Kentuckiana Hunter

Randy and I arrived in Anchorage at 2:30pm on Saturday May 7th. On the way to my sister house, in Palmer AK, my sister stopped at Fred Meyers to purchase ingredients for a derby pie. Today is Derby Day and she wanted a Derby party with her sister and favorite brother-in-law.

The weather was beautiful. Temperatures in the mid 70's.

We invited Jim, our pilot, and my sister JudthAnn's neighbor, over for Derby pie, and to discuss our plans for our black bear hunt.

As we had planned, we departed for the wilderness the next morning, at daylight. Jim took Randy first and they set up camp. Jim's plane is a very lightweight piper cub. He can only fly one passenger and very limited gear per trip. Then he delivered me. The flight was spectacular. We spotted several black bear within hiking distance (5 miles) from our campsite. We flew over Knik Glacier and Colony Glacier and landed on the far side of Lake George, forty miles from the nearest road.

*Camp*

We were not allowed to hunt the same day we flew in. The next morning, after a hardy breakfast, we trekked to a nearby butte to glass the far mountain side. The morning was cool, lower 40's, but that soon changed. By 11:00 AM it was 80 degrees. May 9th in Alaska, was early spring. We could only find one small scrubby tree that had just started to leaf, for shade. It was on the side of the butte, so we had to dig our heels in, and lay at a 60 ^ vertical angle on the hillside, and hang onto the trunk of the tree, to get shade from the sun. Early afternoon, Randy decided to check out the other side of the butte, the side facing the 3 mile wide glacier valley, that we had trekked across from our camp. He had not walked 30 yards from where we had been hanging on the side of the butte, and spotted two three year old bears. He motioned for me to bring my rifle. They were only 80 yards from where Randy was standing. They were smaller than we had hoped for. I watched them for 20 minutes, and debated. Randy told me he was going to hold out for a larger bear. I debated and I debated. "How many hunts have I been on, and gone home with an unused tag?" "Randy, I'm going to take one of these bears home with me." I downed my bear. It dropped off the butte into a ravine full of alders. It was a real task to move the bear from the alders so we could field dress, skin and quarter it.

*Mary's Black Bear*

When the task was finished we pack the bear into back packs and trekked back across the glacier valley. As we arrived back to camp, Randy heard a plane that sounded like Jims. It was Jim's. He was on his return trip, from dropping a father and daughter at a camp, ten miles further up the glacier valley. He landed, and was amazed that I had already filled my tag. He took the hide and meat out with him when he left, since the weather had turned so warm.

Next morning, I left my 7mm back at camp, since I had already filled my tag. Randy had planned to take a black bear with his 50 cal. Knight muzzleloader. This day we went back to the butte that we had hunted the day before. Glassed all day. Randy saw two sows, one with new born cubs and one with one year old cubs, and then one large black bear, alone, hopefully a boar. While crossing the mountain steam, and thrashing through the alders, Randy lost track of where his bear was located. When we were loosing daylight, we headed back to camp.

The next morning we had a new plan. We decided to climb the mountain, that we saw all the bear activity the day before, instead of glassing from the butte. We chose a route that didn't look so treacherous, only to find out it was woollier than it looked. After climbing about 1500 ft. to the ledge we plan to hunt, what we thought looked like a grassy meadow, from the glacier floor, was really a thick jungle. Randy walked about 30yds. from the edge of the ledge that we had just climbed up on, when he saw black fur rush by 10 yd. in front of him. "Bear". Just then I saw two infant cubs scampering up a tree 25 yd. from us. "Lord save us please!" That means mother bear is somewhere closer than we want her to be. With Randy standing in front of me, I turned and ran toward the ledge that we just came up. Randy with his muzzleloader raised and ready, slowly backed to the ledge. He then told me that I should not run in the presence of bears. I told him that I didn't need to worry; he was between me and them. That was the last day Randy hunted bear with his muzzleloader.

The next day Randy went hunting by himself, using my Remington 700 7MM. Morning temperatures were in upper 20's and my sleeping bag was feeling too good. He glassed the mountain for about half the day, but freezing rain and snow had set in.

The next three days we were marooned in out tent. Freezing rain and wind. A good thing that Jim left us a case of MRE"s and fruit and snacks, Randy was bored, so he ate, and he ate, and he ate. I warned him that if the weather didn't break, Jim could not come get us out, in his lightweight plane. Maybe we should ration what food we had. It did not stop him. He ate, and ate.

The fourth day of bad weather, there was a break in the morning. Jim knew he could get at least one of us out, before the weather turned bad again. So he called one of his pilot friends to fly his plane also, so that we could both be flown out.

Saturday evening we picked up Randy's brother at the Anchorage airport. Dwayne was to hunt the second week with Randy. Cindy his wife, and I were going to spend that week, doing the tourist thing with my sister.

*Randy's Alaskan Black Bear*

Randy and Dwayne flew out again on Sunday morning. The weather was better that week. But the mosquitoes were horrible. On the day before they were to fly back to Palmer, AK, Randy shot his black bear. He had taken it with a 300+ yd. shot. Having just come out of hibernation, his coat was thick, long and beautiful. He was the big black bear Randy had waited for.

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