two cubs, while Momma limbered-up for the trip to
the beach.
Note: Brown bear boars will often kill a sow’s young cubs to force
the sow back into estruses, where they will sometimes breed with
the very same boar that killed their cubs.
I spot a decent boar walking right across the bay and bear
sighting #2 is on the board. We’re finding lots of sign and bears,
but not wanting to place all of our eggs in one basket, we pack
our gear to head to the coast to scout another location before
tomorrow’s opener.
Evening finds us on the edge of a bluff glassing a long strip of
coastline where we have spotted fresh sign and we are not there
long before a lone wolf steps around an outcropping walking
in our direction. We setup to make a shot on him, but the wolf
catches us flat handed, scrambles up the bluff and passes in front
of us in the brush without giving us a shot opportunity.
What happens next is one of the most ^