We were originally planning to base ourselves at
a lodge about 3 hours out by boat, but as is Alaskan
tradition, the weather can change in a second. On one
side of this tunnel, the weather is good. Once we got to
the other side of the tunnel, it was storming, causing 30
knot winds and 10 foot seas.
consisted of a variety of rock fish. We did spot a few
bear and attempted a few stalks with no luck, the bear
moved off before we could get into bow range.
While fishing on the 4th day, we spotted a bear on the
shore line picking through leftover salmon carcasses.
We knew the bear was stalkable, so we got into a raft
We spent some time meeting some interesting people and paddled our way to shore, staying out of sight. We
in Whittier, listening to their stories. On the third day, made our way towards the bear keeping the wind in our
we were able to get out doing some fishing and glassing. faces, and came up to 117 yards away. At that point,
It was still rough, and the day ended empty handed.
there was just no cover in front of us and I was not
going to get close enough for a bow shot. I signal to Rob
The weather began to break a bit and the plan was
Snider to come with his Rifle and this was his bear. Rob
to go fish and glass for black bears along the shoreline.
steadied his rifle, made a fantastic shot, taking double
One thing about bear hunting on Prince William Sound
lung and the bear went 20 yards before expiring. We
is that it’s a later season as the rest of Alaska, it didn’t
had just harvested our first spot and stalk black bear in
open until September 10th. We were hoping to catch
Alaska.
bears feeding on salmon on the shoreline, but by the
time the season opened, they had stopped feeding on
Even though I didn’t harvest a black bear on this trip,
salmon, moving inland to berries, which made it very it was great to share in Rob’s experience of taking his
difficult to glass due to the bush.
first Alaskan black bear.
The
fishing
enjoyed by all,
and the catch
18
was