Rick Grant decided to book only two bear hunters this spring and we had planned to get most of the snow machines back to Dillingham at the end of the season. The cold weather was with us again for our first hunter, Muhki Singh, from Tucson. We had great snowmachining but no bears were out due to the bitter cold, until Muhki’s last day. We were fortunate to finally spot where a bear had exited his den and headed him off in the next valley. Muhki was a real good sport, cooked us some fabulous (spicy hot) Indian food, and I believe he thoroughly enjoyed his time at Tikchik.
The final spring hunter was Art Andersen, a repeat from 2010. This time Art brought his wife Charlotte along to enjoy some riding through the mountains but unfortunately, our nasty spring pattern caught us again with almost six days of gray and rain. The good thing was the bears finally decided to wake up and we found numerous tracks and a few dens and intercepted Art’sbear on their only real day out hunting. Art and Charlotte made the best of it while the rest of us were getting a little stir crazy. Snow conditions had changed dramatically so we only got one good group of machines in one trip to town. I believe we will have time to get the others out this coming spring. Dave Harris was my first Cape Pierce hunter in about five or six years.
Rick dropped us off at my favorite beach and we saw seven bears the first night with a sow and two cubs coming right into camp. I spotted a bear from camp about 7:30 the first morning and true to form, he lay in the bushes all day and didn’t show himself until 9:30 PM. After a mile walk down the beach to get crosswind, we made a half-mile stalk up to the base of the mountain and caught him coming out of the brush about 10:30. He died in a small creek and for the first time, I had to take all four legs off to get the beast skinned, which took two and a half hours. Carrying him out was the easy part. Rick picked us up the next day and later on saw a huge track on the beach near our campsite.
Jason, Lyle and Aaron were back guiding in the Brooks Range and I replaced Gary with Les Bragdon, who also guides moose and bear for Rick Grant out of Dillingham. Jason and Les guided brothers Per (England) and Hans Berggren (Sweden) at the upriver camp. Per finally got a great ram and Hans took a caribou and bear after I moved him over to the Colleen River. Les and Hans had tried for sheep for a few days and made a few stalks but never got close enough for a shot.
The float hunters on separate trips were Brandon Kieffer (Missouri) with Lyle, and Fred Martinez (Arizona) with Aaron. Brandon took an old, broomed sheep and Fred got a 40-incher. Brandon also came close to bagging a grizzly. Fred had booked a hunt in the Arctic Refuge but his guide had lost the area. Fortunately for us both I needed a replacement for a cancellation.
For the second hunt, I took Jason and Les over to the Colleen and they had an excellent hunt with Miles White and his son Adam from Chicago. Both father and son took grizzly and caribou and had no shortage of critters around them.
Lyle floated with Nathan Savage from Utah, and on the fourth and fifth days he bagged a good sheep and big, male grizzly. About the same time, Aaron’s hunter,Mark Sparboe (Minnesota) got a big sheep close to 40 inches. Mark’s son was supposed to come along for a sheep but couldn’t make it and Mark’s friend Jeff Norlin, accompanied him, but did not get a crack at a ram.
Toward the end of August, Thomas Arthur, from Wyoming, showed up and got a nice grizz on the first day and his caribou on the second day. Both he and Jason left the field that same day, definitely early, but satisfied.
Since Aaron had to leave after his second float to guide moose in southern Alaska. I hired new guide, Julia Heinz, from Haines, Alaska. I met Julia on the Kongakut where she was successful in taking a few sheep hunting with friends. Though she works as a doctor, she told me she would love to guide other female hunters. As luck would have it, I had booked Patti Hollibaugh from Nebraska, and Julia guided her to a nice grizzly and wolf both on the second day. The caribou were starting to migrate into my area from the Yukon while they were there, and they took a small one on the eighth day.
Steve Kuns from Indiana came back again for caribou with his two sons, Chad and Clem, and all three got their trophies on the fourth day. Steve had taken a moose the prior year and was to try for one again, but we got some unwanted rain and had to move them from the campsite he wanted for moose after only a day or two. Since they still had a halibut fishing trip planned, we decided to call it a season and I was able to get home to Anchorage about four days earlier than usual.
For the fall brown bear hunt, I decided to float a river new to me, with Gene Riordan from Butte, MT. This particular trip required packing all our stuff about 2/3 mile from lake to river. Another ¼ miles pack around a waterfall was also fitted in. We caught some nice rainbows, dollies and silver salmon, but hoped for better numbers of those.
The river was full of big, fat grayling. The wind, or lack of it, messed us up early on some stalks and Gene finally got a wolf on the sixth day and a big male grizz on the eighth and last day of the hunt. Jason took Charles Scappaticci (Colorado) and they got a nice salmon-eater on about the fourth day. On his last hunt, Jason guided Lyle Wilson to a big bruiser near their camp. They also got into some wolves that were hanging around a moose kill but didn’t connect.
My final hunter was John Bukoski from Michigan. We had numerous bears up close the first night and got a nice, older male, probably 8.5 feet, just before dark. We had to tie it up to shore overnight and wrestle it part way out the next day to be able to skin it.
My son Ben and I were very fortunate to be invited to South Dakota to hunt pheasant and fish for walleye with friend and past client Jeff Liudahl, from Yankton. Though numbers were down, 50-80 percent for the birds, we did get our limit of both. Jeff and his son, Jonathan, are planning a sheep, grizzly float trip for next summer.