Alaska hunt...

[freefall]

When Remington introduced their .416 mag they sold a boatload of them for a couple of years, many to bear guides. Hank Rust remarked at an AGC show, "What, they think their .375s won't work any more?"

 

[double rifle newbie]

according to the guys at sportsmans warehouse in anchorage, the two biggest sellers are 300 win mag and 338 win mag. makes sense. both are flat shooting, and both hit hard. hunters up there will go after brownies and griz with 300 win mag but i would make that the smallest caliber for that type of hunt. my dad took his griz with a 300 WM. ive used 30-06 and 338 win mag up there for caribou, but i took my 416 win mag for my griz hunt because it has a quick detatch scope and my 338 does not. willow thickets can get thick and shooting thru a scope isnt anytthing id like to do at spitting range.

 

[AES]

@Marcos Rodriguez what @BRICKBURN said.

Regarding bears, generally speaking Black Bears are more dangerous than Brown Bears. It is extremely rare for a Brown Bear to kill someone. Even maulings are rare.
.

Perhaps I am missing some context here but, in my opinion, this is absolutely untrue.

 

[gbflyer]

Alaska State Guns:

For rifles: Amish Machine Gun (Remington 760) in 35 Whelen, SS Ruger 77 30-06 with boat paddle stock, and Ruger Mini-14. 12ga auto for waterfowl and you’re just not doing it right if you don’t have a .44 Magnum on your hip at all times.

 

[freefall]

Perhaps I am missing some context here but, in my opinion, this is absolutely untrue.

And you're basing your opinion on your experience with North Carolina Grizzlies?
I love it when people from Outside tell me how bears act and how I need to defend myself from them.
When you have been within 15 feet of one, let me know what you did.

 

[Marcos Rodriguez]

Shorty will do the job sir!

I´m glad to read this!!! thanks!!!

 

[Ryan]

As an aside, with all the talk about bear protection, here's a picture of the animal that threatens more people with bodily harm and puts more people in the hospital up here. A cow moose. If she feels you are threatening her calf she will chase and pummel you with her front hooves. I have been chased three times and none of them were bluffs. There's two recent videos I've seen of cows chasing down bears that must have tried for the calf. One at the gate of Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage. Your best protection there is fast feet and a tree (or a van in my case) in between you and her until she loses interest. And they like to cross the road at really bad times when they blend into the darkness oh so well. It's tall enough you take out the legs and the rest goes through the windshield at whatever speed you were going.

I saw this cow and two bulls out hiking yesterday. The bulls are in the second shot, one at maybe 15 yards, which shows how easily they can disappear.

 

[Say Man]

Perhaps I am missing some context here but, in my opinion, this is absolutely untrue.

As a 28 year resident of Alaska and hunting here I can say with pretty much certainty that what sourdough stated is true! A brown bear will be more scary just due to their size but will pretty much just roll you around a little and leave if they are wanting to! A black bear on the other hand will fight to the death and you gotta hope that it is their death! I've had grizzly bears pop their jaws when walking around streams here and that can get the hair on the back of your head to rise up! But I have never seen them! They bugger off usually if you are not right on top of them and surprise them. I've also stumbled upon black bears in devil's club and gotten too close for comfort! They all ran off! They all make you a little uneasy but the brown bear is much less likely to kill you than the black bears!

 

[Sourdough]

@Ryan so true. A good friend got caught by a bull moose in a 5 foot deep snow mobile track almost three years ago now. With no way to get out of the track (he was walking) the moose caught him, got over the top of him and started stomping. My friend managed to roll back and forth and avoided most of the stomps but one finally caught him and shattered his left foot and ankle. He was finally able to get the moose off by squeezing its nuts as hard as he could.

 

[freefall]

My friend John used to live on the Tokositna River. He stepped out of his cabin one morning directly between a cow and calf. If his son hadn't been there with an 06 over the door he'd have been dead. I saw him about 10 days after this had happened, he was still stove up and had an impressive slab of hide peeled off his forehead. Had that stomp been just a little more square...

 

[Sourdough]

I know my Alaskan brothers will get a kick out of this. Before the world ended I was driving through Florida when I came across a Polar Bear crossing sign. Now I know there are black bears in Florida, but Polar Bears? Only thing I could figure was even Polar Bears when they get old and tired of the cold move to Florida. I pulled over and watched for a while but my timing must of been off because no polar bears crossed the road.

