Steve West spots a bear den a mile away.
September 11, 2013
By Steve West
This is Part III of a five-part series of Steve's Alaskan Bear Adventure
Click here for Part I | Part II
Steve West of "Steve’s Outdoor Adventures " took his show on the road for bear hunts in the Alaskan wilderness. Through April into early May, West and his team awaited the warmup that would bring bears out of their dens.West, a professional hunting consultant who books clients for trips, teamed with DeLorme inReach to update followers of the bear hunts, which will be featured on his Outdoor Channel show starting in October.
Following is West’s daily account and photographs of this Alaskan Bear Adventure.
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See his entries and photos from April 13-17.
See his entries and photos from April 8-12.
April 18, 2013
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Doug spots a small boar on his den … too small to hunt and only one bear a long ways out. But this is a good sign that things are opening up! We all head to bed that night with high expectations for tomorrow, because the weather forecast we got looks very good!
April 19, 2013
Good news rolls in, pilots return to tell us about a sow with two cubs at one den and another small boar on his den … and right below him a giant bear that left the den and headed to the valley bottom where they also saw some moose he was likely hunting. All of these bears in one valley … tomorrow we plan to ride the snowmobiles and haul a spike camp there, 30 miles away, and start hunting these bears!
We are ready!
April 20, 2013
As we are preparing to roll out one of our pilots flies out and returns quickly. He tells us two resident snow machine hunters killed the big bear in the valley bottom. The only shooter bear that had been seen. This floors Scott -- today was his last hunting day. So we give him an option, stay on and keep hunting or head home for 10 days and come back with warmer conditions and lots of bears out of the den. He opts to fly out the next day and come back. This guy is awesome and we all want him to get a bear very badly.
April 21, 2013
We do a photo shoot today for 5.11, Stormkloth II, and Kershaw as well as shoot some video for the shows. All of the things we try to get done on a down day.
About 5 p.m. the pilots return with a resupply of groceries and two new hunters! They turn out to be awesome guys, and we are all stoked to go hunting.
We take the last few good hours of light to shoot rifles and figure out which rifles the guys want to hunt with, etc.
Jerry Munk falls in love with my Bergara .338 Win Mag that is topped with the new Burris Eliminator III scope and loaded with Corbon’s 225-grain T-DPX bullets. We have killed a few big brown bears with this rifle; it is a bad-ass gun. Dan McArthur likes the Bergara .300 Win Mag that Scott was shooting. They have their rifles settled on and we are off to the races!
April 22, 2013
We scramble to gather our gear and fly everyone out to a location Jeremy decided on for a spike camp at the top of Hayes Pass, 1,982 feet in elevation, where we set up a two bomb shelter tent camp. One 10x10 and one 8x8 with a view you cannot fathom, only in Alaska!
We can see one of the bear dens about a mile away. Cold, clear night and we go to bed with high expectations and anticipation for tomorrow's hunt. I expect two things at this point. One, that we are now on the bears; and two, I have probably seen the last of the cabin and that I should get used to sleeping in a small tent!
Click image to view photos from April 18 to April 22
Click here to read Part IV
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