Post by lawrencecountyhunter on May 28, 2019 12:59:47 GMT -5
I have been planning this trip since I applied for the tag back in 2017. This trip involved the most logistical planning I've yet had to do, but was entirely worth it.
I started the evening of Thursday, May 16 with my flight from Indy to Seattle. I had an overnight layover in Seattle, so I grabbed a few hours rest on the floor in the airport. Friday morning got me to Ketchikan, but without a rifle. After about 3 hours in the airport my rifle was found in Petersburg AK, and was to be sent to Klawock AK by Saturday. So I caught the afternoon ferry over to Prince of Wales Island Friday afternoon, and by the last couple hours of daylight I was hitting some logging roads in my rented Suburban looking for bear sign.
The majority of the island is public land open to hunting.
My ride and living quarters for the week:
About the only good I did the first evening was eliminate some areas from consideration, as the timber cuts were old and overgrown and no bear sign was found.
There were lots of large slugs to be found:
Saturday morning I started finding some fresher sign. I hung some cameras and began slowly walking the logging roads, seeing lots of deer, but no bear sightings.
As I was driving out of the area a large bear quickly crossed the road in front of me, so I positioned another camera there and headed to the next logging road to look for sign. Upon reaching this area I found a decent sized bear in a clear-cut, but since I still did not have my rifle, all I could do was look at it and snap a picture.
After this I drove to the town of Klawock, where thankfully my rifle was waiting on me. I spent Saturday evening and most of Sunday slowly walking these logging roads, but no more bears made an appearance. I was still finding fresh scat, so I knew they were around, our paths just weren't crossing.
The type of country I was covering:
Skunk cabbage:
Monday I began the morning hiking one of the sections of logging road that had quite a bit of sign along it. I reached one of my cameras, and as I checked it I found a photo of a large bear, taken 9 minutes prior! I backed up about 40 yards and sat down on the edge of the road. After about an hour I heard something moving just a bit into the timber, but couldn't see more than a few feet into the edge of the temperate rainforest. After another hour a sapling starting moving around about 40 yards to the other side of me, on the edge of the road. The tree was doubling over and shaking all around, but I could not see the critter doing the shaking, as it was still concealed in the thick brush. The animal never stepped into view, and after a few minutes I went over to inspect the sapling and found that it, along with most of the trees in that small area, had many scratch marks and small limbs bitten off. I do not know if it had been the bear on camera or a different bear.
A little further up the road I bumped another bear, which tore off through the woods making bear sounds. Again, I couldn't see the bear even though it had only been about 10' from me, only seeing the brush shake as it moved through.
After finishing up my morning hike, I got back into the Suburban and drove around to another section of logging road. By now it was about 1 PM, and as I rolled along in the Suburban I spotted a bear just in the edge of a cut, approximately 50-60 yards away! Although I really wanted to take a bear by still-hunting rather than road hunting, which is legal and only second in popularity to boat hunting bears on this island, I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth either. To my amazement the bear stayed put while I parked the Suburban, got my rifle out of the back, stepped off the edge of the road and fired. At the shot the bear plunged down out of the cut into a ravine and out of sight. Upon walking up to where he had been standing, I could see him laying about 10 yards away/down into the ravine, most of the distance appearing to have been tumbled and slid down.
His hide was fairly rubbed out, but that didn't matter to me. This was my first bear, and I'm more than happy to have taken him.
I got him rolled over onto a tarp for the cleaning process. In about 4 hours I had him skinned, caped, and quartered into game bags.
I left the hide spread out and the meat in the game bags to cool overnight, and the next morning (Tuesday) I spent deboning and bagging meat into freezer ziplocs for the ride home. According to the airport scales I have a little over 100 lbs. of boneless meat, even after trimming most of the fat away, of which there was much.
Upon check-in the skull was measured at 19.75", and the taxidermist I dropped the hide off to stated it was a 7'+ bear, although I did not measure the hide myself. I do know that he hung off of each end of the 6' tarp prior to skinning.
With all of the work done by Tuesday afternoon, I had until Sunday to bum around and look for bears, scout potential deer hunting spots, do some light hiking, and drink coffee.