 

[Foxi]

And you're basing your opinion on your experience with North Carolina Grizzlies?
I love it when people from Outside tell me how bears act and how I need to defend myself from them.
When you have been within 15 feet of one, let me know what you did.

I can understand AES quite well.
Being eaten by a Grizzly still has something novelistic about it, is good for posterity and is great material for one's own heroic saga.

But killed by a common Black Bear--a bit embarrassing, isn't it ?

 

[freefall]

I know my Alaskan brothers will get a kick out of this. Before the world ended I was driving through Florida when I came across a Polar Bear crossing sign. Now I know there are black bears in Florida, but Polar Bears? Only thing I could figure was even Polar Bears when they get old and tired of the cold move to Florida. I pulled over and watched for a while but my timing must of been off because no polar bears crossed the road.

View attachment 482080

But that polar bear is wearing blackface! Racist!

 

[BeeMaa]

Most deadly animal in the WORLD...

 

[freefall]

Heh. I thought it was going to be a redhead.

 

[Inline6]

I thought it was a misquote?

Either way, have only been black bear hunting. Was in a ground blind, had my rifles and my 45 on my side. I watched a black bear walking on the hill about 45 yards away. It disappeared about two minutes later it spooked and ran right at my blind. I pulled my pistol thinking this is not how I planned to kill my bear. It slowly walked by my less than 10 yards away. It was definitely an eye opening experience.

Why my pistol I'm sure some are thinking, 1 it happened fast like in a split second. 2 rifle was mounted in a tripod. Generally speaking when I hunt my pistol is on my side.

 

[Marcos Rodriguez]

Hello Marcos and others,

In advance I apologize for the length of this rant.
But it’s raining all day here where I live and I can’t get outdoors to work around my house.
So, I’m drinking espresso and typing (lucky you guys). LoL.

Calibers for Alaska:
I like very much the .375 H&H for both Alaska and Africa alike.
However, the good old .30-06 is very popular in Alaska (in Africa as well) and it has been reliably taking all species of Alaska game animals for over 100 years.
I have used both calibers here and over in Africa, with perfect results.

Alaska Bears:
I have lived in Alaska for just a tic over 40 years now and I have had many “close range” encounters with grizzly (aka: so called “brown” bears), black bears and a very few polar bears.
Close range in this case being under 100 meters, many times way closer than that.

Most of my close range bear encounters have been with grizzly, due to my love of fly fishing for trout and salmon.
This of course involves camping near and walking along remote rivers and creeks, with fly rod in hand.
Also, I’ve been dispatched to quite a few problem bears (grizzly and sometimes polar), during my years of being a bear guard on the oil field.
My employer sent me to a school to learn about bear behavior and how to interact with problem bears.

Likewise, I have bumped into grizzlies, while deer hunting and while caribou hunting both.
Once a grizzly took a caribou away from me that I had shot, out past the village of King Salmon, Alaska.

Furthermore, I have worked as a bear guard on photography and research ships, voyaging to Siberia and the far north, true Arctic environment.
I would go out in the ice with photographers and biologists, armed with pepper spray, flare gun (issued by my employer who maybe had never seen a bear).
I prefer the flare gun as a less lethal option, instead of the pepper spray.

And my firearm of choice was always my .375 H&H, iron sights and 300 gr A-Frame ammunition.
But on one voyage, my employer (on the South Korean ice breaker Aaron), insisted that I carry a shotgun instead of my rifle.

So, I carried a Remington Model 870 Magnum, 20 inch barrel and iron sights, loaded with a single 2&3/4 inch, rubber buckshot cartridge for the first round and then, all cartridges following were 3 inch Brenneke rifled slugs after that.
As for pepper spray, I like the idea of having more than one tool in my kit, when dealing with bears.
However as mentioned, the flare gun is my choice instead of pepper spray.

Last but not least, my house is although inside the city limits of Anchorage (300,000 to 350,000 population), it is in the woods.
As such, we have black bears visiting several times each summer and occasionally grizzly too (less commonly but also wolf, wolverine and lynx as well).

