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An Alaska Black Bear Hunt
By Bob Keagy
My wife Pam and I just got back from our black bear hunt with Jimmie Rosenbruch, well-known bear guide and owner of Glacier Guides, Inc. (E-mail: jrosen@redrock.net. Web: www.glacierguidesinc.com). Although a tad bit pricey, it's a heck of a hunt. You hunt off a luxurious 78-foot motor yacht, in some of the most productive littoral/tidal black bear country in all of Alaska.
Our "home base," the motor yacht Alaskan Grandeur.
The hunting is anything but arduous, which is one reason I chose the hunt. I've dragged poor Pam through enough drafty tents on cold ridgelines, and I intended this to be a bit of a change. It was!
While I could bore you with details, essentially the second night we had staked out a meadow running about a mile in each direction. During Alaska's incredibly beautiful spring, the bears feed extensively on grass and wild onion after their long winter hibernation. There was still snow on the ground at sea level!
A representative shot of the Alaskan landscape in spring, just as the wildflowers make their appearance.
After about four hours of glassing, we spotted a large, waddling black bear about 8 pm across a creek. He looked big. Jimmie and I hopped into our skiff, and went back down the creek, in order to get 400 to 500 yards downstream (and downwind!) of the bear. We landed, and ran crouching, then crawled to get into position, and finally got a quick 135-yard shot at a very nervous bear.
The bear was a beauty, "squaring" (nose to tail, plus tip of claw to tip of claw, divided by 2) 8 feet and one inch. His skull measured 20 5/16, making the B & C Awards minimum of 20 inches. Both measurements are more common for a grizzly bear than a black bear. We guesstimate the bear's age at over 20 years. What a wonderful experience!
Our trophy, a Boone & Crockett Record Book bear.
After several more days, we returned to Petersburg, and finished out our trip with two days of salmon fishing and whale watching (Pam found herself in a pod of 45 humpback whales - a photographer's paradise!) , and we got home at 11:30 on Friday night.
Jimmie Rosenbruch said to say, "Hello," to all his former clients.
Hope you found this of interest,
Best regards, Bob
(PS- FYI - Jimmie has only one opening for the next umpty-ump years. It's a 2008 Fall hunt, so if anyone has any interest, you'd better get crackin'.)
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