In total I saw 8 bears on this trip, with the 2 other near-encounters where the bears were just hidden from view. In all a great hunt, and I can't wait to hopefully do this again someday.
I started the evening of Thursday, May 16 with my flight from Indy to Seattle. I had an overnight layover in Seattle, so I grabbed a few hours rest on the floor in the airport. Friday morning got me to Ketchikan, but without a rifle. After about 3 hours in the airport my rifle was found in Petersburg AK, and was to be sent to Klawock AK by Saturday. So I caught the afternoon ferry over to Prince of Wales Island Friday afternoon, and by the last couple hours of daylight I was hitting some logging roads in my rented Suburban looking for bear sign.
The majority of the island is public land open to hunting.
My ride and living quarters for the week:
About the only good I did the first evening was eliminate some areas from consideration, as the timber cuts were old and overgrown and no bear sign was found.
There were lots of large slugs to be found:
Saturday morning I started finding some fresher sign. I hung some cameras and began slowly walking the logging roads, seeing lots of deer, but no bear sightings.
As I was driving out of the area a large bear quickly crossed the road in front of me, so I positioned another camera there and headed to the next logging road to look for sign. Upon reaching this area I found a decent sized bear in a clear-cut, but since I still did not have my rifle, all I could do was look at it and snap a picture.
After this I drove to the town of Klawock, where thankfully my rifle was waiting on me. I spent Saturday evening and most of Sunday slowly walking these logging roads, but no more bears made an appearance. I was still finding fresh scat, so I knew they were around, our paths just weren't crossing.
The type of country I was covering:
Skunk cabbage:
Monday I began the morning hiking one of the sections of logging road that had quite a bit of sign along it. I reached one of my cameras, and as I checked it I found a photo of a large bear, taken 9 minutes prior! I backed up about 40 yards and sat down on the edge of the road. After about an hour I heard something moving just a bit into the timber, but couldn't see more than a few feet into the edge of the temperate rainforest. After another hour a sapling starting moving around about 40 yards to the other side of me, on the edge of the road. The tree was doubling over and shaking all around, but I could not see the critter doing the shaking, as it was still concealed in the thick brush. The animal never stepped into view, and after a few minutes I went over to inspect the sapling and found that it, along with most of the trees in that small area, had many scratch marks and small limbs bitten off. I do not know if it had been the bear on camera or a different bear.
A little further up the road I bumped another bear, which tore off through the woods making bear sounds. Again, I couldn't see the bear even though it had only been about 10' from me, only seeing the brush shake as it moved through.
After finishing up my morning hike, I got back into the Suburban and drove around to another section of logging road. By now it was about 1 PM, and as I rolled along in the Suburban I spotted a bear just in the edge of a cut, approximately 50-60 yards away! Although I really wanted to take a bear by still-hunting rather than road hunting, which is legal and only second in popularity to boat hunting bears on this island, I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth either. To my amazement the bear stayed put while I parked the Suburban, got my rifle out of the back, stepped off the edge of the road and fired. At the shot the bear plunged down out of the cut into a ravine and out of sight. Upon walking up to where he had been standing, I could see him laying about 10 yards away/down into the ravine, most of the distance appearing to have been tumbled and slid down.
His hide was fairly rubbed out, but that didn't matter to me. This was my first bear, and I'm more than happy to have taken him.
I got him rolled over onto a tarp for the cleaning process. In about 4 hours I had him skinned, caped, and quartered into game bags.
I left the hide spread out and the meat in the game bags to cool overnight, and the next morning (Tuesday) I spent deboning and bagging meat into freezer ziplocs for the ride home. According to the airport scales I have a little over 100 lbs. of boneless meat, even after trimming most of the fat away, of which there was much.
Upon check-in the skull was measured at 19.75", and the taxidermist I dropped the hide off to stated it was a 7'+ bear, although I did not measure the hide myself. I do know that he hung off of each end of the 6' tarp prior to skinning.
With all of the work done by Tuesday afternoon, I had until Sunday to bum around and look for bears, scout potential deer hunting spots, do some light hiking, and drink coffee.
In total I saw 8 bears on this trip, with the 2 other near-encounters where the bears were just hidden from view. In all a great hunt, and I can't wait to hopefully do this again someday.