The point of this long tedious rant is that, I have not yet had to kill a bear.
My multiple experiences with them have left me with the opinion that, bears are very similar to dogs.
While walking about your neighborhood, most dogs will not attack you.
In fact most dogs probably don’t really care about us passing humans, unless we have food they can smell or, if we behave in some offensive way toward them.
A very unusual exception might be if we encounter a starving dog, so desperate that it could be willing to risk death by attacking us to eat our flesh (highly unusual but remotely possible).
However, it is the odd angry “criminal mindset” dog or bear that attacks without provocation, because that’s what criminals do.

In my many experiences with bears, they seem to regard us about the same as neighborhood dogs.
Most (most) have little to no interest in us.
I have stood in knee deep water, catching char (a type of trout) and silver salmon (aka: coho salmon), where the O’Malley river empties into Karluk Lake, on Kodiak Island, with multiple grizzlies also in the water, catching fish on either side of my location.
They paid little to no attention to me personally.

But each time I caught a fish, I had to play it gently, in hopes it wouldn’t splash very much.
On Kodiak, Afognak and other large Alaska islands, as well as along various streams on mainland, Alaska, I have either had bears take splashing fish from my line or from fishing companion’s lines, before we could bring the fish to hand for a photo and unhooking it to release.
If one or more bears are close while I’m fishing, I do not try to retain and carry a fish back to camp for my eating.
It’s likely to arouse the bear’s instinct to take it away from a lesser animal (me).
Also, I always begin gradually fishing my way from any bear/s that want my fishing spot, no problem.

Anyway, after all is said and done, do not lose sleep worrying about being attacked by bears in Alaska.
It could happen but it is not very likely at all.
You’re probably more likely to be struck by lightning while hunting or fishing in North Dakota, eastern Montana, etc.

Just study up on bear behavior and if you see one, act accordingly polite in bear terms, up here in the far north.
Also, bring at least a .30-06 and 180 grain or heavier bullets for whatever you are hunting here.
If you are unlucky enough to be the exception to the rule and a bear actually tries to bite you, (again, very unlikely), do shoot your .30-06 straight (brain or spine) and I predict that you will prevail.

That said, although I am not particularly afraid of bears, nonetheless I have huge respect for these pre-ice age monsters ability to snap me like a stale bread stick, in the event I bump into the odd angry “criminal” bear one of these years.
Therefore, my favorite rifle for Alaska is the same as for Africa’s so called plains game.
It is the .375 H&H.
With 300 grain bullets, it is a lot less destructive on meat when shooting smallish animals, such as duiker and black tail deer.
Yet by reputation, it will crumple charging grizzly and lion alike.

Unfortunately, Winchester has quit making their stainless steel / plastic stock model 70 which, was possibly the best affordable to all hunters, rainy / snowy weather and sea spray resistant hunting rifle, world wide.
They might still make it in .338 Winchester caliber which, indeed is another wonderful cartridge for Alaska, Canada, Africa, etc., etc.
The stainless steel Ruger that 1dirthawker uses here in Alaska while guiding bear hunters is another great rifle for our often wet.
I’d like to see Ruger start making that rifle with an H&H length action.

Cheers,
Velo Dog.

Very detailed!
Thanks!!! Here, we call the native people as "baqueano"... the "baqueano" are the person who lives in the hunting or tripping zone, and he knows almost everything about it...
A smart hunter, NEVER discuss anything with the "baqueano", there are a very foulish actitude haha

 

[akrifleman]

IMHO Alaska is a tough mistress that wants to kill you. I suspect more people have flipped boats and canoes, been killed by space heaters and fires, or suffered heart attacks than have been mauled. I'd pick proper preparation and practice over cartridge. Having said that, we all carry 375s and I carry a 475 Linebaugh. I've had to use them, and not found them lacking.

 

[oscar1975]

I would carry my Remington 700 in 338 Winchester Magnum or my CZ 550 Magnum in 375 Holland

 

[fourfive8]

Yep, typical DOT sign using generic “bear” stencils/patterns- now maybe computer generated image for sign patterns. Still a head scratcher why would a polar bear be used as a generic bear? Typical in certain areas of the mule deer West where a whitetail deer won’t be within hundreds of miles yet generic whitetail image is on all the road warning signs. I think just a matter of, “don’t know, don’t care and don’t care to know”.