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Possible Wounded Bear

Kodiak Cowboy

Kodiak Cowboy

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Spring Brown Bear has been in open Season going on a month now. I Heard a Bear was wounded and not yet recovered about a mile out back behind my house. After hearing two shots fired from a high powered center fire rifle yesterday afternoon then five more shots shortly after that. I assumed the worst. A hunter probably placed two no vital shots off and the bear headed for the safety of thick cover and the hunter started lobbing hail marrys at it before it disappeared into the thick alders. A senerio that happens to inexperienced bear hunters all to often. So I grabbed my binos and BPOBG (Big Pi**ed Off Bear Gun) to have a closer look. After about a half hour of scanning some hillsides from the hood of my SUV in the direction from where I heard the shots. I come across a side by side parked and the driver looking right at me through his field glasses. Once he noticed I had stopped sweeping the hill sides back and fourth and pin pointed him He took off in his ORV and started acting very suspicious. Driving back and forth on different roads Stopping to check and see if I was still watching him. So I think Yup! He's a solo Bear hunter. He's has a wounded bear down in the drainage and dosent want to go in after it to finish the job alone. After an hour of glassing and the hunter finally leaving the area I decided to back out call a friend and take another look this morning with some back up. A wounded pi**ed off bear is nothing to go at in thick cover alone. After my morning coffee. My neighbor, hunting partner, and good friend are going to take another closer look. Last thing needed in our small community is a wounded bear amongst children walking back and fourth from our small little school house! IMG_20220427_194122197.jpg My BPOBG. A Ruger M77 Hawkeye Alaskan with African Express sights. chambered in a fairly new cartrige by Hornady. The .416 RugerIMG_20220427_194137319.jpg
.416 Ruger loaded with a Hornady .405gr. DGX compared to a .45-70 USG loaded with 310gr. HP
 
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The 405gr Hornady DGX (Dangerous Game Expanding) Before and after expansion about 90% WR or a little better.
IMG_20220427_192721837.jpgIMG_20220427_192728877.jpga .416 Ruger loaded with a .350gr Barnes TTSX compared to a .338 Win Mag loaded with a .250gr Swift A-frame.

My favorite .416 bullet for big Brown Bear is the .405gr Swift A-frame! The WR can be expected to be .95% or better after expansion.
 
Speaking of brown bears, have you ever run into that gentleman from the Mountain Men series that runs a guide service for bear hunters somewhere on Kodiak Island? Sure looks plenty dangerous from what I've seen on the show. Be careful our there. As an old hunter told me one time, if it's wounded it will either die or it won't. I don't like the idea of wounding an animal and not following up to finish the job, but at some point in respect to your own safety I guess you have to draw the line.
 
We didn't find blood this morning, but plenty of fresh sign. Along with plenty of well used trails. No mistaken a KBB trail. they Are twice as wide as deer trials. Sometimes they are split right down the middle from both sides of their four feet.
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I see probably 100 piles of deer droppings to every one pile of Bear scatt.
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I got a few more picks but nothing great. Just a couple bear beds.IMG_20220428_172606143_HDR.jpg
This bead is used by many different bears and is at least ten years old! They rake leaves or grass in a pile.
Then lay on it for a mattress. When they wake up from thier nap. It's pretty much a leave pancake 😂

After I got back from seeing if I could find blood from what I saw and heard yesterday. I callef fish and game even though I wasn't sure or not what happened. I just wanted to check if any hunters had reported wounding a bear. It's a stickt law that you have to report if you wound one and don't find it, and a good law! I haven't heard back.
 
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After I relaxed from my three hour hike looking for bear blood. My squaw had me take a neighbor some of her famous doughnuts. I dropped them off and she said John was out look for a
bear that his 10 year old had spooked out of a water hole under a log bridge while riding his dirt bike. The bear apparently almost collided with Ryan and his little 50cc Ryan crashed and ran home the bear ran away also but came back later and chewed the seat of the bike. So I went back out for several more hours in a stand to try and handle this bear. I got in a tree stand and tried calling him in with a fawn in distress call till dark tonight. This particular bear has been seen by different community members in the area for over a week now and the young bear is basically a teenager in bear years. He gets braver and braver. I'm going out again at 4 in the morning here in just under four hours to try getting him to come to the fawn call. Eventually he will come! I took a picture of the little dirt bike seat just as I got out of the woods and stopped by John's house to warm up on my walk home. The little bike is his kids. Goodnight guys. I gotta rest up.IMG_20220428_225144719.jpg
 
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I gotta give an honorable mention to my healer/ausi shepard. Angus Bull Young! He's the dog in the pictures and my favorite bear hunting partner. He's very vigilant and stays right by my side. He will most always hear or smell a near by bear before I even know one is close if I can't see it. He never gives us away or gets us busted with barks or growls. I can always tell one is close by his body language and how he positions his ears. He's always on watch while hiking. He's a good boy!
 
