Hi Tussey:
Welcome to the club. I have to agree whole heartedly with ArcticBowman. It's definitely a thrill to sneak up close on a griz when there is very little to no cover.

Though griz are plentiful when hunting them, I always seem to find the most griz, and have more bizarre encounters when I'm not looking for them.

For your amusement, two such incidents follow:

I'll never forget the time that my partner and I had a close encounter. We had just spent the last 4 days cutting our way out of the Kahiltna basin, loaded to the gills with gear and meat, when his machine over heated and we had to shut down.

Swatting at the ever present bugs, I suddenly caught a whiff of that all too distinct bear smell (kinda like a wet dog, only much stronger). Instantly the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Quickly looking to my left, I noticed a large pile of debris, with a moose's hoof sticking out! Sure sign of a bear kill.

You never saw two guys grab iron so fast in your life. Here we were sitting in the middle of a small tundra opening, surrounded by thick brush, and a fresh carcass that a bear had obviously staked claim to, just 15 feet away, and his scent still fresh enough for our poor quality noses to smell…and no way to escape.

Seasoned in the ways of bears, both my partner and I kept our guns at the ready, each looking in different directions, with his 7 year old son between us, and with the occasional surreptitious glances at his confound engine temp light, waiting for it to go out.

Luckily the bear had thought better of taking us on, and the only sign of him, besides the smell, was the bushes moving, as though in a slow direct line away from us.

In another fun encounter, I had dropped a nice spike/fork moose deep in a swamp area, at about 8:00 pm. Darkness was setting in fast, and I knew that I was in heavy bear country. Normally this is not a big deal, because your partner and you take turns riding shotgun as the other skins, but on this trip, I was by myself.

Not 5 minutes had passed since I arrived at the kill, when I heard the "popping" and woofing noises associated with an agitated griz. My animal was in a bit of a depression, laying in about 6 inches of water, surrounded by high grassy tussocks. About 10 feet from where the moose lay, was the beginning of an alder thicket. The bear was in there, shaking the brush, making noise, and generally letting me know that he wanted my moose (by his proximity, I suspect that he may have been stalking the moose, in hopes of killing it for his dinner).

Sweating like a pig, with my much vaunted Beneli 12 gauge propped up against the carcass, I set a world record skinning that moose. Every few seconds, I would stand erect, wipe the sweat out of my eyes, and yell at the bear. I only actually saw him three times, but he never left me alone the whole time I was there.

Finally, after about 45 minutes, and with the light too dim to even see the bear if I had to shoot it, I got the last of the meat in a game bag, threw it in the back of my Polaris 6x, fired 'er up, and was out of there.

I fervently hoped that I had left enough gut like delicacies behind to keep the bear from feeling the need to follow me (trust me on this one, I and several friends of mine, have been stalked by griz while riding wheelers. The myth that they are afraid or deterred by the engine noise is pure nonsense).

It took me a good three hours of riding through the swamps (no trails in this area), dodging holes, small stumps, and all the many other hazards present in such terrain, with nothing but the dim, and all too narrow beam of my headlight, to finally make it back to my vehicle (thank God for the Advent of the GPS).

The next day, after the moose was hung, I decided to go back to the same area with a friend, and see if we could fill his tag. Again, there were no trails to follow as we were exploring new territory the whole way.

When finally we arrived at where my GPS said the moose carcass was, all we could find was scattered bones, and shreds of skin. The bear had eaten the majority of the gut pile, and drug the rest of the carcass (mostly the head, spinal column and pelvic bone) deep into the alder thicket.

These are just two of what I consider the more recent comical encounters.

As a life long Alaskan, who spends a great deal of time, exploring and playing in the wilderness (though the last trip I mentioned was not really wilderness, as I could get to my vehicle in one day) it is practically inevitable that I posses a vast repertoire of such encounters, including some that involved attack, surprise, mischief, and all too close of calls.

What ever else, you can be assured that grizzly hunting is one of life's most exciting challenges, and that it is never dull.

Oh, by the way, be sure to carry a back up weapon, just incase you miss with the bow, or your arrow happens to piss it off, and it identifies you as the source of it's discomfort

Never used a guide, so can't help you there...sorry.

<img src=icon_smile_tongue.gif border=0 align=middle> If You Ain't Hunted Alaska, You're Still Just Practicing <img src=icon_smile_tongue.gif border=0 align=middle>