It was Good Friday, April 19th, when the email popped up on my phone from Lance Kronberger’s wife, Nikki.
“I just wanted to let you know that our first set of hunters are already done on Kodiak. If you are able to fly up here sooner than your hunt date, we will be ready for you anytime,” Nikki said.
My brown bear hunt on the southern end of Kodiak was scheduled for May 1-15. The next day, I emailed her my new itinerary. I would depart on April 24th. Lance emailed back that he would meet me at the airport and then we would head right to Fish & Game for my permit.
Due to mechanical troubles, my arrival to Kodiak had to wait until April 25th. I arrived to a snow squall and was greeted by Lance at 7:10 a.m. We had breakfast, took care of my permit and hurried up to wait on Lance’s other hunter from Texas who was flying in mid-afternoon.
The first stop was to drop off Lance and the Texan. The floatplane then shuttled my guides, John Rydeen and Brandon Hamilton, from their first hunt area to where I would be hunting. After we landed, camp was offloaded onto the beach and set up.
The morning of April 26th was as nice a day as you will see on Kodiak. We loaded the Zodiac and putted about four miles to the back of a bay. After beaching the boat and tying it long in anticipation of the tide, we made a short hike to a glassing knob. The day was slow. John said the bears would really start moving at about 6:00 p.m. We glassed until 9:30 p.m. All told, we saw 8-10 bears but no shooters.
The weather changed the following morning. The ceiling was low, and it was misty. We boated and hiked back to the same glassing knob, but the weather started getting worse.
At 6:00 p.m., the bears started moving. There was a nine-foot class bear a few miles away at the head of the bay. “That’s not your bear,” John told me. With the weather deteriorating even more, we started back to camp at about 8:30 p.m.
We woke up to steady 35 mph winds on day three. It was too rough for the Zodiac, so we hiked a half-mile from camp to a glassing spot. The weather began to sock in. The better part of the day was spent trying to locate a good bear with our naked eyes because our binos stayed wet. To everyone’s surprise, we only spotted one bear.
On the morning of day four, heavy rain greeted us. The prediction was more of the same until May 2nd. However, there was a break before 3:00 p.m. and John said we should go for a stroll. We were going to a place he called Death Valley. I appreciated the reference to the football stadium of my alma mater, LSU. This spot got its nickname because of all the big bears they’ve taken there.
Not long into the 2+ mile trek as we crossed through a small basin, there was a bear. It was a boar better than the nine- footer from day two that was working the ridgeline. It wasn’t a bear we wanted, but we kept an eye on him as we worked our way to Death Valley.
We arrived and dropped our?packs, and the routine of glassing started. Within five minutes, Brandon had his spotting scope out and called me over to take a look. “I think this one has potential,” he said. The bear was three-quarters of the way up the mountain, lying down on a ledge. He had a pumpkin head. Brandon called John over to look, and we studied the bear in the spotting scopes. The bear was sniffing and looking up. It was less than 10 minutes but felt like 30 before he stood. His hind end was wide. He was facing away and looked like he would walk up the mountain, but the boar turned and started waddling down. John and Brandon remarked about his ivory white claws. It was a good bear. I looked at my watch and couldn’t help but laugh because it was just as John had said about bears moving. 6:05 p.m. Showtime. We shouldered our packs, and the hunt was on.
Dropping down through a small canyon choked with alders and salmonberry and then crossing a creek, we came up the other side and relocated him. He was 800 yards away. We now had a sow at 380 yards, too. She saw us and slowly walked out of sight into a small drainage on our right. We continued forward until he was 260-270 yards away. We dropped our packs, and Brandon placed my pack on top of his for me to rest and take a steady shot. I squeezed the trigger of the .375 H&H and sent the 270 grain Barnes TSX bullet with undetermined effect.
The bear stood, looking around for a couple seconds as if nothing had happened. “Shoot again!” John urged. As I tried to jack another one in the chamber, the bear charged on a beeline right at us. I could see alders shaking and breaking like twigs through my scope. He was in full sprint toward us with eyes of fury. The hair around his head was pounding up and down. At 155 yards, he checked up. Did I hit him? Did he see the sow? He turned broadside briefly enough for the bullet to report and belt him in the boiler room. I heard the flap. He buckled but started downhill towards us again, crashing through the alders. The boar stopped at 40 yards in an alder patch and let out a guttural roar. “Shoot him again!” John shouted. I couldn’t see him. John and Brandon, side by side, shuffled to the right and shot simultaneously for insurance, even though the boar was mortally wounded by the double lung shot.
We stood there full of adrenaline. No movement. John had us stay put with our rifles aimed at the bear. He circled to the other side and then walked up cautiously. “Hey bear! Hey bear!” After a poke with his barrel rifle, John called out, “Dead bear.”
Brandon and I started our way to them. When we walked up, Brandon looked at me with a smile and said, “That’s a big bear.”
It was day 19 of Kodiak bear hunting for me. He had a perfect hide and all of his guard hair, except for a gnarly scar under his front right armpit. We measured the back pad at 11". John said, “Hey Shane, you know all those bears you see in the brochures? They’ll be passing around pictures of this one for sure.” The bear was much bigger than we had initially thought.
It took everything we had for all three of us to roll him over for pictures. The caping was finished at 10:30 p.m. With headlamps on and Brandon packing the hide in his Pinnacle pack, we started the two and a half-hour hike back through the misty darkness, reaching camp at 1:00 a.m. When we woke up later that day, it was as the weatherman had promised – heavy rain.
The floatplane picked us up the next day, May 1st. After unloading, we went to AF&G for the hide and skull to be sealed. Unofficially, the biologist measured a 9'10" squared hide and a 28 2/16" skull.
Many thanks to Freelance Outdoor Adventures and Lance Kronberger, John Rydeen, and Brandon Hamilton for all their efforts.
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