Big Brown Bear

[cubdriver55]

This is my first attempt at posting a picture. I killed this bear on the Alaska Penn. on May 13 2008. It is the biggest bear I have ever shot. 28 inch scull squared over 10 ft. The hide weighed 154 lbs. without the scull in it. Just thought it would make a good post. Thanks Steve

[fowlplay]

Congratulations on a Great Brown Bear and picture. What was your weapon of choice?

[Al]

holy smokes, gotta be a story behind that??

[younghunter86]

cubdriver55-

You have to give us a little writup or at least some of the basic details. That things is huge! I really want to have the opportunity to go after one of those things someday. Don't know if it will happen or not. Regardless, great job on your hunt! Please fill in some more details of the hunt if you get a chance.

[jims]

;D Did you wrestle that big brute to the ground. ;D Nice bear.

[davewolf]

I'm with these folks, sure would like to hear some details on that bear! Congrats!
Have a great day!
Dave

[cubdriver55]

To make a long story short we flew down to where I had hunted before and landed on the beach the day before the season started on May 9. We set up camp and the next morning went up to my glassing spot. I set up the spotting scope and saw someone standing below us in the direction I was glassing. There were 2 people and they had a camp set up on a point. I had no idea there was anyone else around until then. We moved back to a lookout point watching the beach for bears coming up the beach. It was the only place we could watch for different bears than the other hunters were looking for. The only problem was we only had a small area to watch with bears only coming from one spot. We watched that the rest of the day with no success.
That night a storm blew in and the wind was blowing about 60 mph, it was all we could do to keep the tent from blowing apart. It blew all the next day and until about noon the following day and we never left the tent. About noon the wind and rain subsided enough that we could open the tent and watch out the tent in the direction we had been watching 2 days before. About 1:00 a bear came up the beach toward our tent but the wind was blowing from us to him and he only came within about 100 yds of us, he was only about an 8 ft. bear so we let him go. I was looking for a big bear and since the bag limit on the Peninsula is one bear every 4 years I was only going to kill a big bear. I had hunted the Peninsula a lot in past years and let many big bears pass waiting for that rare 10 footer.

About 2:00 the weather broke and we decided to move to a spot where we would have more area to glass so we packed up camp and flew about 30 miles farther down the Peninsula and found a promising looking place with a gravel spot we could land back from the beach about a half mile. We set up camp and stayed in camp until the next morning. ( In Alaska you can not hunt the same day you fly).

The next morning we climbed a small hill between us and the beach and picked a spot to glass from. About 10:00 I saw a big bear come out in a meadow between us and the beach about 1 mile down the beach from us. He was moving and we were not sure we could reach him but if we kept back from the beach and angled toward him we could keep the wind in our favor. We ran a good bit of the way and closed the gap quickly. When we got close he was angling toward us and we had about a 10 mph wing coming off the beach in our favor. We needed to cover about 500 yds to intercept him coming into a good clearing. We covered about 200 yds then crawled to within 240 yards of a spot where he was coming into a spot in the clearing where there was no brush. I was planning to get closer but just when he got there he stood on his hind legs and looked right at us and was trying to get some wind. There is no way he smelled us but for some reason he knew something was up. I can't tell you how but these old big bears seem to have a sixth sense, I guess that is how they live for 20 plus years to get so big. He had some brush up to about his waist but the upper part of his chest was clear. I never like to shoot a bear in this position because you can't break the shoulder and it is easy to miss the vital organs, but if this bear dropped down and turned around he would be in the brush and gone in an instant. If he simply dropped down and took two more steps he would be in the wide open with a broadside shot. It was a tough decision but I had to make it in a split second. I decided since I was shooting a .460 weatherby that I was confident at shot placement and knock down power up to 300 yds. I would take the shot. I shot and he dropped down and ran like he had not been hit. I shot again at him running then he turned and ran directly away from me and I shot again. He dropped dead about 30 yds from he was standing. When I walked up to him I knew he was at least a 10 ft bear. The first shot had hit him right in the heart and exited out the shoulder. The second shot had hit him just a bit back in the chest and the last shot hit him in the back foot.

After skinning the bear we packed it back to camp which was chore in its self. The next day we flew back to Willow in terrible head winds covering about 500 miles at about a 50 mph ground speed. I put the hide on the scales and without the skull in it it weighed 154 lbs. I had hunted for years trying to get a 10 ft. bear and I finally got one.

[cubdriver55]

Here is a picture of the hide.

[younghunter86]

Thanks for the hunt details! Anyway you look at it, that is a big bear!

[davewolf]

That's a huge bear! Thanks for the account of the hunt, I really liked the details. Congrats!
Have a great day!
Dave

[huntingmike]

Thanks for sharing. Great bear!

[jims]

Fine story and bear.

[artjr338wm]

Your choice of a 460 Weatherby reminds me of a interesting story. I was at the SCI convention in Lost Wages about 6-8 years ago and while there I must have watched well over 100 videos of Alaskan brown bears being shot. Every last one ran off except one.

I watched a video of a brown bear hunt with the actual guide in the video. His client shot a brown bear that later squared over nine foot. His client shoot the bear once at quite close range (under 75yards) with a .375 H&H the bear instantly began to run away, until the guide shot him once. That bear stopped as if it ran into a solid concrete wall and did not move a hair again.

I asked the guide what on earth he was shooting, he replied a 460 Weatherby mag with 500 grain soft points. He went on to say he just did not want to fallow any more bears into the "thick stuff" to find them. Has not since going to the 460 Weatherby and made a point to make high shoulder shots.

Excellent bear, I'm tempted to ask you how much it costs to gas up your new fur covered VW? and what kind of mileage do you get?