The short of the long…was up North towards Eagle in Alaska, stopped off to for a ride on the tundra with the ATV's, hoping to find some Caribou or a moose with my son. We rode about 4 miles in on a small ATV trail and got to a glassing point overlooking this huge bowl. We set the ATV's up so that they could block the unforgiving tundra wind and fired up the Jetboil's. I was making Spaghetti that a local company "Heather's Choice" makes for backpackers (highly recommend them…not too keen on their breakfast meals, but their lunch and dinner stuff is really good) when about a mile away I caught movement down below us. Slid over my tripod with the binos mounted on it and immediately could see it was a good sized interior griz wandering around the tundra eating blueberries. Handed the spaghetti off to my kid (who promptly ate it upon my departure) and set off on foot to try and get up on this bear.
Problem with the whole stalk was that there was literally 2 pine trees on the open tundra somewhat between the bear and myself. They were only maybe 2 feet tall if that, but they served as landmarks for me. One of the best lessons I learned as a guide out west is how to pick landmarks out and how to plan a route to where I wanted to go. Things have a tendency to look one way from a distance and a completely different way when you get up to them. I had the wind in my favor and I know that bears don't have the greatest vision so I slowly walked towards the bear cutting the distance as best I could. It took about an hour or so but I cut that distance significantly, and made it to my second small pine tree. I knew that the bear had to be close. I was stopped glassing but couldn't see the bear at all. I wasn't sure if it had left and didn't want to get closer until I knew where it was. I turned back to look up the hill at my son and he immediately pointed forward and then down at the ground. First thought was oh sh!?, it's close.
I turned back towards where the bear was and I could see a smidge of its back over the horizon really close to me. I took a step to the right which lifted me up maybe six or more inches, which exposed the whole back of it, but not the vitals or the head. I had my EL Range Swarovski's on me and of course I had to range it. 29 yards it came back to me at…I thought maybe I had hit the tundra and not the bear so I did it again…29 yards it said. That was 29 yards of completely open tundra between the bear and I, but he was below a small mound scavenging for blueberries. He suddenly dropped down out of sight and I knew based off of the terrain around him he had to have just laid down. I dropped down and crawled to my right which was uphill, I wanted to get above him before he got back up. I crawled until I could just see the back of his hair again and got into a seated position to try and get a shot when he stood up.
I sat there for probably 20 minutes and at one point he rolled a bit and exposed more of himself to me and I hit him again with the range and this time it said 30 yards. I'm assuming I lost a yard trying to get around and above him. Suddenly he stood up quartering away from me, turned his head and froze. No doubt in my mind he saw me…not sure he knew what I was, but he knew that I wasn't supposed to be near him. I pulled up the gun, was a .338 Win Mag, loaded with 250 grain Swift A-Frames, and aimed to punch it through his off shoulder. Squeezed the trigger and at the shot broke that off shoulder. He lunged towards me and with that off shoulder broken rolled when that leg hit the ground. He stood back up broadside and I punched him through both lungs. He didn't even react to that shot. He turned right towards me and took a limping step in my direction. He was facing me coming towards me when I hit him head on in the chest which ran an A-Frame through him. I'm assuming all the way through him as we didn't find the bullet, but I can't be 100 percent sure. Regardless at that shot he collapsed and passed away. I rolled over on my back, reloaded the gun, and just laid there trying to catch my breath. What an experience that was…and now you know why I was happy I was shooting A-Frames!
On a side note, as we were leaving, after we got the bear all cleaned up, my kid killed a great caribou, maybe 2 hours after I had killed that bear. So probably one of the most memorable trips I've had hunting since moving up here.
Mac
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