Kodiak Cowboy said:
We didn't find blood this morning, but plenty of fresh sign. Along with plenty of well used trails. No mistaken a KBB trail. they Are twice as wide as deer trials. Sometimes they are split right down the middle from both sides of their four feet.
View attachment 26899
View attachment 26901
I see probably 100 piles of deer droppings to every one pile of Bear scatt.
View attachment 26902
I got a few more picks but nothing great. Just a couple bear beds.View attachment 26903
This bead is used by many different bears and is at least ten years old! They rake leaves or grass in a pile.
Then lay on it for a mattress. When they wake up from thier nap. It's pretty much a leave pancake 😂

After I got back from seeing if I could find blood from what I saw and heard yesterday. I callef fish and game even though I wasn't sure or not what happened. I just wanted to check if any hunters had reported wounding a bear. It's a stickt law that you have to report if you wound one and don't find it, and a good law! I haven't heard back.
Click to expand...
Glad to hear no one got hurt.
Good luck on finding the bear 👍
 
Never made it in the field this morning. I was so dog a** tired from my hunts yesterday that I slept in a bit then got a call from a friend this morning that he was down the road and mired himself in the mud last night and need a pull. So I helped him out. Now I gotta do some honey do's for my squaw before she will let me go back in the field to play, but I'll be back in the stand this evening trying to call that bear in for an ambush. I'll keep you guys posted on the outcome first chance I get afterwards. Sooner or later. He'll show back up and I or one of the neighbors will send him home. He's just getting to brave around people at this point. If he starts robbing trash cans and dog food off porches and trashing chicken coops and killing hens? He will never leave wut is in his mind is a steady food source and potentially become over aggressive twords people. It's happened out here before more than once. None of us want to terminate an immature young bear, but he's worn out his welcome yesterday evening coming back to that kids dirt bike for a chew toy! Shoot fun, shoot safe, and shoot straight!
 
So hears the skinny on bear hunting Kodiak Brown Bear during open season, or terminating a brown bear due to protection of life or personal property. Alaska is broke up into 26 different hunting units. Some units hold species that other units don't. Kodiak is Unit 8 and Brown Bear hunting areas on Kodiak are broke down into several different sub units. All the sub units have a spring and fall season. Some sub units get issued more tags than others. Five tags in the fall is a lot for a sub unit. Some SU only get 1 or 2 tag issue. All these SU areas get one or two more taggs offered for the spring season than the fall because the Spring Bear harvest is usually less successful than Fall. All the sub units are lottery drawing only for Spring and Fall. With a certain amount offered for Non residents only and Residents only. Kodiak Brown Bear is one of the most sought after fair chase big game trophy animals in the world because they are the biggest bears in the world. Rivaling any give of Africa's big five hunts. Cape Buffalo, Lepord, Lion, Hippo, and last but most certainly not least Elaffant. The cost of hunting KBB for non residents rivals Any exotic species hunt around the world. Costing 20,000 for a bare minimum guided hunt to over 100,000 for a first class KBB guided hunting experience. Non residents must be accompanied by a guide. Usually at least a 10k to 15k minimum charge. The amount and status of accomadations goes up from there.
Aside from the sub units Kodiak has a road system area that makes up about ten percent of the island. The road system offers an unlimited amount of across the counter tags for Spring and Fall Brown Bear to Res and Non resident hunters. It cost Residents $25 a tag. Non Res about $700 a tag I think, but I'm not sure. There is also the Non Res cost of a guide and lodging ect.

Killing a Kodiak Brown Bear during closed season due to protection of life or personal property is not illegal, but you better have your story straight and it better be legit because it will be investigated. The ADF&G dont mess around when it comes to poatching Kodiak Brown Bear. You will spend time in prison. Our bears deserve their respect and the harvesting of them is well managed. You can not keep the Hide Skull or claws if you kill a bear during closed season to Protection of Life o Property. Some Problem bears have been relocated some get terminated. Some neighbors and I all bought road system tags because we all live on the "road system" even though our small community is 50 miles by road or 15 miles by boat from The Town of Kodiak. We intend on taking this bear out before it's to late and a tragic accident happens. We are all bear friendly in our community, but also bear smart and the ADF&G office in Kodiak encourages small communities (basically villages) on the island to terminate Problem or even potentiall problem bears. If it's open season the only benefit of killing a problem bear is one can legally keep any or all parts of the animal.

Shoot fun, shoot safe, and shoot straight.
 
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